KING DIAMOND: 'I've Always Been Fascinated By Horror'

Nikki of Bay Area Backstage recently conducted an interview with King Diamond. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Bay Area Backstage: Has it always been a dream of yours to be a musician?

King Diamond: No, it just kinda happened. I went to basic school for 10 years and then I went to college. After that, I suddenly decided that I'd like to get an education as a lab assistant. And I played music during that time too, but mostly as a hobby. And then it became a little bit more than just a hobby. My interest grew and grew — I have always loved music, especially the old metal back then. Eventually I took a chance because I felt like it was going so well with MERCYFUL FATE. When we started that band, we weren't making any money on it. It also took up a lot of time, you know when you had a job and you had to rehearse with your band too. It got too difficult, so I took a chance and quit my job and went on social security. During that time, I had to choose between buying a pack of cigarettes that day or eating. Then suddenly it took off.

Bay Area Backstage: Since the early days of your career, you've always had dark, satanic themes in your lyrics — did personal experiences or beliefs inspire you to write about these topics?

King Diamond: I've always been fascinated by horror. Me and my parents would watch old Frankenstein and Dracula and all those old black and white movies — as a kid, I'd lie in bed thinking that they would come out at night. In terms of real experiences, there was an apartment that I had when I joined MERCYFUL FATE that turned about to really be haunted. Many of the things that are written in the lyrics have been taken straight as they happened from these real experiences. That's what got me interested in the occult. One day I found this book at a used bookstore with "Satanic Bible" written on the cover, and I thought maybe I should read it and see what it is. I thought it was like a religion, but then I read the book and what was in it was pure life philosophy — and it was a life philosophy that described how I felt at that point.

Bay Area Backstage: So do you consider yourself a Satanist then?

King Diamond: When people ask me if I'm a Satanist, I have to first clarify what they mean by a "Satanist." If the other person thinks that it's someone who sacrifices animals…that's insane. I don't see it as a religion whatsoever, and I am not religious myself. There is no proof for anything when it comes to different religions or to God — that's why there are so many religions. If anyone could submit proof to the rest of the world, then we would all believe it, of course. But there is no proof and there never was. And that's why it's called a belief. And a lot of these different beliefs are food for the stories that I write.

Bay Area Backstage: So most of the inspiration for your lyrics is drawn from these beliefs?

King Diamond: A lot of it is drawn from real-life, but some of it's also from the imagination — to make a story flow, you change some of the things that you've experienced. When an album is done and I read through all the lyrics, I get a little uneasy when I see how much of myself I've put into the stories. But then again, I know that no one's going to know unless I tell them exactly what's what, and I'm certainly not going to do that. But it's drawn from everywhere. You'll see that in some of the stories, some of the characters are nice, some of them are not-so nice — but there's a reason for what they do. I'm sure that the fans can recognize situations in the lyrics that they've been in themselves, and they can relate to what the person is going through in the story.

Bay Area Backstage: I also saw on your website that you just announced a tour in Europe this fall and a North American tour in early 2008 in support of your new album, What can the fans expect to see on your upcoming tour?

King Diamond: They can definitely expect an entertaining show and a good time, and they'll probably walk away with a smile. In terms of what songs we're going to play, that's something that we'll decide a little later because we're not 100% sure of what we're going to play yet — choosing the set list is the most difficult part of it all, I think. You don't want to play the same songs that you did last time and a few new ones — you want to dig deep and play something that'll be a real surprise for the fans. There's a lot of things that haven't been touched for years. There's "At The Graves", which is a very long and complex song. That's one that we haven't played much since that album came out. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of songs to consider for our tour.

Read the entire interview at this location.