Fans eagerly awaiting new music from KING DIAMOND may need to remain patient a little longer, as guitarist Andy La Rocque has revealed that work on the band’s long-promised horror trilogy is still ongoing.
Speaking in a new interview with Peter Kerr of Rock Daydream Nation, La Rocque offered an update on the first installment of the trilogy, Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920, and explained where things currently stand.
Asked whether fans can expect the album anytime soon, Andy said: “That’s a question to [KING DIAMOND‘s namesake frontman] King [Diamond]. As you probably heard, we’ve been working on that for ages. But my part of it is that back in 2022, I had a bunch of songs, pre-production with the right recording guitars, some keyboards from [early KING DIAMOND collaborator] Roberto Falcao, actually. I asked him to do a few things on my songs.
“So I had, like, eight songs that I sent off to all the members in the band — pretty much ready to start recording, with vocals and the real proper drums and bass from Pontus [Egberg, KING DIAMOND bassist] and stuff, even though I played some bass on it, and [I used a] drum machine [for the demos] and all that stuff, just like a guideline. And we talked about it, and King wanted to use, like, three of those songs. And so I guess now he’s finishing up his part of it, which is gonna be, like, five or six songs on the album. So that’s what we’re waiting for.”
The guitarist had previously discussed the progress of the album during an appearance on the Heavy Demons radio show last year, revealing that recording sessions had already begun before the band’s U.S. tour.
At the time, he said: “We started to record things before the last U.S. tour. And we still have a lot of things to record, so we’re working on that too, and we’re gonna continue with that as soon as the European tour is over. So, we’ve been really busy with everything.”
La Rocque also gave an in-depth look at KING DIAMOND’s intricate and collaborative songwriting process. “I pretty much come up with a complete demo with a programmed drum track and some keyboards on and some rhythm guitars,” he explained. “I try to make my demos as complete as possible — sometimes even with some solos that we can use on the album — and the right guitar and keyboard sounds too.”
The process varies when it comes to tracks written by King Diamond himself. “[He’s] a little more basic with a few of the things,” La Rocque said. “For example, the guitars — he lets me re-record the guitars. Then I put solo on, and then Pontus [Egberg, bass] puts the bass on and all that stuff. It’s a little bit different, but it’s quite complete anyway.”
From there, the demos are sent to other band members, who record their parts individually in home studios. “Matt [Thompson, drums] has his own recording studio in Dallas,” La Rocque noted. “So when he gets the demo, he just mutes the drums, puts his drums on, and sends it to me so I can fix the drums and set up a good sound. Same with the bass player and Mike [Wead, guitarist] — kind of the same procedure.”
Once the instrumental tracks are finalized, King Diamond records his vocals — but the creative process doesn’t end there. “We can go in and change a few things too,” La Rocque added. “If something needs to be added or changed — a rhythm part, a solo — we can do that whenever. So it’s a pretty creative procedure.”
While fans continue waiting for Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920, KING DIAMOND has offered a few previews of what’s to come in recent years. In December 2024, the band released the studio version of the song “Spider Lilly,” marking its first mixing collaboration with producer Arthur Rizk, who also mastered the track.
A year earlier, in October 2023, the band unveiled the music video for “Masquerade Of Madness,” directed by David Brodsky and Allison Woest of My Good Eye Visuals.
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