Mikkey Dee's official name is Micael Kiriakos Delaoglou. Despite his Greekish family name Delaouglou, Michael is originally from Sweden. As an artist he is best known as Mikkey Dee, drummer for Dokken, King Diamond and Motörhead.

Mikkey was born October 31, 1963 in Gothenburg, Sweden. He got his first drum kit (Sonor) when he was 5 and formed his first band at the age of 7. (Mikkey has been endorsed by Sonor since 1984). He played around in local bands and ended up in Nadir that was active from 1980 through 1983. Mikkey moved to Copenhagen in Denmark early 1984 to play with the band Geisha but at the end of that same year he joined King Diamond.

First release with King Diamond was “No Presents For Christmas” in 1985. King Diamond created their own sound and style and in the wake of their success came a number of bands in that same genre. Mikkey played on 4 albums; Fatal Portrait 1986, Abigail 1987, Them 1988 and Conspiracy in 1989 (Mikkey played on Conspiricy although he had already left the band at that time). In the end Mikkey left King Diamond as he felt the band was developing in the wrong direction. They had worked as a band since day one but he felt that it more and more turned in to a solo project and Mikkey had no intention of just being a back-up musician.

End of 1989 Mikkey joined forces with Don Dokken and they released the album “Up from the ashes” 1990. The lineup for this release was, besides Don and Mikkey, Billy White (Watchtower) on guitar, longtime friend and fellow Swede John Norum (Europe) on guitar and Peter Baltes (Accept) on bass. They did joint tours with Judas Priest, Poison and ended off with a 12-month headline tour through USA and Asia.

Lemmy had repeatedly been asking Mikkey to join Motörhead since 1986. Mikkey turned him down during the years for two major reasons. The first being that he was happy with where he was and never wanted to be a drummer jumping around between bands for fame and fortune and the second reason being that he simply did not feel ready.

You just don’t walk in to a band like Motörhead like it´s just another day at work. Mikkey strongly felt he had not yet earned the strips to be a full member of Motörhead. Finally, in 1991 Lemmy cornered Mikkey at the famous Rainbow Bar & Grill in Hollywood and told him to join the band already... Mikkey replied:

“Let’s do it!” and the rest is history. The first show with Motörhead was in Saratoga NY with Ozzy on the No More Tears tour. Mikkey never wanted to replace Phil “Filthy Animal” Taylor but rather step in and fully become Motörhead to the very fiber.

Said and done; from the first album Mikkey recorded with Motörhead, he was involved in the creative process and became a driving force off and on stage in Motörhead. Lemmy has always stated that Mikkey Dee is the best drummer in the world and many alongside him. Experiencing Mikkey live is truly a front row seat to a Force of Nature in action! After Lemmy´s passing in December of 2015 Mikkey has been sharing the message to celebrate the life of Lemmy rather than mourn his death. As s Mikkey said “Lemmy would have told me to stop crying over my beer and rather drink it”. Another touching statement by Mikkey regarding Lemmy is “Every snare hit I perform from this day on will be in honor of Lemmy”.

In the spring of 2016 Mikkey was asked to cover for James Kottak in Scorpions during their US tour while James was on leave to take care of his health. The tour went great and Mikkey continued the tour throughout the rest of the world including South America, Asia, Australia and Europe. Mikkey was very well received by the Scorpions fans and meet thousands of Motörhead fans on the road that where happy to see the best drummer in the world back up on the horse again. September 12, 2016 Mikkey officially announced he was joining Scorpions permanently issuing the following statement:

I guess most of you have heard the news.

I am now a permanent member of Scorpions.

I feel truly honored and fortunate to be able to carry on playing drums on this level. I grew up listening to Scorpions and have always loved the band. We have been friends for a long time so traveling and performing this year with Klaus, Rudolf, Matthias and Pawel has been loads of fun and the crew is very professional. The Scorpions fans has been most welcoming and its been great to meet all the crazy wonderful Motörhead bangers along the way.
I had some close to 25 amazing years with my friends and brothers Lemmy and Phill in Motörhead and that will always be the back bone in my future drumming. Lemmy always had great respect for Scorpions for being a real rock band and I am sure he is proud up there that I moved on and for playing with this class act.

Here’s to many more years of Rock n roll. Cheers!
Mikkey

Mikkey Dee's Kit

Sonor SQ2 Vintage Maple (Custom Finish)
1 22" x 18" Bass Drum
2 14" x 7.25" Mikkey Dee Signature Snare Drum
3 10" x 10" Tom
4 13" x 11" Tom
5 14" x 12" Tom
6 16" x 16" Floor Tom
7 18" x 16" Floor Tom

Paiste Signature
A 20" Power Crash
B 19" Power Crash
C 18" Heavy China
D 14" Sound Edge Hi-Hat
E 18" Power Crash
F 10" Splash
G 22" Precision Heavy Ride
h 14" Thin China
I 20" Heavy China
J 20" Power Crash
K 16" Thin China
L 19" Power Crash

Mikkey Dee also uses Sonor hardware, DW 5000 single chain bass drum pedals, Evans drumheads, Wincent sticks and cases from Humes & Berg