KING DIAMOND DISCUSSES HIS FORTHCOMING TOUR

Kory Grow of Rolling Stone spoke with singer King Diamond (Mercyful Fate, King Diamond) about his forthcoming North American tour. Excerpts from the interview appear below.

Rolling Stone: What sorts of freaky things can fans expect on your North American tour?

King Diamond: It’s a very dark show. King Diamond was always more Satanic than Mercyful Fate. And I’m not saying anything bad about Mercyful Fate – I love that band but sometimes people forget that King Diamond is the Satanic philosophy through and through. I was made an eternal member of the Church of Satan by Anton LeVey himself in 1988.

Rolling Stone: Where did you get the bones for the microphone stand you made out of a femur and tibia?

King Diamond: My younger brother’s schoolmate’s dad was a surgeon. He taught students how to operate on donated bodies, and when they were done, they would strip the skin off the bodies and put the bones in barrels. He took a couple of bones home to his son, and my brother convinced him to give it to him. I feel like the person who they belonged to is now getting to see the world in a different way. I don’t mean that in a sick way at all.

Rolling Stone: What is life like for you, since your surgery? [The singer had triple-bypass surgery in 2010]

King Diamond: I have a braided, metal wire going down the middle of my chest, underneath my skin. I saw it on an X-ray of it; it looks like a piece of jewelry. When they sawed me open to do the operation, my ribcage was like a double door, to be blunt. They put the wire in to help it grow back together. I’m lucky. You can barely see where I was glued together. I can’t take painkillers, because they thin my blood. So when I have pain, I have to live with it. But that’s how it is. To get a second chance is amazing.

King Diamond: So you’re working on a new album?

King Diamond: We’ve done a lot of stuff. We are going in some new ways that are going to be amazing. I’ve been building a studio so I can do my vocals at home. Once it’s completed, we can start recording. I have a title for a new record, but I won’t say it. [The record] will encompass the things I need to write about after what I went through. But I can’t say much about it because I haven’t talked to the rest of the band about it.

Read more at Rolling Stone.

source: rollingstone.com