KING DIAMOND – Interview with King Diamond

After a quarter-century of releasing some of the darkest music ever written, King Diamond has gone and released his darkest album ever! By taking inspiration from his own life and his past writings and adding Mercyful Fate member Mike Wead and early KING DIAMOND bassist Hal Patino, it is understandable when King referred to his forthcoming album “Give me your Soul…Please” as his best effort. In a recent phone interview, King Diamond discussed why this album is so great, and the terrifying storyline. The following is a summary of my conversation with King Diamond.

Our conversation first started on the topic of KING DIAMOND’s forthcoming album “Give Me Your Soul…Please.” King expressed how happy he is with the album and how tremendous the fan response has been to the exclusive, online track “Never Ending Hill,” released through KING DIAMOND’s label, Metal Blade. King confessed the album to be “by far my best material.”

One aspect that makes it so great is the production. He stated the production is the best he has ever gotten. The album’s sound is quite organic. For the first time ever, listeners can actually hear KD’s vocals in their true form. He admitted this is the first time he used no falsetto. Another first was the point of view for which the album’s story was told. This was the first time he used the first person point of view. King felt the lyrics were some of his best ever. He believes the album to be the band’s darkest, “most brutal” material. Many of the fictional lyrics are based upon realistic fears we all have like being afraid of the dark.

Even more intriguing is another source for which King finds lyrical inspiration. KD explains, “A fact that not too many people know is a lot of my lyrics come from my personal life”. I discovered the ghostly tale presented on “Give me your Soul…” is inspired by true-life, paranormal occurrences in King Diamond’s home. The album’s cover art showing a little girl with a blood-stained dress in front of a mirror was inspired by his personal, bathroom mirror. In fact, the mirror’s frame in the picture was taken directly from his own bathroom mirror. “My wife is afraid to look into the bathroom mirror for fear that someone is watching here,” King clarifies. KD further explained how his house seems to possess a paranormal power.

Not only has KD and his family experienced weird occurrences at home, his band mates also express fear there is something bizarre going on at the KING DIAMOND residence. One member said he was struck on the back when there was clearly nobody around. Another expressed pain of being hit on the head without any tangible object in sight. KD lyrics on “Give me Your Soul…” sometimes refer to a black cat. The cat character has its basis from KD’s own cat, Black Cat Magic. The cat on the album keeps watching the black space, as if watching an intruder. Black Cat Magic is known for sitting on his “black pillow at night and watching things that aren’t there.”

Tales like the above tend to creep us out because mankind is afraid of the unknown. Death is mysterious to mankind; we would like to explain where we go after death as fact, but as KD said, “a religion is a belief because we don’t know exactly what happens after we die. That’s why we call it a belief, because we believe that, but don’t know for sure.” Because we can’t fully explain afterlife occurrences like ghosts, these happenings will remain mysterious. Mystery plays a big part in “Give Me Your Soul…” Like the movie “The Sixth Sense” the storyline is ambiguous. “The Dead,” The album’s intro, begins in the cellar with a little boy and girl speaking to each other. The boy is confused until the girl tells him they have died. The album’s first song “Never Ending Hill,” is as KD described it “a bit nice with the children playing on the hill and butterflies are flying around, but then the sun goes down.” When the sun sets the song takes on a darker tone. King demonstrated how each song takes the album down a darker path, ultimately arriving at the end to show us what really happened to the two children.

When the children were still alive, their father murdered them in the basement. The father, as King put it, “went bananas” and stuck a hatchet or axe into his son, splattering the blood unto his daughter’s dress, (which explains the blood on the daughters dress in the picture.) Then he strangles to death his daughter. People going crazy and murdering their families is an issue of major concern for KD. King expressed this as a major issue in our society and wished there were a better way to prevent this from happening. King created a scenario of when you die; thirteen judges decide what type of afterlife you will get. These particular judges make an error in judgment, condemning the girl to an afterlife as a ghost. In the album’s outro “moving on”, as I understand King’s explanation, the little girl discovers her death, but is trapped in this plane as a ghost, so she moves on to another house.

After discussing the fascinating, deep concept of the new album, King revealed some exhilarating concert news. He is near finalizing his tour to support “Give Me Your Soul…Please.” He is scheduled to embark on a massive tour of North America and Europe. For the first time the band will spend a significant amount of time on the west coast of Canada. The tour is an old school metal head’s dream with Germany’s thrash titans, KREATOR providing support. King stated he is “99 percent sure” KREATOR will be on the tour. Two other bands will accompany KING DIAMON and KREATOR. KING did not offer the names of those bands.

On a lighter note, we discussed the movie “Clerks II.” He said he saw the movie and thought it was “hilarious.” He also liked “Clerks.” When asked if he was approached to use his music in the movie, he stated, “the publisher of the movie approached me to ask if he could use my music.” He liked the manner in which they used his music. For those who haven’t seen “Clerks II” or heard about this, the movie’s characters Jay and Silent Bob play KING DIAMOND’s “Welcome Home” several times on their boom box. King especially liked the scene where Dante and his girlfriend were on the roof of the Moobes restaurant. His girlfriend asked Jay to play something they could dance to. Jay plays “Welcome Home” for the third time in the movie and starts moshing around. She asks him if he could play something a little less satanic. King found this part really funny!

I felt KING DIAMOND’s “Give Me Your Soul…Please” was a tremendous effort from a legendary band. I did not believe it to be as great as King feels, but our conversation about the album has brought on a new-found appreciation for an album I already liked a great deal. Hopefully this article will also instill a greater appreciation upon our readers for the album when it is released. Look for “Give Me Your Soul…Please” in stores on June 26, 2007.

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