Danish heavy metal singer King Diamond — who fronts both KING DIAMOND and MERCYFUL FATE — was a guest on a recent episode of "The Electric Theater With Clown" Internet show hosted by SLIPKNOT's M. Shawn "Clown" Crahan. You can now listen to the entire chat below. Speaking about new music that he is working on right now, King said: "I'm writing with Hank [Shermann, guitar] from MERCYFUL FATE and writing with Andy [LaRocque, guitar] for KING DIAMOND and writing on my own for KING DIAMOND. For KING DIAMOND, it's an album that's gonna be called 'The Institute', which is part one of two — there'll be two full albums that will be completing a full story. And as the title [suggests], there's gonna be some crazy weird stuff. And for MERCY, I also have the title, but I'm not giving it out to anybody at the moment. We have the front cover for the new MERCY too. It's very correct, very right for MERCYFUL FATE. It's very back to basics." Regarding his songwriting approach for the new MERCYFUL FATE and KING DIAMOND material, King said: "For my part, with both MERCY and KING albums — even more KING DIAMOND, I would say — all vocals are gonna be lead vocals again, like they were in the old days. It didn't matter if there was a choir singing on the right side or the left side, or whatever, they would still go and pick up parts of the lyrics to progress the story and so on. So it's gonna be anything goes with the vocals, for sure — back to the old style. And for MERCY too, it's gonna be very old-fashioned — Hank is writing very much like the old days. And it's nice to feel that we can capture that again. So that's two albums that are being worked on that will be done by the time we can go out and tour again, I'm sure." King also revealed that plans are afoot to creat a graphic novel for KING DIAMOND's classic second album, 1987's concept effort "Abigail". "[We are working with] a really good company," he said. "I have high, high hopes for how that's gonna turn out." In November 2019, KING DIAMOND released a brand new song called "Masquerade Of Madness". The track was mixed by guitarist Andy LaRocque and King Diamond at Sonic Train Studios. 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". KING DIAMOND's latest release was a DVD/Blu-ray, "Songs For The Dead Live", which came out 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 drummer Matt Thompson. MERCYFUL FATE's most recent studio album, "9", arrived in 1999. The band's current lineup includes King Diamond, Hank Shermann, Bjarne T. Holm on drums, Mike Wead on guitar, and Joey Vera (ARMORED SAINT, FATES WARNING) on bass.
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