KING DIAMOND Announces Fall 2024 North American Tour With OVERKILL

KING DIAMOND will embark on a long-awaited North American headlining tour this fall. The "Saint Lucifer's Hospital 1920" trek will commence on October 15 in San Antonio, Texas and run through December 6 in Dallas, Texas. Support will be provided by OVERKILL and NIGHT DEMON. Additional backing vocals for the KING DIAMOND set will be provided by the special guest Myrkur.

KING DIAMOND's namesake frontman comments on what fans can expect: "This is Saint Lucifer's Hospital. Enter if you dare!

"We have been busy putting this ever-growing horror story together, and it's still growing. I know the end of it, but how we will get there will be a long trip. There are so many characters, and so many unexpected things along this journey. It's a crazy family on another timeline in 1920, where I experienced some hard times, and they have to come to our time to steal from us to survive. This is the most elaborate thing we have ever done, that goes for the stage production as well.

"There will be additional backing vocals by Myrkur and she'll be playing organ for songs that need it. There will be some horrific surprises taking place on stage, but we are not to be held responsible since we are on a whole different timeline in 1920. It was back at the time when medicine was going through a dark period with lots of testing on human beings in order to progress medicine.

"This is Saint Lucifer's Hospital, also known as The Institute. Enter if you dare!"

Artist presales begin Wednesday, July 31 at 10:00 a.m. ET. General on-sale date is this Friday, August 2 at 10:00 a.m. local time. Secure your tickets at kingdiamondcoven.com.

KING DIAMOND with OVERKILL, NIGHT DEMON:

Oct. 15 - Boeing Center at Tech Port. - San Antonio, TX
Oct. 16 - Bayou Music Center - Houston, TX
Oct. 18 - Andrew J Brady Music Center - Cincinnati, OH
Oct. 19 - The Factory - St. Louis, MO
Oct. 20 - The Midland Theater - Kansas City, MO
Oct. 22 - Murat Theatre At Old National Center - Indianapolis, IN
Oct. 23 - The Louisville Palace Theatre - Louisville, KY
Oct. 25 - The Eastern - Atlanta, GA
Oct. 26 - Duke Energy Center for the Arts - Mahaffey Theater - St. Petersburg, FL
Oct. 28 - The Fillmore - Silver Spring, MD
Oct. 30 - Kings Theater - Brooklyn, NY
Oct. 31 - Roadrunner - Boston, MA *
Nov. 02 - MTelus - Montreal, QC
Nov. 03 - The Theatre At Great Canadian - Mississauga, ON
Nov. 04 - The Masonic Temple - Detroit, MI
Nov. 06 - The Agora Theatre & Ballroom - Cleveland, OH
Nov. 07 - The Chicago Theatre - Chicago, IL
Nov. 08 - The Riverside Theater - Milwaukee, WI
Nov. 10 - The Fillmore - Minneapolis, MN
Nov. 11 - Vibrant Music Hall - Waukee, IA
Nov. 14 - Mission Ballroom - Denver, CO
Nov. 16 - The Complex - Salt Lake City, UT
Nov. 18 - Orpheum - Vancouver, BC
Nov. 20 - Edmonton Convention Center - Edmonton, AB
Nov. 21 - TCU Place - Saskatoon, SK
Nov. 22 - Grey Eagle Resort And Casino - Calgary, AB
Nov. 24 - Keller Auditorium - Portland, OR
Nov. 25 - Moore Theater - Seattle, WA
Nov. 27 - Fox Theater - Oakland, CA
Nov. 29 - YouTube Theater - Los Angeles, CA
Nov. 30 - The Theater At Virgin Hotels - Las Vegas, NV
Dec. 01 - Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre - San Diego, CA
Dec. 02 - The Van Buren - Phoenix, AZ
Dec. 04 - REVEL - Albuquerque, NM
Dec. 06 - The Factory In Deep Ellum - Dallas, TX

* No OVERKILL

KING DIAMOND 2024 touring lineup:

Andy La Rocque - guitar
Mike Wead - guitar
Pontus Egberg - bass
Matt Thompson - drums
Myrkur - additional backing vocals, keyboards

Titled "The Institute", KING DIAMOND's first studio LP in 18 years is tentatively due in 2025 via Metal Blade. It will be made available as a two-LP horror concept story, with the second part arriving at a later date.

In October 2023, KING DIAMOND released a music video for the 2019 single "Masquerade Of Madness". The clip was directed by David Brodsky and Allison Woest of MyGoodEye Visuals.

At the time of the video's release, King commented: "'Masquerade Of Madness' was released digitally in 2019 before our North American tour. During rehearsals, we took one full day to film 'Masquerade Of Madness' with David Brodsky and Allison Woest. We spent all day and all night recording while performing the song with our full tour stage show choreography. After the tour, Covid happened.

"The video was all but forgotten as the world came to a standstill — we never saw a single frame from all the footage. Years later, as things began to pick up and writing began for both new MERCYFUL FATE and KING DIAMOND records, we wondered, what happened to that video from four years ago? So we decided to check in with David Brodsky and a couple of weeks later, we had the first cut of the video.

"I was speechless! I had nothing to criticize and after just a few notes from Andy La Rocque, the video for 'Masquerade Of Madness' was finished! There's so much mood and black and white is used in a perfect way with Jodi's performances. The visuals fit the music flawlessly and this is now among my favorite KING DIAMOND videos along with 'Sleepless Nights' and 'Welcome Home' — and not to forget of course, our double live DVD."

A month after KING DIAMOND released "Masquerade Of Madness" in November 2019, KING DIAMOND guitarist Andy La Rocque told The Metal Voice that he came up with the music for the track first before passing it off to King, who "needed to arrange a few things and change just a small few things for making it work with his vocals. And then, of course, he wrote the lyrics for it," the guitarist revealed. "So we [went] a little back and forth until he felt like, 'Okay, this is cool, man. This is the right key to sing in,' and all that."

At the 2022 Bloodstock Open Air festival at Catton Park, Walton-on-Trent, United Kingdom, King spoke to Bloodstock TV's Oran O'Beirne about his plans for "The Institute". "Something with KING DIAMOND, we have a very special thing [planned] for that album," King said. "It's gonna be a two-album story. But KING DIAMOND, we are building something that you will never have seen on a stage before — not that way. And with the light guy, he's never done it that way either. … It's very different, very sick. You will not have seen musicians standing on stage in that type of light. It's gonna be very dark. They have to learn to play in dark areas. It's crazy. I know that our light guy, he can't wait for us to do it. I showed him some pictures that have the kind of feelings I want, the kind of backdrops I want, stuff like that. … This is gonna blow people's minds when they see it, I am a hundred percent sure."

La Rocque, whose real name is Anders Allhage, discussed his vision for the new KING DIAMOND album with The Metal Voice, saying that it will be filled with great "melodies, of course. Super important. Without melodies, there is no music," he explained. "I'm also envisioning a more organic sound of the album. If you look back to the older albums, when Mikkey [Dee] played [drums for the band], for example, it's, like, a little bit up and down in tempo, and that makes it dynamic and also organic. So that's one thing that I would like to hear on the next album, for sure. But building up a dynamic, kind of organic feel, the drummer is a really important thing here, of course. And I know that Matt Thompson [current KING DIAMOND drummer] is the right guy to do this, for sure."

In March 2019, King told Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show that the next album from his namesake band will be "absolutely gruesome" with a story set in a 1920s mental institution. "I chose that because I think it's a very creepy scenario," he explained. "And some of the things that go on that we're gonna show onstage is also things that certainly was going on back then, when medicine was beginning to take a beneficial turn in history and actually being able to help human beings live longer. But there was some experimentation going on, too, that was absolutely gruesome. Some of that is involved in the story, but it's something totally different. Once you get to the second part of the story, you will begin to suddenly understand that, 'What the hell is going on here? What is this really about?' 'Cause there's a whole different story that will not come to you till second part. But in the first part, you're gonna get to know a lot people at a certain place… Some of it takes place here, this world, and some of it takes place in a parallel world. And there's a correlation between what happened to me and what happens to some people in this place and where they suddenly appear. And you will find out why they are there, how they appear there and the places down the road. I won't say too much right now, but it's gonna be very creepy."

KING DIAMOND received a Grammy nomination in the "Best Metal Performance" category for the track "Never Ending Hill" off the band's last album, 2007's "Give Me Your Soul … Please".

"Give Me Your Soul ... Please" sold 4,500 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 174 on The Billboard 200 chart.

KING DIAMOND released a DVD/Blu-ray, "Songs For The Dead Live", in January 2019 via Metal Blade Records. The set captures 1987's seminal "Abigail" album in its entirety, twice, and in very different locales: Belgium's Graspop Metal Meeting in June 2016 and Philadelphia's Fillmore in November 2015. The performances feature KING DIAMOND's current band, comprising of guitarists La Rocque and Mike Wead, bassist Pontus Egberg and Matt Thompson.

Photo by Greg Lawrence