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Return of the
King
An
interview with King Diamond
By Bob
Ignizio |
Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that King
Diamond is one of the most unique artists in metal, or any musical genre for
that matter. Whether he’s performing with his theatrical solo band or with
the more straight forward metal group Mercyful Fate, there’s no mistaking
King’s voice for anyone else. Mercyful Fate has been on hold for the past
few years and, due to changes in the recording industry, King Diamond almost
had to give up his solo career as well. Fortunately, he was able to adapt
to changing times and came back with what many feel is his strongest album
in years, ‘The Puppet Master’. If you’re wondering how all this came
about, read on and let the man himself fill you in.
Utter Trash: So you just finished your tour for ‘The
Puppet Master’. How did that go for you?
King Diamond: It was awesome, one of my best touring
experiences ever. I don’t think I’ve ever sang that well in my career
live. My voice has actually gotten stronger, believe it or not. At this
point in my career it’s a good feeling to have inside. I think the
production we had this time around was really an interesting thing for the
fans. We saw a lot of great reviews from fans afterwards saying that it was
the best King Diamond show ever, which really made us feel good. And we do
have the strongest line-up now that I’ve ever played with. Everything is
more fun. I have more fun playing a song like “Welcome Home” today than I
ever have, which is nice.
UT: It seems like on the last couple albums you’ve
been using the falsetto voice less. Was that a conscious choice?
KD: It wasn’t a conscious choice. I don’t think I
did it on ‘Abigail II’, actually, but this time afterwards I realized that,
too. Whenever I do the vocals in the studio, there’s a lot of things
planned beforehand. But how much falsetto goes on the lead vocals and how
much falsetto gets used on the backing vocals always depends on the songs
and the story. What does the song require? I don’t think about what
percentage of the vocals I’m going to use the falsetto, or the other types
of voices I use. It’s done by feel completely. Whatever the result is at
the end I hope it’s what fits the music and the whole overall concept. This
time the falsetto has been transferred from the lead vocals over to the
backing vocals more than normal. It’s still there, but there is a change in
the percentage. I think it fits the story.
UT: Another thing that’s different vocally on ‘Puppet
Master’ is the song “So Sad”, where you do a duet. Is this the first time
you’ve done something like that?
KD: Absolutely. Iit sounds almost weird to say that we
have this duet/ballad on a King Diamond album, but that’s pretty much what
it is. It’s still a heavy song, it sounds like King Diamond. Within our
style there’s a lot of room to be creative and try different musical
directions, but it always sounds like King Diamond. But this is the first
time we’ve had a female vocalist singing on a King Diamond album. Livia
Zita ironically is from Budapest, Hungary where the story takes place. She
did an interview with me for Metal Hammer Hungary, with regards to ‘Abigail
II’, and during that interview she told me she was a singer and she would
like to send me a demo. I was literally blown away when I heard the demo.
I couldn’t believe the deep emotional feeling she put into her singing and
the tonality of her voice. It was really the style of female vocals that I
like. (Ed - King uses this as a segue into the origin of the ‘Puppet
Master’ storyline) That was it until this story really started taking
shape. That was inspired by actually being in Budapest in 1990 when
Mercyful Fate toured Europe with Metallica. They had a thing called the
National Puppet Theatre in Budapest; it looked like a 1500 capacity
theatre. That really got my mind going. I couldn’t imagine what kind of
puppets they would have in there if there was like 1500 people; they must be
huge. There were all these puppet shops along the same street that I saw
which looked so creepy when you looked into them. They had puppets of all
sizes sitting on chairs, hanging on walls, you know. All those things gave
me ideas which I wrote down, and then they were put away for a long time. I
have a box with all kinds of things I’ve written down for possible later
use. At that time we did ‘House of God’ next, which was already written.
Then ‘Abigail II’ was written very much at the request of the fans. This
time around as the story took shape, the more I felt like I had to do it in
first person because it brings the musician much closer to the story. And I
would really need that for the main female character as well. It became
obvious to me that the best thing would be to try something new, and of
course Livia was the first one on my mind. So I played the demo for the
band because I wanted everybody to be for the idea. Otherwise it wouldn’t
happen. The record company was for it, too. It worked out great. It
doesn’t change the King Diamond style at all, but it does bring a breath of
fresh air to it. It enhances the theatrical style. It worked so well that
we brought her on the US Fall tour.
UT: It has to be hard to put on a show where you can
get across the story from the new album and at the same time satisfy all the
fans who want to hear the older songs.
KD: This time it was a real dilemma. The first 3 or
4 shows we played about 7 different songs from the new album but on
different nights, just to feel them out live. Also to have them for this
double live CD we’re recording for the Spring. We finally settled on 3 of
them. We also feature the Abigail story, so you just can’t do it all. We
did five songs from the two ‘Abigail’ albums back to back right off the bat,
plus the intro. We tried to do it like we did back in 1987, except better.
We have better props and all. We played “Black Horseman” for the first time
with the full intro with acoustic guitars. At some point on the tour we
switched the clean electric guitars for the actual acoustic guitars. There
were a lot of new things on this tour. There were also two songs from
‘Abigail II’ that have never been played live before. One song from ‘The
Eye’ has never been played in the U.S. as well, a song called “Burn”, and
then 3 or 4 new songs from ‘The Puppet Master’. So you had 6 or 7 songs
that people have never heard live before in a set that’s an hour and 45
minutes long and you have to get around as much of your repertoire as you
can. It becomes so difficult.
UT: So what’s the status of Mercyful Fate?
KD: Before ‘9’, it was like two Mercyful Fate albums
back to back and then we decided to do two King Diamond albums back to
back. Then all kinds of things changed in the business, which is why we
didn’t tour for the ‘Abigail II’ album. There were no touring funds at that
point, which was the first time that had ever happened to us. It came as a
shock, and the label told us it was music downloading. The label had lost
overall about 30% of their income to downloading. So we had to renegotiate
new contracts. That’s always a bad word, especially in that sort of time,
because you’re going to get smaller budgets to do your albums. Our fans
know me well enough to understand that if I can’t deliver a product that I
feel is the same quality or better than what we’ve done before, then I’d
rather stop. When those things happened, we renegotiated for both Mercyful
Fate and King Diamond. So that tells you than in my mind anyway Mercyful
Fate is not over. It’s just in a holding pattern right now. We tried to do
all this with some foresight so we’d be ready when the time comes. We were
looking at a situation with King Diamond at the time that would mean lower
recording budgets. We normally spend 9 weeks in the studio, and that was
not an option. We were actually saying, “is this it, is this where it
stops?” We found out we had one chance, and that’s because Andy has a
studio in Sweden. Andy took all his top pro recording gear from his studio
and packed it up and brought it to my house in Dallas. We turned my house
into a studio, and here at my house we recorded all the rhythm guitars, all
harmony guitars, Hal came in and recorded all his bass parts, and the
keyboards. We did go into the studio where we would normally record, Nomad
recording studios here in Dallas, and did all the drums and all the vocals
there. That ended up being about three and a half, four weeks, so we saved
five weeks of studio time. It actually worked better than before, because
we found out a lot of positive things doing it this way. The clock wasn’t
ticking all the time. It was more fun. Hal and Andy were staying in guest
rooms here at the house, and we were still working 12 hours a day, but a
whole different atmosphere. You start working with a really positive
attitude. By being smart and exploring different options we came up with a
product that I think is better than anything we ever did. I can say there
are only two albums in my whole career that I wouldn’t change a thing on.
‘The Puppet Master’ is one of them, and the first ‘Abigail’ is the other.
Anyway, King Diamond has always sold more albums than Mercyful Fate.
Mercyful Fate does not have access to Andy’s gear, so in reality Mercy has
bigger expenses and smaller budgets for recording. If Mercyful Fate were
the only band in existence, I would not be a musician now. I would be doing
another job to get by. King Diamond is still viable as a job. I love doing
it, but it is also a job of course. King Diamond will always be number
one. I get more of a challenge with the full concept stories, more variety
in the songwriting and stage production. Mercyful Fate, a hobby would be
the wrong word for it, but it’s a thing that will happen when there is a
break in the King Diamond work schedule. It’s not done from my standpoint
as part of making a living; it’s going to be purely for the love of Mercyful
Fate music. I won’t make a dime on that album, I know that.
UT: What are your plans now that the U.S. tour is
over?
KD: We’ve got a lot of plans for 2004. We recorded
most of the shows from this U.S. tour for a double live CD that we’re going
to be working on this Spring. We’ll also be looking at footage for two
possible DVDs, a retro Mercyful Fate DVD and a retro King Diamond DVD.
We’ve gotten access to some very rare footage that is not even out on the
bootleg market. I know from Hank Sherman he has what he’s sure is the fifth
Mercyful Fate show ever, before Michael Denner joined the band. We have
similar stuff from King Diamond. After the summer we start the European
‘Puppet Master’ tour, and there’s a lot of interest in shooting that for a
live DVD.
UT: Finally, I was just curious about why you decided
to move from Denmark to Texas.
KD: Through all the tours we’ve
done since 1984, Texas always appealed in a special way to me. People’s
attitude, the pace of life. I love going to LA, but it’s too far from what
I’m used to growing up in Denmark. Same thing goes for New York. The pace
is way too fast for me. Texas is more laid back, in the way that Denmark
is. It’s not all similar of course, but in that aspect I feel more at home
here. By now I have no intentions of moving back to Denmark. I feel so
great in the U.S., I love the U.S.A. This is my home.
Visit the King Diamond website.
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