KING DIAMOND Talks About Satanism, Setlist Ideas And DIMEBAG

King Diamond recently spoke to MetalAsylum.net about his new record, "Give Me Your Soul…Please", as well as his views on Satanism, songs he would like to include for the upcoming tour, and Dimebag Darrell's contribution to the "Voodoo" album. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

MetalAsylum.net: How about Satanism. There are so many views and opinions on the "religion" so what are your thoughts, or beliefs in the subject? Maybe what it means to you to be a Satanist?

King: Yeah, I mean, there have been a lot of those as of lately. I mean, there are about as many views on Satanism as there are different types of Christianity (laughs). For me, I was living my life that way before I read that book, you know, "The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey, and I think that book was mistitled because once you hear the word Bible people automatically think of religion and it's really not — it's more of a philosophy, really. You are not worshipping anything when you are a Satanist. I mean, there are other types of Satanists who actually worship some kind of horned creature, which is a God that is Christian if you really look at it, because Satan is a God within Christianity and just one they (Christians) don't want you to worship. I mean, I wouldn't want to worship that fellow either. I mean, I dont see anything positive in the Christian Satan either. If someone comes up to me and asks if I am a Satanist, I ask them first "What does that mean to you?" and then if they can explain to me intelligently what a Satanist is, then I can say yes or no, depending. But if they say, "Oh, you slaughter animals and pray to the devil," well, then you are way off there. That is not in my way of life. But Satanism is not a religion and I don't have a religion myself. I don't believe in one God and I would be the last person to say there is one because there is no real proof there is a God and there has been no one person to prove to the world there is a God. Maybe some people be convinced they have proof for themselves there is one, but it has never happened that one person could prove that to the rest of the world. And the sad thing is that people can't accept that not everyone believes in the same thing and can't give people that respect without thinking of them as a lower type of species or something because they don't share a same belief. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. And if people had that type of respect for each other then we would have way less wars because many wars happen because of religious differences.

MetalAsylum.net: When you toured for "Abigail II" and "The Puppet Master", the setlist did not include any songs from "The Spider's Lullaby", "The Graveyard", "Voodoo", or "House of God". Will you include some songs off those records for the current tour?

King: Well, I don't want fans to think I was rejecting those records because I wasn't. In my opinion, some really excellent work is on those records and those records are as important as other KING DIAMOND albums. But like with the last live album "Deadly Lullabyes", it wasn't supposed to be a greatest-hits type thing. That's just the setlist we performed at the time. I would love to play some songs off those records for the next tour yes, and then again there are even some older songs we have never played before that I would love to get in there for this tour. Plus the new record "Give me Your Soul" has plenty of great songs I want to include. The last time for "The Puppet Master" tour we played "Burn" off "The Eye" and that totally worked live. This time I would love to do "Behind These Walls", "At The Graves" off "Conspiracy" has not been played live since that tour so I want to bring that one back. That one is like KING DIAMOND's "Satan's Fall" (MERCYFUL FATE) really and that’s a fun one to play, very challenging musically.

MetalAsylum.net: Well, I think "Voodoo" is one of your best albums and a couple from that would be great to hear live again. When I saw you for that tour in 1998 I recall hearing the title track "Louisiana Darkness", "The Exorcist" and "One Down Two to Go".
King: Yeah I am very satisfied with that record too. You know, Dimebag Darrell from PANTERA played a great solo on that record. It was a nice experience. You know, we saw each other from time to time and he was such a great player. I'm glad he was part of that record.

Read the entire interview at www.metalasylum.net.