King Diamond

From the age of 8, Kim Petersen as a soccer player went through several youth national teams, among other things he played for the Hvidovre IF. During this time he played with Søren Lerby and Frank Andersen, among others, and reached almost professional level, although there was no professional team in Denmark at the time.

In Kim Petersen's youth, a radio broadcast was played on Danisch Rundfunk every day at 3 p.m. in which Rock music was played and which he recorded on cassettes. After hearing Communication Breakdown from Led Zeppelin for the first time in 1970, he wanted to be able to create the sound of Jimmy Page's guitar play himself.

In 1971, at the age of 15, Kim Petersen got his first record player and bought the LP Fireball from Deep Purple, Aqualung by Jethro Tull and Master of Reality from Black Sabbath, shortly afterwards Wishbone Ash from the band of the same name. Led Zeppelin was also important for him, especially her debut of the same name. A few months later he bought his first guitar. “I ran home with it and scrubbed it around. But it only made 'PRING, PRING', and I was angry.… I didn't know that you had to play this instrument over an amplifier!” King Diamond: Interview in Rock Hard

An acquaintance of his parents built him a primitive amplifier with a on/off button and one for the distortion. Kim Petersen had no girlfriend during his school days, he invested his time in his football training and music.  To hear old mountain albums with a friend, he was often missing at school. He didn't do much for this, but thanks to his good memory, he had good grades and mostly learned to work by lying through his friend's homework.

Kim Petersen's musical career began in 1973 when he became a guitarist of the band Brainstorm. With them he gave his first concert in 1976, in which each band played three songs. With this he already appeared with make up, like the other members of the band. Kim Petersen came to the idea in 1975 after seeing Alice Cooper's Show Welcome to my Nightmare. Alice Cooper remained the most important influence.

The members accepted pseudonyms, with Petersen taking the name King Diamond. At the beginning, Diamond only applied black make-up, but the difference is not recognizable on old black and white images. At the age of 20, King Diamond ended his career as a soccer player because he was missing the time to continue to train at his level at the time. After leaving high school, he worked as a laboratory assistant, but this was not fun; He had to Perform tests on rats. In 1978 King Diamond left Brainstorm to become the singer of the band Black Rose. He actually wanted to be their guitarist, but the band only searched for a singer and the guitarist wanted to play alone.

Since King Diamond was not a singer at the time, his voice was not yet developed, and his high tones initially sounded more like screaming, and he quickly became hoarse; But he improved over time. The band covered bands like Deep Purple and Rainbow, they did not cover songs like Smoke on the Water, but harder songs such as "Living Wreck" and "Fools", and also wrote their own pieces. After one of their appearances, King Diamond was approached by a concert visitor who told him to use the Falsetto voice more often, whereby he referred to the song "Road Ride". King was unknown at the time, but he tried to use this voice more often, and forced himself to sing higher and higher.

Since he never wanted to take singing lessons, he is self taught as a singer, but he describes a particularly stubborn fan as his "singing teacher". The most important influence of the band was Alice Cooper, which was shown in his stage show. For example, King Diamond had two nurses drove on stage in a forced jacket, sitting in a wheelchair. After the first song, he threw the compulsory jacket and the wheelchair into the audience and continued the appearance. In addition, props such as a doll filled with blood and intestines, it was used to sacrifice King Diamond, which threw blood stained intestines into the audience. Because the brainstorm drummer worked in a butcher shop, That's how the band got the material. In addition, pig heads were set up and beaten by King diamond with an axe. He used his experiences as a laboratory technician for explosive substances, occasionally steel from his workplace.

In November 1980, King Diamond left the band Black Rose after about ten joint concerts. The decisive factor was that the keyboardist sold his instrument to be able to afford the new apartment with his girlfriend. Then King Diamond got a call from René "Hank de Wank" Krolmark, the guitarist of the punk/metal band Brats, and their manager, who wanted to recruit him as a singer. A friend who worked with the musicians of Brats advised him to meet them and give it a try. Their album in 1980 polarized the critics and was described as "mixed", and King Diamond did not necessarily say it:

“I only liked the Bratst album […] half because it was very punk. But I wasn't exactly the biggest Sex Pistols fan ..." - King Diamond: Interview in Rock Hard. King Diamond provided the condition that he didn't have to sing in a punk style, he just wanted to sing Heavy metal. However, their new songs tended to metal anyway. At that time, Hank de Wank changed his pseudonym in Hank Shermann. In January 1981, the band invited a representative of CBS to their rehearsal room in Copenhagen.

The following day, the band was announced that the music was too extreme for CBS and that it had to play softer, gentler music if they wanted to release their album at CBS; The record company is "far too uncommercially, far too uncolored, too little," and the band should sing in Danish. Diamond and Shermann rejected on behalf of the band. In addition, the budget offered was too low, so the band ended the cooperation with CBS. In the following months the band wrote new songs and gave a concert in Denmark and one in Sweden. Because of the ended CBS contract, the members, Yenz and Monroe rose out in March 1981. At the end of the month, the other three members at The Rocktape Studio in Copenhagen played three titles for a demo recording. Due to the stylistic development, they saw a change of name as necessary.

The name Back to Hell was considered until the manager Merciful fate suggested. The name was adopted, but modified in Mercyful Fate when their classic fracture lettering was created in the same month. Since this is an archaic spelling, it is not to be regarded as a spelling mistake. Diamond continued to work as a qualified chemist, whereby he worked on the development of medication to improve the blood flow of the kidneys and had to test them on three rats per day. King Diamond finally terminated in 1982, shortly after Mercyful Fate was founded, to become a professional musician, but initially lived a year from social assistance. In April 1981, King Diamond and Hank Shermann were asked by Michael Denner to help him play a demo recording for his new band, Danger Zone. They had not found a suitable singer yet, their songs Leave My Soul Alone and M.D.A. were published in 1992 by Mercyful Fate. Danger Zone and Mercyful Fate were merged into one band due to the good cooperation.

At Mercyful Fate too, Diamond's stage effects such as the "exploding nun" started at the end of appearances or the burning cross during an appearance in Amsterdam around 1983. At the end of 1982 or early 1983, the band performed together with the British band Girlschool, whose singer Kim Mcauliffe suffered a heavy electric shock from which she almost died. The members of Mercyful Fate attribute this incident to a black mass that had been held before the appearance of Girlschool and for whom the members of Mercyful Fate had used the blood of their manager Ole Bang,

which is said to have attracted something. King Diamond also mentions events at that time, like a glass that itself rose after the MercyFul Fate Demo recording, things that fell from the shelf, someone who was torn on the hair, and Diamond's altar who moved by itself. At that time he was already interested in occultism, which increased through these events. Due to differences between Hank Shermann and King Diamond regarding the continuation of the band, which had released an EP, one single and two albums until then, it separated in 1985.

After the end of Mercyful Fate, King Diamond continued with Michael Denner and Timi Hansen under his name, while Hank Shermann founded the hard rock band Fate. Mikkey Dee was drummer from the band Geisha, who brought Floyd Constantine (also from Geisha) as second guitarist. King Diamond had already written material for the upcoming album and was helped by Denner, with which he wrote the other songs in collaboration. It should be the only time that King Diamond would write with someone else, because he hates it and cannot take the necessary time to examine certain riffs; Some other songs would later be written by both Diamond and other members, who, however, work alone and would contribute something to the work of the other. The band went to the Sound Track Studio in Copenhagen in July and August 1985 to record the first King Diamond Album.

On the first day of the recordings, however, Constantine was thrown out of the band; According to Diamond's view, he was not good enough and spent too much time to celebrate and drink. He was replaced by Anders Allhage, the former guitarist of the E.F. Band, who renamed Andy La Rocque shortly afterwards. He had previously played with Micky Dee in a band who had proposed Diamond as a fellow musician. The first publication of King Diamond was the single "No Present for Christmas", which was released on December 25; With its "strange-evil interpretation of the Yulide spirit", the single shows a humorous side of King Diamond for the first time. On the B side, the song Charon found itself as a foretaste of the album announced for the following year.

To celebrate King Diamond's first solo publicization, a concert took place in Copenhagen on December 20. On March 14, 1986, the debut album was Fatal Portrait, of which more than 100,000 copies were sold in the United States alone. Fatal portrait tended to be a the concept album, since five of the nine songs ("The Candle," "The Jonah," "The Portrait", "Dressed in White" and "Haunted") are a part of the same story. King Diamond also avoided the use of the name Satan on Fatal Portrait, while giving the texts more magic and mystery. He also played the guitar at the instrumental piece, "Voices from the Past" because Michael Denner was bored and gave King Diamond the guitar and told him that he should play it himself.

It is the only piece in which all the guitar parts were played by King Diamond himself, but later he should contribute individual passages to later albums. The band went on a successful tour through Europe and the USA together with Megadeth; Although the band played mainly in clubs and the budget was modest, King Diamond continued to experiment with stage effects and theatrical appearances inspired by Alice Cooper and horror films. In September a limited picture disc was published by the song "Halloween",

the B-side of which contained "The Candle" and "The Lake", "The Lake" was inspired by a film, recorded at the same time as Fatal Portrait and to find The Dark Sides and various new editions of fatal portrait exclusively on the picture disc and thus a rarity. All subsequent studio albums except The Spider’s Lullabye should be concept albums. Unlike other King Diamond albums, it is not a full concept album; only half the songs form a single plot.

From December 1986 to February 1987, King Diamond returned to the Sound Track Studio to record a second album. Since Michael Denner's apartment was only ten minutes from the studio and Andy La Rocque and Micky Dee lived there too, the band often came there. This time the band used Roberto Falcao extensively for the first time, the same sound engineer as on Fatal Portrait; Falcao had a feel for the direction of the band. With the second album, Abigail, King Diamond wanted to continue the idea of ​​the concept album,

Abigail should be the first of a long series of concept albums. King Diamond wanted to write a complete concept album with horror issues, which nobody had done before, and wanted to create something for his band that should be original and challenging. He had already wanted to write concept albums during Mercyful Fate times, which did not seem to fit the music that was not theatrical enough; Therefore, King had only started fatal portrait with the five pieces. Diamond came up with the idea of ​​the story behind the Abigail album when he woke up at around 2:00 a.m. during a thunderstorm and came to mind ideas that he wrote down.

The entire action and all names were created here; Most of the part was completed within about an hour and a half, and 90 percent of the album were written during the night. Parts of the story were also inspired by his mother's stories. Another inspiration came from a photography that an American fan had sent him; She showed the tombstone of a girl who died on July 7, 1777. King Diamond took over the date and the name of the dead girl's mother, "Abigail". The difficult part was to adapt the concept to the songs and to be able to integrate everything King Diamond wanted to integrate into the album. The music was largely created before the idea for the album.

After the story, King wrote the two or three other songs with a little help from Denner and La Rocque. At that time, King Diamond's Abigail saw his best album until then, and it helped him to develop his voice further because he had to portray so many different figures with different emotions. King Diamond's father died in this periode who was devoted to the album. It was released on June 15, 1987, was sold over 175,000 times in the United States, it was the first Roadrunner publication in the Billboard 200 charts and reached 123th on the billboard charts. After the publication, King Diamond made a music video to the song "The Family Ghost" for the doctorate, for which a single with the B-side, "Shrine" appeared the following month; This song had been removed from the Abigail album because it did not match its history.

With King Diamond's increasing success, the demand for a re-publication of the first Mercyful Fate EP also increased. In October 1987, Roadrunner Records released the compilation The Beginning, on which the pieces of the EP, four other songs, which were contained three from the BBC recording of 1983 and "Black Mass" from the B-side of the "Black Funeral" Single. Shortly afterwards, right before the start of the tour through Europe, Michael Denner left King Diamond to spend more time with his family because he could not leave Denmark for a long time, took time to relax and the tours burdened him. However, there were no musical or personal differences.

After the exit, Michael Denner opened a record store in Copenhagen. Instead, the band went on tour with Mike Moon, who had just left the Swedish band Madison because he wanted to play "heavier" music. Moon was replaced by Pete Blakk after the tour, which Andy La Rocque and Micky Dee knew from Geisha from their time. Then Timi Hansen left the band Because his girlfriend blackmailed him to let their child with him. He gave up the music, but his girlfriend left him with their child six months later. Timi Hansen was replaced by Hal Patino from the band, Maltese Falcon. Although Hansen had left the band, he spent some time with them in the studio the following year and taught Patino his bass runs.

Now King Diamond was the only former Mercyful Fate member in his new band. At the beginning of June 1988, King Diamond moved to Los Angeles, California. The main reason was that it made appearances in the United States easier and offered more options for interviews. In June 1988, the album Them, which became the most successful solo album with more than 200,000 copies sold in the USA and a music video for "Welcome Home".

During one of his appearances, King Diamond was invited by some witches to meet the Church-of-Satan founder and author of the Satanic Bible Anton Szandor LaVey in San Francisco. King Diamond spent all night in the church and led a one and a half hour entertainment with laVey in the ritual chamber. He spoke to Lavey about his relationship with satanism and asked him for his opinion. Lavey then removed the Baphomet seal from his jacket and pressed it into King Diamond's hand, which he describes as an incredible experience. Diamond was mentioned in Lavey's biography, among others, and went out with Lavey's daughter Zeena a few times. At this time, Zeena Lavey also appeared in Geraldo Rivera's television program Geraldo in a special program on Satanism. King Diamond was interviewed in Florida, where he was currently appearing; Of the 45-minute interview with him, only a few seconds were used, torn from the context and subordinate to Diamond to speak nonsense.

The EP The Dark Sides followed in October, which contained some rarities such as "No Presents for Christmas", "Shrine", "The Lake" and "Phone Call". The publication followed a lawsuit on the part of the lawyers of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. In their letter they claimed that they had reason to assume that King Diamond's make-up on The Dark Sides was based on that of Simmons in Kiss ’1970s and 1980s. Diamond was also accused of imitating the stage effects of old KISS appearances. Diamond expressed that he had to laugh about it first; Nobody had ever mistaken him with Simmons, he had never heard that there were similarities to Simmons, and he wondered how he could take out, to harass others;

Simmons was not even the first make -up musician, but only came after Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Al Jolson. He hoped not to become like Simmons later; Until then, he was a Kiss fan, but then separated from his records. However, the biography on King Diamond's website says that he still likes Kiss and respect Simmons and kiss. As early as 1984, the then Kiss drummer Eric Carr said in an interview with Metal Hammer that King Diamond looked "as well as genes, maybe a little worse than a cheap copy". King Diamond's biography also indicates the big differences in the stage effects:

KISS used props such as fire spitting, bloodshed or fire alarm, while King Diamond's are theatrical.

The lawyers of both sides agreed out of court; Her agreement forced King Diamond to put on make-up differently, which he had already planned for the upcoming album; He found the matter ridiculous, but Kiss was mocked in the press and the matter ended.

After the recordings of Conspiracy (1989), Mikkey Dee said goodbye, who was replaced by Snowy Shaw. Conspiracy ties up lyrically and in terms of content on its predecessor. Both albums are considered a coherent horror story in King Diamond itself. This connection was portrayed in an open coffin on the "Conspiracy" tour in 1989 as a cremation of the artist.

The drums of Snowy Shaw were played on the successor, The Eye, who used electronic drums. Hal Patino was replaced by Mike Wead and Pete Blakk by Sharlee D’Angelo, at the end of 1990. Blakk then founded his own band Totem. In 1991 King Diamond's first live album was published, In Concert 1987: Abigail, which, as the title reveals, was recorded in 1987. In 1992 King Diamond released the compilation album, A Dangerous Meeting, which also contained old pieces from Mercyful Fate. This was his last album under Roadrunner Records before switching to Metal Blade Records; Mercyful Fate was also reunited.

The album was recorded in the Shadows in the original line-up (apart from drummer Kim Ruzz, which was replaced on the associated tour of Snowy Shaw). From 1993, King alternately published recordings of his solo project and his band. This was followed in 1994 by the Mercyful Fate live ep The Bell Witch as well as the album Time and in 1995 the solo record The Spider’s Lullabye with a completely new line-up, with Herb Simonsen on the guitar, Chris Estes on bass and Darrin Anthony on drums. In 1996 the solo album The Graveyard was released on October 1, 1996 and the Mercyful Fate album Into the Unknown was released on August 20, 1996 but the label preferred Into the Unknown.

In 1997 there was the next change in occupation at Mercyful Fate: Michael Denner was replaced by Mike Wead, after which the occupation for the next two Mercyful Fate discs Dead Again (1998) and 9 (1999) remained constant.

After a serious car accident of Darren Anthony in 1997, Darren was replaced by John Luke Herbert for the admission of Voodoo (1998). After the publication of House of God (2000), Chris Estes, who was briefly replaced by David Harbor and then by Hal Patino.

In February 2001, King Diamond & Black Rose (a Danish rock band featuring King Diamond) was releaseed, "Black Rose: 20 Years Ago" (A Night of Rehearsal); Until then, nobody had heard the material from Black Rose, since Diamond had owned the only copy of it until then and Mercyful Fate did not play Black Rose songs.

Mike Wead played guitar and Matt Thompson again on drums, on Abigail II: The Revenge (2002). In 2003 The Puppet Master, which appeared in Europe due to disputes between King Diamond and Metal Blade and Massacre Records. The following year the second live album, Deadly Lullabyes Live as a double CD was published, which represents a cross-section from Abigail to The Puppet Master with 20 titles. In 2007 the album Give Me Your Soul… Please. The song "Never Ending Hill" contained on it was nominated for the Grammy in the Best Metal Performance category in 2008, but did not win the trophy.

In December 2010, King Diamond had an open heart operation. Three heart arteries were in part Calculated, and apparently King had already several heart attacks without realizing it. The operation went well, as was the immediately subsequent rehabilitation. However, it was completely open when King Diamond should record the next studio album and published the two DVDs that were already planned.

In December 2011, King Diamond appeared in The Fillmore in San Francisco as part of the concerts for the thirty anniversary of Metallica and played a few songs with some band members of Mercyful Fate. At the end of January 2012, King Diamond then returned with a video message on YouTube. It became known that Diamond had completely recovered from his operation and was planning a world tour. Appearances as headliners at the French Hellfest 2012 and the Sweden Rock Festival 2012 also took place. Planning for further appearances were then denied. Various festival appearances in Europe were announced for 2013.

King Diamond is known for his falsetto voice and his stage show. He himself believes that a paying audience is expecting more than a perfect reproduction of the album they own. He tried to imitate Alice Cooper. The music is the most important part of King Diamond, but the effects made up half of the performance. A Heavy metal concert is similar to a ritual, but the band is only concerned with the entertainment of its followers.

In contrast to Vincent Damon Furnier, the person behind the pseudonym Alice Cooper, he sees Kim Bendix Petersen and King Diamond as identical and would consider it lying to speak of the latter in the third person, as veneer does this at Cooper. While Cooper was his most important influence, David Byron (Uriah Heep) was his inspiration for singing, in addition Diamond's influences also come from Progressive rock. But he doesn't want to copy anyone, and to avoid unconscious parallels to other artists, he sometimes listens to music for several months if he writes songs. King Diamond was one of the few metal musicians with serious references to satanism in the 1980s.

This also flows into his texts, but he emphasizes that he never preach with his music, he himself beliefs that the personality of the individual is more important. Therefore, other musicians do not have to share the statements of his texts to play with him in a band.

“In the beginning, the fans thought we were very extreme. I was often asked about Satanism, but I always made it clear that I was there because of the music and the theatrical aspect. People can believe whatever they want. But what is important to me personally: I like and respect King for the person he is. " - Andy Larocque: Interview in Rock Hard

King Diamond emphasizes that he was indifferent to the belief of other people, so he also had no problem performing with the Christian metal band Stryper; He had already performed with the Doom Metal band Trouble, whose members, however, are not "hardcore Christians" and their texts are Vager than those of Stryper. He sees it as a stupid to impose a religion on others, and refers to people like the PMRC activists as ignorants and idiots who would find metal as an easy goal, but at the same time inspired classical music, by people like Aleister Crowley be not fought.

At the beginning, King Diamond only came across literature that conveyed the Christian view of satanism with stereotypes such as the victims of infants. He himself couldn't do anything with this view. Therefore, he did not feel connected to the content of the Psychedelic rock band Coven, the "Christian Satanism", although he was thrilled with their singer Jinx Dawson and her tuning. King Diamond stayed curious and borrowed Anton Szandor Lavey's Satanic Bible, which he stated as a source of inspiration.

However, he sees himself as "not religious", for him, satanism is "not a religion, but a philosophy of life" that he had already lived before reading the Satanian Bible; For him the word Satan of special meaning. He became a member of Laveys Church of Satan. and from Lavey appointed a member of the life. He stood for his satanic faith and to occasionally incorporate it into his music, which caused negative reactions. Most of his texts are, however, purely fictional; The Mercyful Fate title "Satan's Fall", for example, describes the view that most Christians have when listening to the word "Satan",

but the essence of the song lies in the statement "Use your demon eye, uncover the disguise"; King Diamond means that you should know about it before you express criticism. You should first read the Bible and then make a decision. Anyone who has not read the Bible should not degrade satanism. His attitude to forces such as those who worked in his apartment in the early 1980s becomes clear in songs like "Welcome Princes of Hell".

However, since the critics in Satanism only see evil, King Diamond would prefer it if his belief had a different name. In order to escape the controversy, Diamond's bands stopped using the words Satan and Lucifer without really changing the texts themselves. According to the reactions of the listeners, they now seem better to understand what King Diamond wants to convey with his texts. However, people also told him that they were happy about his textual departure from satanism, although he had only changed his expression.

However, King Diamond's band was still charged as satanist afterwards, although the texts of their Abigail album tell a purely fictional horror story. When asked about his faith, he reacted politely, but over time it found it annoying to constantly explain his interpretation of satanism. In addition to the more subtle references to Satanism, Diamond also likes to add other ambiguous statements, such as the reference to his birthday in "Night of the Unborne" with the verses: "13 Days Have Come and Gone / Since We Had the First".

King Diamond has a clear idea of ​​death, which according to people on earth should know and gain experience in several lives before they rise to a higher level of being. In every stick a force that will one day connect to a larger one.

Demo (1985)

Fatal Portrait (1986)

Abigail (1987)

Them (1988)

The Dark Sides (1988) ep

Conspiracy (1989)

The Eye (1990)

In Concert 1987: Abigail (1990)

The Spider's Lullabye (1995)

The Graveyard (1996)

Voodoo (1998)

Collector's Item (1999) ep

House of God (2000)

Abigail II: The Revenge (2002)

The Puppet Master (2003)

Deadly Lullabyes (2004) live

Give Me Your Soul...Please (2007)

Songs for the Dead Live (2019)

TBA - The Institute

Michael Denner – guitar (1985-1987)

Timi Hansen – bass (1985-1987) † November 4 2019

Mikkey Dee – drums (1985-1989)

Pete Blakk – guitar (1987-1990)

Hal Patino – bass (1988-1990, 2000-2014)

Snowy Shaw – drums (1989-1994)

Sharlee D'Angelo – bass (1990-1993)

Roberto Falcao (Roberto Johansson) – keyboard and sound effects on various albums (1986-2019)

Chris Estes – bass (1995-2000)

Herb Simonsen – guitar (1995-1998)

Darrin Anthony – drums (1995-1997)

John Luke Hebert – drums (1997-2000)

Glen Drover – guitar (1998-2000)

David Harbour – bass (2000)

Kol Marshall – keyboards (2000, 2002)