KING DIAMOND To Release New Studio Album Before End Of Next Year

MetalEater.com has posted the second part of their interview with KING DIAMOND. This time around, King spoke about the upcoming second leg of "The Puppet Master" tour, the band's current lineup, the follow-up to "The Puppet Master", the future of MERCYFUL FATE, past band members, crazy rumors, and many more topics. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

MetalEater.com: So you expect the follow-up to "The Puppet Master" to be out before the end of 2005?

King Diamond: "I certainly hope so. Yeah. There is a good chance of that."

MetalEater.com: Will it be a continuation of "The Puppet Master" or something entirely new?

King Diamond: "No. I think it will be entirely new. Continuations are something I have really only done once from my own initiative — on 'Them' and 'Conspiracy'. It was during the tour for 'Them' that I realized that that story was not finished. I had so many more ideas that I had to finish it and continue on with all those ideas. I didn't know there would be a continuation when we released 'Them', but during the tour and all this stuff, the ideas just came flying. The only other time was on the demand of the fans. We got too many requests for an 'Abigail II'. So, it would have to be something like that that would make me do something like that. I don't want to do that on my own because I feel that both fans and press might think that I'm out of ideas or something like that, which is totally not the case. Now that we released 'Abigail II', why not do a part 3 of 'Them' and 'Conspiracy' and call it 'Grandma'? I would personally love to do it. The character 'Grandma' is one of my favorite characters and I could turn her into the most evil bitch you've ever seen. But if I just did that, I'm so afraid that people would just think, 'He's out of ideas and now he just takes an old story and builds from that. That's the easy way out.' That's also why there was nothing done like that after 'Abigail II'. 'The Puppet Master' was an absolutely totally fresh story. It would be on the demand of fans if we did a sequel to any of the other albums. There were so many with 'Abigail II', it was stupid to ignore it."

MetalEater.com: There have been quite a few lineup changes in the past. Are you happy with the current band lineup?

King Diamond: "It's the best lineup I have ever played with in my career. There's no doubt at all. It's so solid, man. It even plays a role in the performance from my side too. For instance, on this last tour, I don't think I've ever done such a good job vocal-wise on any tour. This last time, I felt like my voice was still getting stronger and with even more control than before. I got that response from the other guys too. Almost every night they were saying, 'Man, I can't believe you're hitting all this and that and you have not been singing this good before.' Not that they were saying, 'You sucked before; now you can sing.' I'm very self-critical, I can tell you that. There might be four shows on a whole tour that I would say I did alright because I hit 95% of the notes I should hit. This time, it might have been 70% of the shows where I hit maybe 98% of it, to what I feel I should do. So that is quite a step for me. I don't worry about the other guys. They know their stuff. They are so good and solid. If something goes wrong from that side, it's not the band members not knowing their parts; it would be an amp blowing up or something like that. It's the same thing for the crew, which you heavily rely on for setting things up right and making sure everything works throughout the show. We have one of the best crews I can imagine. They are so pro and we go on stage feeling 100% confident. It makes you able to concentrate on what you're there for — to go there and have fun, entertain, and have the two-way build-up between us and the fans. That's what it's all about. I have a very good monitor system that has been designed and developed specifically for me by our sound engineer. There is only that one system in the world. Those four speakers at the front of the stage are so powerful. There is nothing but my vocals coming from them. It's a totally separate monitor system from the normal house system that everyone else uses there. There is not a drum or guitar note or anything coming through those speakers but my vocals, and it is blistering loud. It's all I feel in my chest and I like it that way. I know that if I get in a situation where it's getting a little hard to hear because of where I am on stage, those speakers are so loud that I can feel it in my chest so I can feel the vibration and tell whether I am in pitch or not. So it gives you a lot of confidence when you get to the long high notes in 'Eye of the Witch', for instance, or these very high passages in 'The Invisible Guest', or something like that. I look forward to it. A lot of those things play a role and I think you can also hear them on the live album. I mean, it's not perfect. It can't be."

Read the rest of King Diamond's interview with MetalEater.com at this location.