King Diamond reveals more about parting ways with Andy La Rocque

The leader of King Diamond discussed the band’s recent breakup with long-time guitarist Andy La Rocque and the acquisition of Greek guitar maestro Gus G (Firewind, ex-Ozzy Osbourne) in a recent interview with Frank Godla of Metal Injection, as per Blabbermouth. The singer made this statement about the events leading up to Andy’s departure from King Diamond.

We are certainly still friends. That’s never gonna change. I think it’s a gradual thing that’s just been going different directions for a while. And it got to a point where it’s just, like, ‘Okay, something has to change. It’s not right.’ I wish him and his wife all the best possible in the world. The whole thing about the other band that he plays with now [Lex Legion], the side project and stuff like that, it was never a part of any reasons for anything.

King continued by saying that the choice to split from Andy wasn’t taken in a hurry. King is also the frontman of the influential metal band Mercyful Fate.

When it was decided was over two days, [but] it [had] been coming for a while. And it’s not one thing or ‘you said this’ or ‘did this or that.’ It’s not like that. It really is like moving apart a little bit here, a bit there. And I had a feeling recently that when Andy heard the new touring plans and the new plans overall, that it was not something that was, ‘Yay,’ but more like, ‘Oh my God. Are you kidding me?’ I don’t think he likes touring that much as we’re doing now. I’ve seen that many times before, where Michael Denner stopped [playing with the band] because he could not handle touring. There was too much frictions at home whenever he did that. For him, he was missing it too much and all this stuff. I totally understand it. I think others — Chris Estes was the same. And Herb Simonsen… Most of those people that are not playing or stopped playing with us along the road was for that reason — family. We tour longer now these days, and we are gonna continue going that way because it’s very, very important.

Regarding how Gus was chosen to take Andy’s place, King stated this.

I talked to Hank and told him, and then he said, ‘You should check out Gus G’. And I did not know who Gus G was. Brian Slagel said to me, ‘Oh, Gus G, man.’ And then I didn’t respond to it because I wasn’t aware. So he was the second one recommending Gus to me. And then when we talked more about it and this and that, then I started listening and doing all the stuff that I got very interested, of course. He’s the first person we talked about for this. We never talked about having an audition or anything like that. We talked about him, and then got in depth about him because it seemed, ‘Wow, wait a minute here. Okay.’ Then I said to Brian Slagel, ‘Can you hook us up? Can you ask him if he would be okay with me calling him?’ or something like that.

King agreed that “some things are just meant to be” after Godla made the observation.

It really feels like it. You’re right. That’s really what it felt like the whole time, and that’s also why it doesn’t feel [like it’s] this horrible thing, because it’s something that is good for both me and Andy. And we played for 40 years. Think about it. It’s, like, crazy that you think about it has been that long.

King made this statement regarding Gus’s strategy for performing the King Diamond material.

First of all, he’s gonna copy Andy as close as he can [on the classic songs] and fully honor that. That’s what people want to hear and see. So, that’s one thing. But this is not like a hired hand. He’s in the band — 100%. And that’s why also he’s playing, recording, touring with us for as long as it works out — hopefully till we don’t play any longer. That’s what I hope. ‘Cause he’s so down to earth, so nice person, so skilled. He has the right attitude for getting the style correct with what I want. So we are already talking a lot. But I want him to play his own style, but it must also fit with what we’re doing. So [you’re] not gonna be hearing Gus, what he does with Firewind. It’ll be some of that, I’m sure, but there’ll be a new side of him that maybe he has not even explored himself. He might get into a new addition in his vast technique, because of how I put things together, what I might ask him to try and do.

King also responded to certain King Diamond fans’ worries about how the band’s sound on the next studio album might be impacted by such a significant lineup change.

Some people might think that, ‘Oh, Andy’s leaving now, It’s the songwriter [exiting the band]… What are they gonna do now?’ It’s, like, wait a minute. You’re forgetting something. I have written by far the most in King Diamond. Just the music I have written on an average 70%. And then all the lyrics. So, that’s an average through all the albums we’ve done together. And it’s kind of a natural thing, I guess, that it would be the guitarist or a keyboardist that wrote the music. But not with us. That was never the case.

I have enough for the first one and a half albums on King Diamond, on that story that’ll be [told] over [the next] three albums, of just my stuff, that is now musically ready to be recorded, fully written. Lyrics, I have the whole story, all three complete. Also up in my head I have what it will look on stage like. When we finish the last note on the third album on stage live, I know what it’ll look like there at this point already. So I’m very far with everything. But with regard to Gus, I also said to Mike Wead and to Pontus, ‘If you have something you feel like should be listened to, we can listen to it.’ I will always be writing the majority. That’s how it is. That style cannot be changed. But I said the same to Gus.

I said, ‘Well, I know you write music. I’ve listened to all your Firewind albums.’ I want him to write some of his own, but he wants to do something that was very nice for me to hear, that he wants to have me tell him the story as the first part to get into that mood, find out what kind of horror it is that’s going on, and then he wants to send some stuff to me. I can listen, I can pick and choose, if there’s anything that feels interesting to me, and then we’ll take it from there, see how we do that. If I suggest something for him to go try, he could go try that. Maybe write something together, this and this and that. But there’s open doors for this stuff.

King claims that King Diamond and Mercyful Fate are now working hard on new albums that will be released roughly a year apart.

I said to everybody, ‘I’m not gonna do one more show without us knowing that we have new albums out,’ both bands are in the studio, 100%, right now. And Mercyful Fate is the one that will get the tiny priority, because the deadline for Mercyful Fate is December [of 2026]. We have plenty of time. I mean, somebody has to break an arm or a leg or something like for that not to hold up. But we are far with the album.

We have worked for quite a while on these things. But that album will be finished by that time so that Metal Blade have all the time they need to get everything ready, including vinyl and everything. And then it’s supposed to be released, I would imagine, a good guess is May [of 2027]— somewhere around that, because Mercy start touring that brand-new album in Europe in the summer coming ’27. And then after that, going straight over and doing a U.S. tour in the autumn, I would imagine, from mid-October to mid-December, if everything goes well. The King Diamond album will be finished to be released when we leave for Europe to play with Mercyful Fate.

That album will just sit there and wait. We come back — it will be December ’27, probably, when Mercy is finished [touring]. Then we might do a little South American fling before King Diamond start touring in the spring [of 2028]. That’ll be late spring [of 2028] for the new album. I can imagine the new album could be out around April [of 2028]. Mid-April [of 2028] is when I see us start rehearsing in Europe for the tour, for a brand new full album. And so the tour will start probably five weeks before the festival season starts in June [of 2028]. And then we’ll go into the festival season by a month or something.

So we’ll be playing a bit over two months at that time in Europe. And then we need to get it back to the U.S. so we can get ready for a U.S. tour for that brand new album. And we have new stage productions for both bands. King Diamond is getting a really extra step up for when we go out with that. It’s gonna get even more, I would say, theatrical.