Hail to all of you.

I've seen a lot of valid questions on our covenworldwide.org forum regarding the remasters and I think they deserve to be answered by myself.
First of all, it's great to see that you like Andy's improvements on the sound of these remasters. Just wait till you hear House of God.

The process has been another little nightmare for us to get done the right way. We wanted to have the remastered albums with an included CD-ROM video of a song from the respective album as a bonus. Fortunately, I always thoroughly check our products myself before they go into pressing. When I got the first two remasters from a U.S. mastering lab, I was sure that they must have done something wrong. The music, which I have stated from the beginning is the absolute most important part of these remasters (not the bonus material) sounded way inferior to what I know Andy did. Also, when checking the CD-ROM footage, it looked horribly grainy and shitty and it had become badly out of synch compared to what I have put together here at home. After getting in touch with Metal Blade who got in touch with the mastering lab, the message I got back was "we have not changed anything, this is exactly what we got". BUT IT HAD DEFINITELY CHANGED.
We now decided to let Andy himself have a go at adding the CD-ROM bonus footage to the remastered album. I couldn't believe it when I realized Andy's version was identical to the one from the U.S. mastering lab. Metal Blade now checked around with several other mastering labs, asking if this was normal or whether something was done totally wrong on our end. The same answer came back from everybody, that yes, you should expect a quality loss in the music when adding a CD-ROM to the same disk.
At this point, we were about to scrap the whole idea of adding the CD-ROM since there's no way in hell I would sacrifice the great sound Andy had achieved just to have that in there. Tracy at Metal Blade was the one who came up with what I thought was a great idea, to leave the music alone on the disk and then make the bonus footage available as a free download. This would maintain Andy's sound quality and also maintain the quality of the bonus footage since it would not have to be compressed from approximately 1.3 Gigabytes down into a 130 Megabyte file size. So, this way we would be able to provide the best possible quality to all of you for both the album itself and the bonus footage.
This of course meant more work for the label to set up the website where you can find the bonus footage, and was not a budget issue. They did however tell me that the footage would be available for everybody, not just those who bought the album since implementing codes, etc. would be too much too late to get done in time for the release.
My personal view on that is that I have never thought that you should buy the remasters just to get the bonus footage anyway. As you might have noticed, there have never been King Diamond releases with specific bonus tracks added for just certain areas. For example, Japanese labels have several times asked us for exclusive bonus for their releases, which we have always rejected for various reasons, including that I don't see why certain territories should be treated better than others. I hope that answered some of the questions you had regarding the actual material sound and bonus of the remasters.

The following is regarding the artwork.
The intention here was to revamp the inside of the booklets, not the actual covers themselves. A phone call from Metal Blade's artworker assured me it wouldn't be that easy. The entire artwork for Spider's Lullabye and The Graveyard had been lost in a computer meltdown where a lot of old Metal Blade stuff was stored, so we had to start from scratch. As you can imagine, this was a major pain the ass and very time consuming.
Regarding Voodoo and House of God, I was initially told the same and a major search was put in gear to see if Massacre possibly had some of these lost files. Eventually most of the files showed up intact at a Metal Blade search and you will find very little change on the front covers. The back covers have been changed a bit and the insides have been totally revamped which is all what was originally intended.
So there you have it.

The bonus footage that will be available for Voodoo and House of God will be the two title tracks. So all in all, you will eventually have access to four live editions with footage of songs that was not included on our double live CD.

The Spider's Lullabye and The Graveyard remasters are out in the U.S. but will not be released in Europe by Massacre until October 23rd. Massacre's versions will have an inlay card that directs the European fans to Metal Blade's website, which will be the only website where you can find the bonus footage. It made no sense to have a separate site set up with Massacre.

At last, I want to say that work on the King Diamond DVD set is still underway and we're really beginning to make some great progress. This has taken so much longer than expected because of so many technical issues that I won't bore you to death with here, but we recently acquired a brand new noise reduction program that we're using to enhance all the footage, and it's amazing how much better everything is beginning to look compared to the original tapes. I really think you're going to love this stuff once it's done. Gotta get back to this and transcode four different tests for the 1997 Copenhagen VEGA King Diamond show which, if I remember right, is taken from the first show of the King Diamond/Mercyful Fate European double header tour.

Okay, that's it.

Stay Heavy,

King.

Hail to all of you,

I guess it’s high time for a new update.
As you will see, we’ve been staying very busy lately. We’ve had to put the KD/MF DVD projects on the backburner for a little while, but we’re back working on that full power now. We’ll get to the DVDs at the end of this update.

As some of you might already know, the 2 re-recorded Mercyful Fate songs “Evil” and “Curse Of The Pharaohs” will be available for download this coming Tuesday July 14 on iTunes, etc. through Metal Blade.
Both “Evil” and “Curse Of The Pharaohs” was mastered by Andy LaRocque, which makes “Evil” slightly different sounding from the version you can find on Guitar Hero: Metallica, which was mastered through Activision.
These 2 songs will also be available as limited edition 12 inch vinyl picture disk from both Metal Blade and Massacre Records. We were so fortunate to be granted a license by Activision to use a King Diamond image from the Guitar Hero: Metallica videogame on the front, including the use of the Guitar Hero logo. Also Metallica have been very gracious and given us a license to use their logo on the front.
(for images, see ((due to Myspace's link limitations, please copy and paste the links into a new browser window/tab))
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/8y/wt/rg6nmm0kbcjhpec6ezim3qsf82tpbt-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/xd/la/lk4m2ilnthc4p9sqdj1sit2dpu7qhy-full.jpg ).

The 4 remastered King Diamond albums “Spider’s Lullabye”, “The Graveyard”, “Voodoo”, and “House Of God”, all mastered by Andy LaRocque now have tentative release dates.
If all goes well, the 2 first will be released on October 13th, and the two last on November 10th.
The bonus tracks have finally been delivered to the record labels. They will be live versions (with video footage) of the following songs: “The Spiders Lullabye“; “Trick Or Treat + Up From The Grave“;“Voodoo“; “House Of God“.
Cover artwork will be revamped by Metal Blade’s art designer Brian Ames.

It has also been confirmed that the 2 King Diamond songs “Welcome Home” and “Cremation” will appear on the upcoming videogame BRUTAL LEGEND scheduled for release in October.

Both King Diamond and Mercyful Fate have worked out a deal with C1rca Shoes to have featured artwork on several of their sneakers.
At this point, C1rca has mentioned a possible release of an “Abigail” sneaker and a “Don’t Break The Oath” sneaker for this fall.
Further approved designs for possible spring 2010 release is “Them” and “9”.
For images see here (due to Myspace's link limitations, please copy and paste the links into a new browser window/tab):

Abigail:
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/f3/f4/oxft1xumo7io71vqktx40ldfjuap43-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/ze/l5/wzo2adq8z7gph3bzfp20gsv7rkczj0-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/yy/ea/zelhdpur6vcu1u4ib19acgy9gflaol-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/yj/mn/ogrzspkgb8ntvspqh26h12hzluh0no-full.jpg

Don’t Break The Oath:
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/ov/b3/v9ky2q5ngc8ouhniozdxkczfbtzt14-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/ve/9b/kuf59lhoq5y4kyfyogcwn97qgwxepu-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/ny/ye/w40ni94nij7t1uoicwku8di84or02h-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/g3/oc/p0s31sfvwnukfeih595gdaobkquurj-full.jpg

Them:
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/fe/i7/5b262a0eggehllcq20ms4814nflcp1-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/1p/q2/uw3ny7for5aeniueyi10vraag61wno-full.jpg

9:
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/al/iu/4oxl8fyfw7ytvtgeqt071nhcm560pt-full.jpg
http://artzone.daz3d.com/azfiles/gallery/58/no/lz3vrw0afo917eo9gw6wwsdcbkc2yu-full.jpg


Regarding the King Diamond double DVD of old improved private video recordings, it should be, if no other unforeseen problems smack us in the face, be ready for release on Halloween or shortly thereafter.
I’ve noticed that some of you have wondered what kind of system we’re working on, and also why it has taken this long. Part of it is, as you can see, because we have had other things that had to be dealt with along the way. The other part is a lot of unforeseen problems that has kept on messing with the progress.
The software we use is Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 on a Gateway 2.7 GHz Quad Core computer with 6 Gigabytes of RAM, 650 GB HDD, an Nvidia GeFore 9800GT, and this far far exceeds the highest system requirements of the Premiere Pro program.
Just to give you an idea of some of the technical problems we’ve ran into, right off the bat we had problems in the transfer of the source footage into the computer. The old footage was originally recorded on handheld video 8 camcorders with tape. They were transferred to DVD for storage and preservation so many years ago I don’t even know when, but a long time ago. At some point, 5 or 6 years ago, I got curious and wanted to take a look  at all the material we were in possession of, and the guy that was holding onto all our recordings made some copies for me that I was supposed to be able to see on my NTSC DVD player.
When I received them, there was no picture, and horrible sound. Obviously something went wrong and Ole Bang then acquired a system with which he then started to convert all our PAL footage to NTSC. I got those a couple of years ago and they played perfect on my DVD player. That’s about the time that the initial idea for this never before seen footage to be made available came about. After long long time of negotiations, we finally got to the point where it made sense to go get the equipment and start working on the material. So here is the first problem.
We started out by importing footage into Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and started an NTSC project. All the footage was TALL and the video play extremely choppy. The source video showed up with a frame rate of 25 which is European PAL and simply couldn’t be transferred properly to the NTSC standard of 29.97 frames per second.
We contacted Adobe to try and figure out what we were doing wrong, and when we told them that I could play the source DVDs fine on my DVD player and gave them the source specifications (frames per second and the source aspect ratio), they told us that they had never heard of any source footage with those specifications and that I must have a real good DVD player since it could make up for these very odd specifications. They practically told us that it was impossible to do an NTSC project with the strange source video we have, and suggested that we try to convert our already strange video (which is not straight PAL specifications either, it was a bit of both) into straight PAL specifications during the transfer from the original source DVDs into the computer. Then start a PAL project with that.
Solving this first problem took longer than days,  more like weeks, since you try all kinds of things yourself first because you think you’re the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on and you keep trying.
Then you give up and call the experts and then it’s “try this” No. “Try that”. No. “What about this?” “Wait, I see normal people, but the picture is choppy!” “Then what about doing this? What does this do?” And finally, yes, we got something here.
This is probably extremely boring but I really wanna try and emphasize that we’re not just sat on our lazy asses but have actually run into many of these kind of problems.
I’ll skip all the in-between, and tell you about the last wall we ran into.
Transferring bonus footage for the 4 KD remasters, the DVD converter we had used practically just ceased to exist. We must have overlooked some of the small print when we downloaded this one which worked really really good, and now we sat with a message saying it expired. Our mistake. We did find the DVD conversion program again, but could not reinstall it since it was registered in our computers brain as being expired. Then we started searching for another similar conversion program, and found one which we now can make work, but at first we wasted a couple of days trying to find out why everything we brought into the computer had no sound with it, and the picture was tall again. For some reason the program would not bring MP3 files into Premiere Pro CS3, which makes no sense. But by trial and error, we found some settings through AC3, which is my understanding relates to surround sound, which is certainly not what we had, but somewhere else in this converter program we found a way to make the AC3 only run through 2 channels.
Sound problem solved.
With this new program it was not obvious what the source aspect ratios were, and we had to go through a  couple of menus to find it, and find the place where we could change it. For those of you who know about aspect ratios, one source disk was 702x576, another was 704x576 etc. etc. (normal PAL should be 720x576). I was not there when all this footage originally was transferred to DVDs but something obviously  went wrong. This whole DVD adventure has been like picking something that’s wrong apart and then try to put it back again in a form where it would  play as if it was right.

To be quite honest, I’m amazed that I have not given up this DVD project yet. I don’t think I can even count how many times I have said “That’s it. I fucking had enough of this shit, this piss just doesn’t want to work”.
But in the end I’m sure it will all have been worth the while. You guys really need to see some of this stuff. It certainly has given me a lot of great entertainment to see again.

I WANNA THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PATIENCE WITH THESE DVD PROJECTS (the Mercyful Fate should be ready by Christmas or very early next year).

Stay Heavy,

King Diamond

Mercyful Fate to release new versions of “Evil” and “Curse Of The Pharaohs” on iTunes!

 

As many of you already know, Mercyful Fate’s Evil is featured as a playable track on Guitar Hero: Metallica. Mercyful Fate re-recorded these two tracks specifically for the game because the original masters no longer exist. Now, the band is making both available to fans to purchase on iTunes! These versions were recorded at Earplug Studio in Copenhagen and Nomad Recording Studio in Dallas, Texas. They were both mastered by Andy LaRocque at his Sonic Train Studio in Sweden.

 

King Diamond comments: “It was a lot of fun to get a chance to re-record "Evil" and "Curse of the Pharaohs" from our 1983 "Melissa" album. It was cool to go into the studio and try to figure out all the various harmony vocals and see if I could still do them. The other guys had a lot of fun with this project too, and the whole thing turned out much better than we could have hoped for. Everyone nailed their performances and Hank’s solos were even slightly improved. Everything is right where it should be and with a much better sound! The “feel” was there and all of the guys - Hank, Denner, Timi and Bjarne are all naturals. The versions that will be up on iTunes were mastered by Andy LaRocque and even with a 2009 sound, there’s no doubt that these songs were recorded by Mercyful Fate!”

 

If you have yet to check out Guitar Hero: Metallica - make sure you do! King Diamond himself is a playable character in the game once you unlock the Evil track! Plus, a video of King Diamond’s on-stage performance with Metallica at Ozzfest 2008 in Dallas is included as a bonus feature in the game.

 

Evil and Curse Of The Pharaohs will be available for fans to purchase digitally on July 14^th. A special edition picture disc vinyl single will be available on September 1^st!

 

http://www.myspace.com/kingdiamond

http://www.covenworldwide.org

From our official fanclub, www.covenworldwide.org :

Hello!

You are of course all aware that King Diamond will be on
the forthcoming Metallica Guitar Hero game! In addition to that, we were
contacted by Tim from Fresh Tracks Marketing if we were interested in
doing a contest! Of course we are interested!

What are the prices you can win?

1st prize:

A copy of the Metallica Guitar Hero game + a special drum pedal to play
along with Lars on his double kickdrum parts (requires the original drumkit).

2nd prize:

 A Metallica Guitar Hero Game (3x)

So what do you need to do to one of those awesome prices? Well simply answer these 3 questions and e-mail them to covenworldwide@gmail.com.
In the subject of the e-mail please write Guitar Hero Contest. Also
next to the answer to the questions please tell us with platform you
prefer for the game (Playstation 3, Wii or Xbox360)

The questions:

1) Name the Mercyful Fate songs which Metallica plays in the Mercyful Fate medley?
2) In what city did King play the Mercyful Fate medley together with Metallica?
3) What is the native language both King & Lars speak?

Metallica’s
influential music takes center stage this spring when Activision
Publishing Inc.’s Guitar Hero® Metallica® takes music fans through the
band’s fabled library of songs, plus the music and musicians who
influence them. When the house lights go down this spring, virtual rock
stars across the globe will shred, drum and wail to an explosive set
list featuring over 45 tracks from Metallica’s illustrious career and a
wide variety of other legendary artists personally selected by the
band, such as Queen, Foo Fighters, Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Slayer
and Judas Priest. Featuring tracks from every Metallica studio album,
the complete Guitar Hero Metallica on-disc set list will include their
following hits:

• “All Nightmare Long”
• “Battery”
• “Creeping Death”
• “Disposable Heroes”
• “Dyers Eve”
• “Enter Sandman”
• “Fade To Black”
• “Fight Fire With Fire”
• “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
• “Frantic”
• “Fuel”
• “Hit The Lights”
• “King Nothing”
• “Master of Puppets”
• “Mercyful Fate”
• “No Leaf Clover”
• “Nothing Else Matters”
• “One”
• “Orion”
• “Sad But True”
• “Seek And Destroy”
• “The Memory Remains”
• “The Shortest Straw”
• “The Thing That Should Not Be”
• “The Unforgiven”
• “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”
• “Wherever I May Roam”
• “Whiplash”

Complementing Metallica’s intensity are the following 21 rockin’ tracks personally chosen by the band:

• Alice In Chains - “No Excuses”
• Bob Seger - “Turn The Page (Live)”
• Corrosion of Conformity - “Albatross”
• Diamond Head - “Am I Evil?”
• Foo Fighters - “Stacked Actors”
• Judas Priest - “Hell Bent For Leather”
• Kyuss - “Demon Cleaner”
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - “Tuesdays Gone”
• Machine Head - “Beautiful Mourning”
• Mastodon - “Blood And Thunder”
• Mercyful Fate - “Evil”
• Michael Schenker Group - “Armed and Ready”
• Motörhead - “Ace of Spades”
• Queen - “Stone Cold Crazy”
• Samhain - “Mother of Mercy”
• Slayer - “War Ensemble”
• Social Distortion - “Mommy's Little Monster (Live)”
• Suicidal Tendencies - “War Inside My Head”
• System of a Down - “Toxicity”
• The Sword - “Black River”
• Thin Lizzy - “The Boys Are Back in Town”

Gamers
who have downloaded the Death Magnetic album on Xbox 360® or
PLAYSTATION®3 will have access to the album while the Wii™ and
PlayStation®2 versions will have “Broken, Beat & Scarred,”
“Cyanide” and “My Apocalypse” included on disc.
“Ride the
Lightning” with musical icons Metallica and 21 other rockin’ acts in an
all new Guitar Hero® experience – Guitar Hero Metallica. Enter the
world of Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo
and experience the intensity and skill of one of the greatest bands of
all time. Shred on the guitar controller, rip on the drum kit
controller and wail on the mic to a set list featuring over 45
explosive hits from Metallica’s illustrious career and a wide variety
of other legendary artists personally selected by the band, such as
Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters and Queen. Fans will be able to rock as
Metallica while performing in venues reminiscent of the band’s epic
album covers, themes from their music and real world locales.

Pre-order Game location: http://hub.guitarhero.com/index_us.html#/WhereToBuy/ChooseYourPlatform/ChooseYourGame/xbox360

Bonus Chart: http://ghhub.atvi.2advanced.com/metallicabonuses/

Guitar
Hero Metallica is being developed by Neversoft Entertainment for the
Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the
PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. The Wii™ home video game
system from Nintendo and the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment
system versions are being developed by Budcat. The game is rated “T”
for Teen by the ESRB. For more information about Guitar Hero Metallica,
please visit http://www.guitarhero.com.

Hail to you all


So the black cat is out of the bag.

August 2008, just before the Ozzfest, Lars Ulrich called me with a very unique suggestion.
He was inviting Mercyful Fate to be a part of Metallica's and Activision's Guitar Hero: Metallica videogame. Of course I was immediately interested, it would be such an honor to be part of such a project. Lars requested that we find the original masters for either "Evil" or "Curse of the Pharaohs" and gave me a contact person, Scott McDaniel at Activision, to whom we should send these master tapes.
I called Hank right away and gave him the interesting news and asked him if he had any idea if the master tapes for the Melissa album might still be at the old studio in Copenhagen or whether that studio might have sent the masters to Roadrunner in Holland way back when. I called Roadrunner New York to ask them if they knew where the masters might be. The big search went so far that Hank went to the old owner of the danish studio to look through his private cellar since the studio (Easy Sound Recording) had been shut down more than 10 years ago. All searches came back negative.
Couldn't believe our bad luck. I had to call Scott at Activision with the bad news but when I suggested that we might be able to get most of the original band members to re-record a brand new version of the songs, his response was extremely positive. The only problem was that Activision needed these masters within three weeks, so you can say all hell broke loose.
Then I went back to Hank with this suggestion and we started trying to figure out how to do this in such short time. Hank said he would give Michael Denner and Timi Hansen a call to see what they would say.
Since none of us had heard Kim Ruzz play drums since 1985, and running out of time before we had even started, it became too risky to entertain this unknown scenario. We simply had to play it safe. Too much was at risk here.
Therefore it was natural to ask Bjarne T. Holm who has actually been the drummer on most of the Mercyful Fate albums including the latest "9". Bjarne has kept himself in top form by participating in all kinds of different projects, so we knew he could do it no problem whatsoever.
Same scenario goes for Michael Denner, and he got back to me and Hank within a day with a big YES. Regarding Timi Hansen, he supposedly has not played any significant bass for the past 15 years, and has not owned a bass for the past 10 years. BUT, like Michael Denner, he's an absolute natural and when he came back to us with a big YES as well, we knew we had a shot at it.
Hank made all the arrangements and booked some time for the following week in Earplug Studios in Copenhagen where all the musical tracks would be laid down. Then hardcore rehearsal started, Hank and Bjarne worked on all rythm at the rehearsal studio, Michael Denner worked at home picking out every single note from his old solos.
Timi could only listen at home since he was not in possession of a bass guitar.
This was the time when I had the second call from Lars inviting me to join Metallica on stage at Ozzfest for the entire "Mercyful Fate Medley". We also invited Hank but he could not attend due to the fact that he would have to be in the studio recording.
Recording started with rythm guitars and drums and then it was Timi's turn. Hank
told me that Timi had arrived at the studio without a bass and Hank pointed out that the studio had an old Gibson he could try out.
Timi grabbed the bass and playing with his special finger-plucking technique, both songs were laid down to tape and perfectly so, only 5 hours later. Like I said, he's an absolute natural. Hadn't lost a beat.
Next, Hank started working on his solos laying them down note for note like the originals, with very few exceptions. These exceptions were made to enhance the old solos. It sounds so fucking aggressive. Perfect job.
In comes Michael Denner to recreate all of his original solos. They are all note for note, bend for bend, absolutely identical feel, but with a better sound than back then. Just amazing.
With all the music in place, and in my mind sounding better and way more brutal than the old recordings, it was my turn. I went in to Nomad Recording Studio here in Dallas, Texas, approximately one week after the Ozzfest and worked with
my favorite engineer J.T. Longoria, recreating all of the old vocals.
It was such a thrill to be back in the studio again. My back didn't allow me to do my preferred 6 hour sessions, so we just cut the sessions in half, spending about 3-4 hours every recording day. It was very interesting picking out the various harmony melodies that had been done 25 years earlier and then try to recreate them in the right way.
Next, J.T. Longoria and I mixed the two songs at Nomad in this quite unique way, which is necessary for a videogame. Meaning, these special stem-mixes where each instrument, drum, cymbal, whatever, each has its own stereo track. Also, we were not allowed to master these songs ourselves. It had to be done by Activision in order to fit all their criterias.
We got the 2 songs off to Activision a day before the deadline, and they loved it. They decided to use "Evil" over "Curse of the Pharaohs", but I can guarantee you that "Curse" turned out just as brutal as "Evil".
"Evil" was, in the end, a better song for the playability of the game.
In the meantime, I had been notified by Lars that Metallica had been given the opportunity to have 2 animated playable character guests in the game. As it has now been revealed publicly, these two guests are Lemmy and myself. I was asked to fly to California in order to be filmed with these special motion capture suits on, the same way that Metallica was doing it. Here came the next challenge. My back would not have been able to handle a plane ride at that time, so what now? Scott
McDaniel at Activision assured me that this would really not be a problem since their developers have handled these kind of issues before.
Since the developers were in possession of our latest King Diamond video "Give Me Your Soul" and had the footage from the Ozzfest, plus a bunch of still photos I sent them, they said they had what they needed to create my animated character. It was amazing to see each stage of the development of this animated King Diamond. Along the road they asked for closeup photos of the rings, the eye necklace, and certain other items I wear on stage, so we got that to them and believe me, ALL THE DETAILS ARE THERE. I've even had the opportunity to see the animated King Diamond actually move with the music, and it's fucking eerie how detailed the developers were able to create me, crossbone mike and all.
I noticed on various websites that there has been a few questions about the makeup. For a game, this big in stature, you end up having to compromise a little here and there. Upside down crosses on the face was not quite acceptable. Actually, any kind of cross painted on the face might have had a sense of "blasphemy" to some of all the business partners involved in this big venture. The same goes for the upside down cross necklace.
I do think though that under the circumstances the compromise we ended up doing works great for everyone. It's definitely King Diamond and I actually modified the makeup myself once I was told. I simply erased the crosses and modified the eye makeup to more resemble the old style Mercyful Fate makeup. BUT rest assured the makeup with the crosses is THE makeup for King Diamond nowadays and that goes for Mercyful Fate too. These days I see King Diamond with the cross makeup as being the singer of King Diamond and Mercyful Fate and should not have to change this favorite makeup of mine for future Mercyful Fate purposes.
Regarding the upside down cross necklace, I think we found a perfect replacement when we exchanged it for The Eye necklace.
I would personally have preferred the cross makeup, but I am totally satisfied with what we all came up with. All in all, this has been an amazing experience to work with so many talented people, every single one of them just so pro and cool.
For my part, I mostly dealt with Scott McDaniel and it's been a pure pleasure.

Sooooooooo.
Hank Shermann, Michael Denner, Timi Hansen, King Diamond and Bjarne T. Holm re-recorded "Evil" for the Guitar Hero: Metallica videogame, August 2008. This lineup also recorded "Curse of the Pharaohs" in that same session.
We will make both of these songs available to all of you on iTunes. First though, we have to master them. We will start that process shortly. I can't give you an exact date for when they will be available at this point, but it should definitely be before the summer. I can't emphasize enough how fucking amazing they both turned out, but as I said, you will get the chance to judge for yourself in the near future.
So this was the full story behind what I've described as big news for quite a while, I hope you find these news as encouraging as we, Mercyful Fate, do ourselves.
I'll check around on the internet and see if I can clarify any questions you might have.

Major thanks and hail to Metallica and Activision for letting us be a part of this totally new adventure for us.


STAY HEAVY,

King Diamond

Hail to all of you!

As it might have come to your attention by now, Mercyful Fate will be a part of Guitar Hero: Metallica with the song "Evil".
This is part of the surprise I have earlier mentioned, but it's only a small part of the surprise.
Full details will follow when permitted.

Regarding the DVD projects, I am currently working on the King Diamond DVD projects myself, with Livia's help on programming.
It's really beginning to shape up, but as I'm sure some of you already know, I am faced with a very steep learning curve. We're dealing with very long files (5 camera multi camera edit for the one hour 35 minute long Copenhagen show from 1990), and editing is very time consuming.
As I mentioned, my back is continuously getting better, but 5 hours in front of the computer per day is the limit. We ARE working on this every single day, but it's impossible to estimate a release date at this point.
Right now this King Diamond DVD is the top priority to get finished.
Next will be to find and optimize at least 1 bonus video clip for each of the 4 remastered King Diamond albums ("Spider's Lullabye", The Graveyard", "Voodoo" and "House Of God").
THEN, we focus on doing the Mercyful Fate DVD. Once the Mercyful Fate DVD has been delivered to the record labels, I plan to invest in much better songwriting equipment and start working on new King Diamond / (Mercyful Fate???) material, and then we go from there.

The knowledge gained from working on these DVD projects myself, will hopefully come in very handy with regards to creating exciting bonus material for upcoming albums (such as story narrating in full makeup like on "The Puppet Master", footage from songwriting sessions, studio sessions, etc; all in all, some special insight into what goes on behind these walls, these thick black walls stuffed with demons and Grandmas... stop stop... I gotta stop... you get the picture).

This is the best update I can give you at this point.

Sorry for not being able to give you the full scope of our participation in the Guitar Hero: Metallica video game at this point.


Stay Heavy,

King Diamond.

Hail to all of you

King Diamond here. First of all, hope you had a nice Christmas and New Year's Eve.
I'm writing this in order to set the facts straight with regards to the interview I did for a danish newspaper just before Christmas.
When I read the article it became obvious that this particular journalist had an agenda of his own. At least half the article was false, twisting the facts to suit his "agenda".
First of all, Livia and I have no plans for having kids in the near future. We certainly love kids but it doesn't fit in our working schedule at this point. I don't know where the journalist got this thing from, but we do appreciate all the nice words you had regarding this subject even though it's not true. Also, Livia and I do not look forward to Christmas like little kids every year. It's a cozy time, sure, but again the journalist's choice of word are completely twisted.
Just for your info, the Christmas tree in the picture is THE ONLY Christmas decoration inside or outside our house and it stays up year round cause I don't want to bother taking it down and it looks pretty cool. Check the goat skull right next to the tree. I can see that if I open the door to my private life just a tiny bit, things quickly get twisted out of context, and that's why in the past I have always kept my private life and business very separate.

The second rumour that's floating around, which is that Mercyful Fate has started writing new material, I really have no idea where it originated from.
The present status of Mercyful Fate remains unchanged, meaning that we have not started writing new material. For that to happen, Mercyful Fate's recording contracts have to be renegotiated first. We certainly would love for this to happen so that we can finally make our long overdue "masterpiece". Both Hank and I are ready to go if that scenario presents itself, and who knows, that might happen this year.
So..... for this year, you will see a double DVD of old private King Diamond video recordings and a double DVD of old private Mercyful Fate video recordings which I am working on as we speak. Andy has finished remastering "The Graveyard", "Spider's Lullabye", "Voodoo", and "House of God", all of which should also be available this year. And then there is "the big surprise" (not little King babies with horns on their foreheads or Mercyful Fate writing new songs, at least not as we speak) but something that could lead to renegotiations of the Mercyful Fate recording deals. We'll see. Be patient.....

On a personal note, I do feel reasonably confident that the Mercyful Fate masterpiece will see the light of day.

Stay Heavy, you are the best!!

King Diamond




Regarding BellwitchMF's question on covenworldwide.org:

I doubt there would be a tour this year. My back is continuously getting better, but not yet to the point where it would be smart to go on the road. I would say there is 90% chance we'll be out on the road in 2010 with a new King Diamond album which I will start writing for when the DVD projects are done. Andy has told me he already has new material for at least 3 songs which I am looking very much forward to hear.
Hal Patino, Mike Wead and Matt Thompson are patiently waiting for the time when King Diamond will be back at full speed.
So it seems like the middle to latter part of this year will be very busy writing new material.

Stay Heavy,

King.

Hail!

Our newest music video "Give Me Your Soul" has been nominated for an MTV Music Video Award in the "Best Rock Video" category.

Please click on the link and vote!

MTV Music Video Awards, Best Rock Video category, King Diamond - Give Me Your Soul

Hurry, voting is over very soon!

Thank you!!

Stay Heavy,

King Diamond

Hail to you all!!

I can't remember when I last had this much fun!!!!!!!
What an honor to be invited by the four horsemen of Metallica to participate in their Ozzfest appearance.
It is too hard for me to put into words what this whole experience felt like and what it meant to me. All I can say is that I love those guys.
To Lars, James, Kirk, and Rob:
Seeing you again and doing what we did and the way we did it was one of the absolute highlights of my life. It meant SOOO MUCH to me. More than I can describe with words, but I'm sure you could tell.

It was an undescribable feeling to get the chance, after almost a year and a half of inactivity, to sing in front of an audience again.
After the appearance, Kirk's cousin Don (the miracle man), took a look at my back and really worked it over. He gave me some extremely valuable insight into my back-injury, and some very useful pointers for my continued healing process.
Thanks Don!!!!!!!!!
I also want to thank all the incredible people who work for Metallica for being the way you are.


Long Live Metal, Long Live METALLICA!!!!!!!!!


King Diamond




P.S.: Here is a link to the new Ozzfest pictures:  Ozzfest 2008

and:   Ozzfest 2008 (2)

Credit for the pictures goes to Laszlo, thank you!

Hail to all of you

Now that it's been made official, yes, I will participate in the tribute to Dimebag at Ozzfest. It's an honor to have been asked to participate, and my back is steadily getting better, definitely good enough for a short appearance, and it couldn't be for a better cause.
I live only 7 minutes by car from the soccer stadium where Ozzfest takes place, so there is no way in hell I would miss this opportunity to pay tribute to Dimebag.
I do have to say though, that my back is not yet fit to undertake a full King Diamond tour.
I know it sounds like I'm saying the same thing over and over "my back is steadily getting better", but let me assure you all that it is significantly better and really getting stronger and stronger week by week!!! There is nothing I'd rather do than get back on the road, but it has to be for good and not just for a week or two and then find out that we took a stupid chance by doing it too soon.

A few other good news:
Massacre Records have taken their option for another King Diamond album. Negotiations with Metal Blade Records to extend the King Diamond recording deal has been completed,and are practically ready to be signed. Further, contracts between King Diamond and Mercyful Fate, and Metal Blade Records and Massacre Records have been agreed upon and are almost ready to be signed for a double DVD of King Diamond and a double DVD of Mercyful Fate, consisting of mainly never before seen private recordings in very high quality (King Diamond 1986-1990; Mercyful Fate 1982-1984). If all goes well, the King Diamond DVD set might hit the stores before the end of this year and the Mercyful Fate DVD set would probably hit the stores early next year.

Another project we've been working on is to create remastered versions of "The Spider's Lullabye" + "The Graveyard" + "Voodoo" + "House Of God". Andy La Rocque is undertaking this project at his Sonic Train Studio in Sweden, and so far I have heard his version of "The Spider's Lullabye" and it kicks some serious ass. It was as if I was listening to a brand new album, it sounded exactly like it should have sounded back when it was released (we did not at that time master our albums ourselves, and let me tell you, they suffered by it). For the first time ever, I heard all the things we actually recorded (certain vocal harmonies and guitar overdubs; all the details are there now). In my opinion, this one is gonna be a MUST HAVE. You know I wouldn't say this if it wasn't true. Andy has just told me that the remastered version of "The Graveyard" is in the mail for my approval. Once I've listened to it, I'll let you know how it turned out.

There is another project in the making which I unfortunately cannot speak about yet. If it comes true though, it will be a very big thing for King Diamond/Mercyful Fate. It is not a new Mercyful Fate album or tour, but it is something that could be very big for us. It is more like being a part of someone else's VERY BIG project, and which can only be announced by them.

As you can probably see, I have not been lying on my back the entire time since I last wrote to you.

Before I finish, I sincerely want to thank you all for the unreal support you give us. You are by far THE BEST!!!

Stay Heavy,

King.