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Music

King Diamond

KING DIAMOND with JESS AND THE ANCIENT ONES at Sound Academy (11 Polson), Saturday (October 18), doors 8 pm, all ages. $48.50. IE, RT, TF.


Look up photos from last year’s Wacken Festival and you’ll see the current King Diamond tour in its full glory: inverted crosses hanging from high rafters, side drops that stretch from floor to ceiling, candles and clouds of fog, a cremation scene set in a coffin, a pentagram centred above a wrought-iron-railed balcony on which the black-and-white-face-painted heavy metal legend prowls and unleashes his legendary falsetto.

On the phone from his home in Texas, King – born Kim Bendix Petersen in Copenhagen in 1956 – gets audibly excited when asked about the production. Nerdily excited. “The whole thing is two storeys tall,” he says, Danish accent thick, tone gracious even though it’s his 16th interview of the day. “The balcony goes up 5 or 6 metres. The depth is 1 metre. The backdrop is 7 metres tall and 11 metres wide.”

He goes on and on – listing these measurements takes up half of our interview time. But his familiarity with the numbers speaks to his level of involvement in and commitment to the project, 30 years after its inception. The band remains a DIY venture. They have never had a manager, and last year King brokered a three-album record deal with Metal Blade pretty much on his own.

Despite triple bypass surgery in 2010, he sounds completely pumped. He’s just built a studio in his home where he can rehearse with the band pre-tour and record vocals – “40-voice choir parts if I want!” – for the upcoming 13th King Diamond album, which doesn’t have a release date yet. (A double album best-of collection, Dreams Of Horror, comes out in November.) He’s psyched to learn Pro Tools once he gets home.

And he’s up on current music, like Ghost, the similarly face-painted, occult-loving Swedish band that often cite Mercyful Fate, King’s previous band, as an influence. King thinks they sound much more like Blue Öyster Cult, though. “I think Ghost have some good stuff, but they don’t sound like us. They aren’t extreme in any way,” he says.

Blue Öyster Cult, actually, are responsible for King Diamond’s existence. At their concert in Copenhagen in 1976 (also attended by members of Thin Lizzy – from whom a 20-year-old King got autographs while they stood at the bar), he saw a laser onstage for the first time. It set his imagination on fire.

“It definitely [impacted what I wanted to do]. I know what it feels like to see something inspiring. When our intro starts and that black front drop goes down and you see the set for the first time? The symbol hanging over, the blowing candles. It gives me goose bumps while I’m standing there about to go on. I think most people get goose bumps. This is power, and it’s dark.”

carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis

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