King Diamond: how heart surgery changed his voice

In a recent interview with Metal Injection, King Diamond revealed his 2010 heart surgery changed his voice forever.

In King Diamond‘s words:

“At a Volbeat show, about five months after the surgery, I had discovered that the metal rods had not completely fused with my rib cage to hold it together and it started shaking inside my chest. I thought I was dying. I couldn’t really run at that time, but I got out of there as fast as I could because I thought I was dying. Because of the loud sounds and vibrations, the sounds would vibrate this metal rod inside. So I expected something like that would happen while I was in San Francisco with Metallica. It was exactly one year after the operation. But it was firm. There was nothing happening. I was like ‘cool, I don’t have to fly home right now.’ Then we tried playing.

I had to change my technique of singing on the spot because I had a bigger lung capacity than before. I could take really giant breaths. So something changed because of the whole rearranging inside, so that has helped me, along with stopping cold turkey with smoking cigarettes. My voice came back. It was like, ‘here’s a new one if you want one.’ It feels like it’s better than when I recorded the “Abigail” and “Don’t Break The Oath” albums. The way I was singing them back then, I’m singing them stronger than I did back then.”