KING DIAMOND Plans MERCYFUL FATE Retrospective DVD

Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an in-depth interview with King Diamond. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal-Rules.com: Were you happy with how the bonus DVD that came with "The Puppet Master" turned out?

King Diamond: "Absolutely. Of course it's a low-budget thing but I think it was a very good companion to the story. It was different for the fans to see me sit down and tell a version of the story that just came directly from my brain. I didn't have any notes or anything, it was just straight from my memory. It was actually done in my home and with just one camera, but I told the story three times. So they shot it from one camera angle, then another one and another one and edited that together. To get that extra thing for free, I think a lot of fans valued that as an extra gift. I actually got sucked into it, which was weird because I know exactly how it was done. I was there, but I got sucked into it and paid attention when I listened to it. I finally got the accepted version in Phoenix on a Saturday morning by eleven. It was sunshine outside and I sat and watched it on my DVD in my living room and I got sucked in then. When it was over I felt like, 'Oh, wow, that was weird. What am I getting freak out about?' I got caught up in the way I presented it. I don't think I've heard any bad things about it. There might be a perfectionist out there going, 'Hey, that should have been another necklace in the background (laughs).' This was a good idea from [Metal Blade Records president] Brian Slagel originally because I told him the story in my living room when he was here for a business meeting. 'Hey, you want to hear the new story?' and then I told it, just like I did there, right off my memory. It was another bright sunny day and he was all like, 'Wow, maybe you can record this as a bonus track at the end of the disc where you tell the story like this or better yet maybe we can shoot it on DVD?' I thought it sounded pretty nice as a little extra thing to put in."

Metal-Rules.com: So what can we expect from KING DIAMOND in 2005, is there going to be a new album or a live DVD?

King Diamond: "Once we're past the release of the live album, me and Andy [LaRocque, guitar] will start writing material for the next album. At the same time, I have to look at a lot of DVD stuff, old bootleg stuff. We want to see if we can put together a retro MERCYFUL FATE DVD and a retro KING DIAMOND DVD to give the fans some of the very early stuff that we were involved with. I'm talking about bootlegs that no one has ever seen before. We do have copies of every bootleg that has been available, but we have masters of bootlegs that no one has ever seen. It's that stuff that I would like to get out to the fans, so even collectors will be blown away. Very good picture quality, very good bootleg sound quality on all instruments. An example would be MERCYFUL FATE in early 1982, before Michael Denner joined the band, playing a live concert in Copenhagen. When I saw it the first time, I was a little stunned. 'Oh my God, that's not Michael Denner there!' We have even more stuff of KING DIAMOND. I received 35 tapes a few weeks ago where the majority is stuff that people have seen before, the collectors you know…that is not interesting for me at all. But there's MERCYFUL FATE live in 1983 in a converted church that had become a concert venue in Amsterdam, Holland. The venue was called the Paradiso. We were playing 'Don't Break the Oath' songs before we recorded 'Don't Break the Oath' and were burning the cross on stage and all that stuff. It's cool and has very good quality. You probably won't have seen any bootleg quality that good, both picture and sound. It is really interesting. If I were a fan, say it was SABBATH and I could get some of that stuff, I would be right there, I would love it. In the end, the fans decide themselves what they will buy and not buy. It will be clearly labeled what it is, never-before-available official bootlegs. We hope to get through that, I have to have another meeting with Brian and when I've been through all of it and found the very best stuff, we have to see how he wants to approach the whole thing. Of course, we will throw all the official videos on that. Then we will do a second leg of 'The Puppet Master' tour in the U.S., in places where we haven't played before and revisiting some others, then a European leg of the same tour. When that is done, it will be late in the year and we will be getting ready for the next release, so we're pretty busy up until Christmas."

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.