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 | 7 March 2008 10:58 and it has been read 1793 times
| Widely regarded as the finest vocalist in all of death metal (who possesses a multi-octave range), theatrical rocker King Diamond first rose to prominence as a member of Mercyful Fate, before launching a solo career on his own. King Diamond started making music in 1985 so he has been in music industry now for 23 long years. We had an amazing opportunity to share few words with King himself about the current state of his back and also congratulate him about his Grammy Nomination. Here´s out lenghty chat with him:
Hello King. How are you doing at the moment?
King Diamond: I am doing really good at the moment.
It's been a few months now since you injured your back, has it gotten any better and are there any plans to reschedule the canceled tour once healed?
King Diamond: Well it has definitely gotten better, I can tell you it’s good but not normal but it’s defiantly gotten better. It’s been a long time, been way too long now and it’s frustrating to not be able to do what you normally do. It’s been injured since last April so when we get to April of this year it has been a full year. It’s pretty serious you know but I was told there is a 90% chance it will heal on its own. But given the time it’s impossible to know how long. But a rough estimate would be that if there is 75 steps I am probably at step 50. When it happened it was really bad you know, it’s been a big test of my will power and patience. But I am fortunate in some ways because I am not forced to get sit in a office chair for 8 hours a day. Then I don’t think that would have been too bad. But it is healing and getting better all the time. It’s a slow process, but every ten days I will realize that this thing here does not hurt as much as it did before. So that’s how it goes slowly getting better but it is going the right way.
Congratulations on getting the Grammy Nomination. What were your first thoughts when you saw you were nominated?
King Diamond: I’ll tell you exactly how it happened. Brian Slagel called me that morning and said congratulations and I was like uhm, what do you mean? He goes: "you have been nominated for a Grammy" and my response was why and he says what do you mean why. You have been nominated for a Grammy for the new album. Well why would they do that, that’s what it felt like. I never considered us to be anyone that would be considered in that type of scenario. But of course it’s an honor to be nominated absolutely, there is no doubt about it. When you think more about it you are among 5 bands selected from all over the world in that category and then you realize that it´s pretty nice. But again the industry is giving recognition to some band and that’s really nice that they did that. But you know on the other hand it doesn’t make it any better or worse situation. It doesn’t mean that you are suddenly five steps up the latter but it´s definitely a nice recognition.
For me personally I think it’s more of a reward for the fans, because it’s all because of them that we got here. I’ll never forget them and how their support has just been undying for all these years. Even the new ones that have come into the fold. You know I see a lot of new faces down in front during shows. It’s awesome to see them sing along to songs that were written before they were born. But that’s also because we never stray from doing things our way. It’s always straight from the heart, we are always on, it’s never done the way someone else wants to. That’s where we have been very fortunate to have that authenticity. We have that little niche that we never follow trends.
I think that has a lot to do with why we are still here today, because we have never gotten out dated. There has never been a trend that we were that became not trendy anymore. We did own thing and that has given us a lot of longevity and appeal to our fans. On the other hand that is probably also why we have never had a platinum seller or something like that. We have never hit exactly what was most popular at a given time but that is totally by choice. I glad I am still doing what I love to do instead of just having two great years. That’s the way it is, but a lot goes to the band and I certainly can forget people like yourself. It takes so many different aspects of the industry to make a record successful. It’s the journalist, the radio, the magazines, it all makes the wheels go. I am deffinitely aware of that we are nothing unless we have everybody on board. That nomination is definitely a nice addition to the mix.
"Give Me Your Soul Please" is quite the album, could you give us a quick rundown of the story line behind it?
King Diamond: Wow that would take a long time, but I can give you a few comments on it. The line-up that we have now is the best line-up that we have ever had, we really "click" together. We have a great time doing our stuff, there are no egos that are running out of control. Everyone is working for the best interest of the songs on the album. We took some chances for the sound of the album, especially with the mastering. When you finish mixing an album you end up getting all the details that you really like. But then you go into mastering, the usual process is that you compress the snot out of it. You know with limiters and all kinds of stuff trying to get it to sound as loud as possible and it just destroys a good mix. I got to a point where I was so tired of putting my voice and emotions into it only not to be able to hear it later. Because this is just how it’s supposed to sound, but Andy and I took a chance and said screw how it’s supposed to be, we have to do what is best for our music. This album is the first album that you can hear every single note that Hal plays on his bass because he is amazing. Before you would only hear a rumble, and you could not hear what they were playing. You want to hear what they play you know, you want to hear the voice and the guitar, not the low grind of it being compressed. You know you want to hear the groove that was put into it because Andy and Mike play a certain way. So we took that chance with this one here and you know I think it turned out great and I wish that we would have done that long ago and said screw it lets do what’s best for us. The response from the fans definitely has been great to the pure sounding album.
The storyline is really something quite new for me, I have wanted to try a story that’s a little bit closer to the listener. I wanted to try and do that by writing the story in the present sense, so that it happens as you are listening to it. There are no past senses on that album you know. It is really weird that when you are writing that way and suddenly find out that you can’t use certain words. Like would, or could it has to be will and can. That way it gets closer, because it is happing right now. That was also the only way to get the effect of the end of that album out the right way. You know with the little girls spirit moving from my house to another to find a soul free of sin for her brother who had been misjudged by those who judge you on the other side. His death had been ruled a suicide, where you end up going to hell. That little girl at the end where she said "I’m moving on from this house". You sit and listen to it, and it’s all present time like she is speaking to you where you are sitting listing to it come out of your speakers. It’s like she is coming to you now, but most people when you think about it you wouldn’t have too much to worry about. I don’t think that there are many souls sin free. It would be hard for a little girl to find a soul to bring back to the other side for her brother.
There are many things in the story that take place as if it was written right here in my house. In many ways it was if the story was taken from here, like that mirror on the cover. I can see it now hanging in my hallway. It’s a little longer than it is on the cover, they had to shorten it to make it fit on the cover but it’s a long mirror hanging on the wall. There’s a lot of things from here: the cat magic, you know the black cat from the story she lives here. I put a lot of things in the story that I can relate to a lot. You realize very quickly during the intro that the boy and the girl are on the other side, whispering to each other not quite knowing where they are. But they have a good feeling that they both died. How did they die that I chose to be murder suicide, their dad killed them then shot himself. I chose it that way because I like to bring things into the story that people can relate to, and you can say it’s things that are prominent in today’s world and suicide is definitely one of them. "On The Graveyard" we talked about child molestation which is still very much an issue today.
This one here is murder suicide, almost every day when you turn on your TV, you will see headline somewhere saying "murder suicide". Whether it’s at a college or a guy suddenly snaps on 6 or 7 or you will hear about a dad killing his children, his wife and then himself. These murder suicides are just coming out of the woods left and right, and no one has a solution for them. No one can pin point it before people snap, and say "oh this person is about to snap you had better watch out".
You have so many innocent people getting hurt and no one has a solution. How do you tackle a problem like as it becomes more and more common. So that is the reason why I chose that. That’s why in the video you see that news paper spinning that says murder suicide for no apparent reason. Which just got released today here in the USA and tomorrow outside of the US. Anyway I haven’t heard of any fans noticing what is said in the news paper yet.
Wow. I´ll definitely need to watch it.
King Diamond: When get to that part be sure to pause it and read about Dr. Landon talking about the case. At the very end too there’s another sign as if someone started writing a second note but they got interrupted by someone. So think about what that means.
Have you ever had a paranormal experience?
King Diamond: Me? Lots, oh I have had so many, I used to live in an apartment in Copenhagen that was severely haunted. It was not just me that experienced these things, lots of other people have as well including band members, friends, and even Lars and James from Metallica. Even journalist who spent the night like Malcolm Dome and his photographer from Kerrang experienced something. His photographer experienced lots of things and I am not just talking about hearing someones breathing. Actually one thing that gives me the chills, was when I was recording the intro for "house of god". We recorded some heavy breathing. When it was played back in the studio it gave me such chills because I have heard exactly that in my apartment. A girl that was there once hear the same breathing as well as getting the feeling that her hair was getting pulled. Also a glass was lifted out of thin air. I remember the drummer from Mercy and my brother being there when that happened. Lots of things moved without a reason and the house was extremely haunted. But there has been some paranormal things in my new house as well even though I am the only owner and the house isn´t even old. There has been things where I am 100% certain that something has happened, and I am usually very skeptical about these things. When something happens my wife might sometimes say "did you hear that or what was that". I try and look for normal explanations and I might even just say "wow, that cannot be". Or I might wait a couple of days and see if something similar happens again.
I saw a light one day that looked like it flew right through the room, and it didn’t seem like a clear indication of something as the others had been. Thankfully it wasn’t as a few days later a truck was passing around that same time of day. The light was somehow bouncing off of its side window and into my apartment. I remember this cause I was standing on my balcony and was suddenly blinded by it and thought was the hell was this and it turned out to be that truck. So I am very skeptical about it, it has to be really obvious before I believe it.
What´s the current status of Mercyful Fate?
King Diamond: If my back had been fine I don’t know if I would have done anything with Mercy as King Diamond would have been very busy. It’s a long story you know and it goes back to when the downloading went nuts. "Abigail II" was about to come out and we lost tour support for the first time ever and had to re-negotiate our contracts. We ended up finding a new way to record and keep the same quality and that was by using Andy’s pro studio in Sweden. That way King Diamonds recording costs went down, and if we hadn’t had found that solution we would have had to stop. Mercy is a different scenario, you know Andy is not part of Mercy so he is not going to put his equipment at the disposal of Mercyful Fate for free. Mercy has never sold or done the same big tours as King Diamond it was always smaller. Therefore Mercy has a smaller budget than King Diamond and always has, and in this scenario right now Mercy has a much smaller budget but with higher recording costs. That means that doing a Mercy album you are not going to make a penny. I love doing what I do and certainly I am so blessed to live off my hobby.
But you still have to pay your bills, since this is your job as well as your hobby. You just can´t take a year off the calendar and say "let’s do a Mercy album" and tour knowing you are not going to make a dime. If I was financially independent I would love to do it. You just can’t, you couldn’t for instance stop working for a year and say I am going to ride my bike for a year just because I love it. You probably wouldn’t have a home to come back, you have to pay your bills but that’s just life. That’s why Mercy is in a dilemma, but who knows if there was suddenly a time where King Diamond was off. If by chance some of the guys said "hey man let’s take a year off to work on other things" and everyone agreed. Then I might say "hey I want to do something with Mercy", because then the time would be there. I would have no money coming in anyway and it was okay with everyone then I would love to do it. Because it is as it is Mercyful Fate wouldn’t have to work with our lawyers to get a deal because we do have a deal. We are signed with Metalblade for the US and Massacre for Europe with Mercyful Fate so there is a deal and it’s done but no albums have been done on that deal. We didn’t take any advances because we weren´t sure whether we are going to release a new album or not and then end up not doing it. So nothing has been done its just laying but its ready and we did that exactly for that reason. If suddenly the situation presented itself six months from now then lets do it, but if we don’t have a deal and it´s impossible to do it. Because then you have to search for a deal and that could take forever. By then the opportunity to do it could be gone, so we got the deals done so can do it when the time is right. Let’s just say that downloading put Mercyful Fate into hibernation for awhile. But if the right opportunity arose then yes let’s do it. I can guarantee you that it won’t be one of those reunion deals because we never broke up. I see it as hibernating for a while but we will see what the future brings. Its definitely not finished at least in my book.
Thank you very much for taking time to answer my questions. Anything you want to say as a closure to your fans?
King Diamond: Definitely one thing that is so awesome is the undying support from the fans. I don’t think you could wish for better fans, and I’m not talking crap here. This is straight from the heart. It means so much and to see the response to the video that we posted yesterday, it’s been amazing to see all the comments coming in on our myspace page about it. Also watching the coven worldwide and seeing how overwhelmingly positive the comments have been makes it all worthwhile. I go all the time to the coven worldwide and the myspace and read all the comments and even respond when I can. Sometimes ill even jump in on a topic that’s getting a lot of interest on the coven worldwide. It´s really cool to read their comments because they are really intelligent. You know not too long ago they were talking about religious beliefs and it was really cool to see what was on their minds about it. Sometimes they just show interest in things for example Devil Lake from the album. I didn’t know until I saw them talking about it on the site that there was actually a Devil Lake here in Texas. I did make that one up but they were sending pictures of Devil Lake to me. Anyway it’s just an amazing window into what is going on with the fans. I just have such amazing respect for the fans and enjoy reading what they talk about. Because it’s very important to see what they see and what they are talking about. We aren’t going to change directions but sometimes people come up with things that are really cool. The more open minded you are the more cool stuff you get into your brain. It’s like getting raw material into a factory and molding it into certain things. All that stuff I was talking about like the nomination thing, it’s the fans. It was really cool for me to see just how excited the fans were about it. Sometimes they are more excited than I am and its really cool to see because we are here for the fans.
Well thanks again for taking the time to do this with me. I willl let you move on the next one.
King Diamond: Take care.
You too man. |
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