MS Hello King, how are you?
KD Very good how are you doing?
KD Great.
MS Happy Birthday, if I have my information correct.
KD Thank you very much! You can kind of see how much I care about my birthday, right…doing 14 interviews.
MS Today 14?
KD Yeah, I don’t really care all that much about birthdays anymore.
MS ‘House of God’ is coming out June 20th, and your tour starts a month later correct?
KD We will be starting on the 20th of July in LA and we will do 30 or 31 shows.
MS What are your plans for after this tour, back with Fate?
KD Well after this tour of the US we’re going to Europe in October to do a full European tour, and that will take us up to like Christmas, you know, and then their is the question of when we will be able to do South America, but that’s never a really long tour anyway. But at the moment it looks like it is going to be King Diamond for a little while you know. Mercyful Fate did two albums after Voodoo, so we might do another King Diamond album and tour that. And actually on that next tour record a live album as well. But that’s what the plans are right now, according to both us and the record label. Just to show that Fate has not stopped their will probably be a home DVD release where you’ll get some inside photos from the tour bus and other crazy things, and we have some old bootleg shows like this one from 83’ in a church in Amsterdam Holland. That will probably be released while King Diamond is going on and that King Diamond live album will be released sometime when Mercyful Fate is going again. But we are looking at King Diamond for a while now.
We will play 5 songs off the new album, which is a lot, and two songs off the Voodoo album, and skip over Spiders Lullaby and Graveyard this time, specifically for the reason that we’ve noticed that there are a lot of young kids now, a whole new generation and they have never seen us play a lot of these old songs. So aside from a few new songs we will play a lot of interesting songs that people have not heard. I have not played ‘Dressed in White’ and ‘No Presents for Christmas’, ‘Black Horseman’. It will be a very interesting set; of course you’ll still have ‘Welcome Home’ and that material.
MS I noticed some changes in the mixing of this album. It has a different sound. What were you looking for with ‘House of God?’
Well this one has a lot more clarity, and still sounds rawer than the last couple of albums I think, the music is still a bit more aggressive. There is more of everything in a way. There is more good music in the songs themselves. And that’s hard to achieve more good music while still getting more aggressive, it’s either or. And the vocals are more back in the old style with bigger harmonized choirs and things like that. There is more going on in the vocal side of it. This album is more complex to play as a musician.
MS Will you ever write an album like Abigail, Them or Conspiracy again?
Some people say they wish we would write another album like Abigail. And for me that is like selling out. For Andy and I to write an album like that would take 2 weeks to write the songs. To go back and cover that style of riffs you know. And I feel that there has to be that development that our inner feelings reflect into the music to create a different atmosphere from album to album. So why would we want to do another Abigail album, we already have one. That would be fun but it would be selling out, not making any progress. We can’t go back and copy ourselves, that’s no challenge at all.
MS So even though doing that old style may increase album sales, it would still be selling out to you.
KD Completely. That’s not a challenge for me. And I don’t think that the fans really want that. Why would they want an album that has the same style of riffs? Wouldn’t you rather hear an album with new songs, new feeling with new inspiration from us that could take you to a different place than where you have already been?
MS I have to disagree with you on this. Of course I am biased because I grew up with that older material, but I think the fans would like to hear an album with some basic riffs, your old singing style, I don’t think that would be so terrible.
KD Well there is a lot of the old singing on the new album actually, but the sound is not the same, and you know why…because it is not swimming in reverb anymore! Those old albums, there was nothing but reverb all over the place, on the drums, on the guitar, because that’s what you did at that time. But you don’t do that today, if you do that your going to sound like, like you’re from then. You’ll be completely outdated, production wise.
(There is a ton more of this interview yet to be trascribed)
MS Thank you very much for calling, I’ve been a fan for years, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
KD Thank you too, take care.