Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with El Planeta Del Rock, King Diamond discussed his and Mercyful Fate’s new music plans. According to him, “when it’s done and [his solo band have] toured that new King Diamond album, Mercyful Fate will have a new album ready to be released.”

King said the following:

“We were not supposed to play any shows this year. We are very busy. Both Mercyful Fate and King Diamond are writing new material. King Diamond is also preparing production for the upcoming new album’s release and tour. The first tour, hopefully, will happen — they’re planning it right now — in the U.S. at the end of the year with the brand new album [‘The Institute’]. That’ll be the first album of two in that story. And Mercyful Fate are writing as well and recording. King Diamond’s album will be out first. It’s where we ended when COVID came. The record label told us, Metal Blade Records, we are continuing from the same place where we stopped. And that was gonna be the next King Diamond album, and that’s what’s gonna happen next. When it’s done and we’ve toured that new KING DIAMOND album, Mercyful Fate will have a new album ready to be released. And then we will get out and tour that with the updated show production and everything. And when that’s done, the next King Diamond will be finished and ready to go out. And I even know what the production of the King Diamond stage is going to look like this time, but also next tour. So there’s a lot of things that are being planned.”

He also discussed Mercyful Fate’s new music:

“Right now ‘The Jackal Of Salzburg’ is almost finished. I am doing vocals at the moment. When I’m finished, [bassist] Becky [Baldwin] will do bass one more time. She’s done one bass, but we want her to be the last to record. That’s the thing that we want to do for Mercyful Fate and King Diamond, is to give the bass player the chance of really doing special stuff, like old Uriah Heep, for instance. And we did it ourselves with Timi Hansen, when he was playing for both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. The bass player might follow the guitar sometimes, sometimes [the bass player will] follow vocals or choirs, backing vocals or whatever. I mean, [there’s] freedom to do extra cool stuff, as long as it all fits together. But that you can’t do until the vocals are on as well. So [Becky] will do one more round of real delicate bass. And that will be the final thing. But I’m working on recording the vocals right now for ‘The Jackal Of Salzburg’. And there will be one more song that we are working on now. I know Becky has also done the first bass for that. [guitarist] Hank [Shermann] has done all guitars for that. It’s another song. It is called ‘Sacrifice’. It’s about four minutes long. The one I mentioned before is ‘The Jackal Of Salzburg’. It’s nine minutes long. That’s the first one we actually played live sometimes now. But we hope we can get it finished, mixed and released before we come down to South America [in April], so that you can hear the version with all the vocals, all the guitars, all the stuff that a Mercyful Fate song would normally have had in the old days. So, it makes it different to hear it again live [once] you [have] heard the studio version. So that’s what we’re working very hard on right now. And, like I said, ‘Sacrifice’ is the same. It will be given to [guitarist] Mike Wead next, I think, to put guitars on it. And then I will also start working on… I have a lot of lyric ideas for that already, ‘Sacrifice’. And I have worked with Hank in the beginning on arranging it the right way for vocals, so it should be pretty ready for vocals now. And there’s a third song I’m not gonna talk about but that we are working on as well. And then I have a couple of songs on my own for Mercyful Fate. I have the title track for the next album and some other stuff.”

He also added the following about “The Institute”:

“I’m working on four of my songs and the intro and another smaller two-and-a-half-minute thing. And two of them have already been worked on for arrangement, and there’s a third one that’s basically done; we just need to do some mixing of it. We are far, we are very far with a lot of this stuff, I can tell you that. But it’s also —we don’t talk about it all the time. We do our stuff and then we come and then we are ready. We have plans for a long time now, I can tell you.”

King then went on to discuss his and Mercyful Fate’s new stage production:

“You’re gonna see the full [Mercyful Fate] production when we come down and play [in Santiago, Chile] on the 22nd [of April]. The whole production will be there for Mercyful Fate. And with King Diamond, the new production they’re building and setting up for ‘The Institute’ is gonna be something you have never seen before on a stage.”

[via Blabbermouth]