After wrapping their fall 2024 U.S. tour, King Diamond had every intention of jumping straight into recording the first installment of their new horror-themed trilogy, Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920. But things didn’t quite go as planned. Speaking with Finland’s Chaoszine (via Blabbermouth), longtime guitarist Andy La Rocque opened up about the delays and what fans can now expect.
“Right after the [fall 2024] U.S. tour, we talked about, ‘Okay, let’s just take a short break and we start working on the next few songs right away,’ because we have most of the songs like a demo thing of most of the songs,” he explained. “But then we had some issues with… I’m not gonna go into that, but there were some diseases, people were sick for a long time, and then the time just ran out kind of thing. And then we had to start planning the European tour [for the summer of 2025]. It’s, like, ‘Wow.’ We now will, after going back from this European summer tour, we will just have a short break and then go back into recording the stuff.”
Though the recording schedule has been disrupted, progress has been made, especially when it comes to the storyline and lyrics. According to La Rocque, King Diamond has a clear vision.
“King has got all the ideas in his head. A lot of lyrics are already done. He’s got everything in his head. A lot of small Post-it notes everywhere with lyric lines and stuff like that. The whole story is pretty much there. So we just need to start recording the music in a proper way. And we’ve got demos of a lot of things. I mean, I think I have seven or eight songs kind of already. Demo needs to change, drums need to change, a few things, we could use that. But King also has a lot of ideas and songs. So we’ll see how many of my songs will end up on the album — maybe three, maybe four. I don’t know. We’ll see. But we have a lot of music, that’s for sure.”
The creative process remains collaborative, if a bit nonlinear. “I would say me and King write the music. That’s how we want it to be,” La Rocque noted. “And we try to write it as completely as possible when we present it to each other. Sometimes it’s not complete — it’s like a guitar riff, maybe a click track or a drum machine. And sometimes it is kind of complete, except that we need real drums on it because usually on the demos it’s like a programmed drum machine, things like that.”
La Rocque also fills in on other instruments when needed: “Sometimes I play the bass, and we want Pontus Egberg to play the bass, of course, but for the demos to get the complete picture of what we want. And also I try to make as much of the keyboards as possible too. And same with King.”
They often go back and forth with feedback. “King can call me and say, ‘I think you should just take that part out or double that section because that’s really good.’ So that’s how we work out things. And maybe I can tell him, like, ‘That solo section or that section of the song is really good to play a solo on, so maybe we can use that instead of what yet have.’ Things like that, arrangement-wise.”
Some songs are already out in the wild. Two new tracks—”electro therapy” and “spider lilly”—were debuted live during the 2024 U.S. tour. “We were kind of done with these songs. That’s why we decided to try to play them live and see how it works out. And that’s what we did,” La Rocque said. “So, for example, ‘spider lilly’ is gonna be on the album. And we play that live. And it’s also released on video. So, yeah, that’s how we do it. We don’t have to wait for a whole album. We thought, ‘We need to put out something now for the fans.'”
One notable change in the upcoming record is a deliberate shift toward a more natural, human sound. “Not really. That’s what we don’t do this time around. We don’t do a lot of tweaks to it,” La Rocque emphasized when asked if the band would be digitally polishing the tracks. “It’s organic also in the way of the playing is not like copied and pasted, stuff like that. It’s a more relaxed play. And there might be some things you hear that are like, ‘Oh, yeah…’ We’re gonna keep that…”
He continued: “Because that’s what we had back in the ’80s, too, when we recorded an album. Everything wasn’t perfect — more organic, and not everything triggered and sounded like everyone else. But we want a more acoustic, kind of more of the acoustic drums, and stuff like that, to make it a little bit more organic. It doesn’t have to be perfect everywhere. It’s good, but some things might not be a hundred percent, only 99.99, you know what I’m saying? But that’s also to make everything like a more loose or organic feel to it. Of course it’s gonna be good. We don’t release anything that we’re not happy with.”
If everything goes according to plan, the wait for Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920 won’t last much longer. “We have been talking about having it recorded before Christmas. That’s the plan we have. Then if someone gets sick or whatever happens, then if that’s not the case, we’ll see. But that’s the plan we have. We have to record everything by Christmas. So that means it’s coming out next spring.”
As for a supporting tour, nothing is nailed down yet. “I don’t know. Maybe next fall [we will be back on the road]. I don’t know yet. We don’t really have any plans with that yet. We’ll see. When the album’s done, we’re gonna start working on a new cycle, so that includes touring. But hopefully, yes.”
For now, King Diamond is back on the road in Europe, with their spring/summer 2025 tour having kicked off June 4 at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden.
