THE BEAST

KING DIAMOND is preparing to enter the studio to begin writing and recording the long-awaited follow-up to 2007's "Give Me Your Soul... Please" album. The band is also putting the finishing touches on the Blu-ray and DVD filmed during KING DIAMOND's 2015-2016 "Abigail In Concert" tour.

KING DIAMOND's singer and namesake spoke about the group's plans for the coming months during a March 29 appearance on Eddie Trunk's SiriusXM radio show. He said: "As soon as the DVD is finished — it'll be a matter of two or three weeks — [KING DIAMOND guitarist Andy La Rocque] is showing up here [in Frisco, Texas] to initiate my home studio where I'm gonna do all the vocals for a brand new KING DIAMOND studio album."

Although the music for the next KING DIAMOND disc is far from completed, the storyline is "about 80 percent done," according to King. "There's some very unique things I'm putting into it this time where you will relate to some of the sounds you hear on it, 'cause it's sounds that you will hear on certain days in your private life," he said. "You're outdoors, or whatever, and you might hear certain sounds and you will, guaranteed, think, if you heard the album, 'I wonder if that thing King talked about could have happened when I heard that sound here.'"

After recently signing with 5B Artist Management, the company that represents SLIPKNOT and MEGADETH, among other acts, King said that 2019 will likely see KING DIAMOND "playing more shows than we might have ever played in a year in our career. And that has a lot to do with new management and a great booking agent and record label — everybody around us is really doing a great job of trying to put a whole lot of things together that would never have been possible the way we were doing things up until now where we have done everything ourselves. I know 5B was very surprised that we had gotten to where we were without having management ever," he added. "We had to learn the hard way all the time. But it's nice to have the knowledge, and now it's great to see some people that have the power to open doors that we cannot open ourselves."

According to King, the forthcoming Blu-ray and DVD will contain two full KING DIAMOND concerts — one recorded at an indoor venue in 2015 in Philadelphia and other at the outdoor Graspop Metal Meeting festival in 2016 in Belgium.

"The way we recorded it, the way it's been edited is very unique," King said. "I don't think our fans will have seen anything like it ever before. On the entire tour — both tours — we recorded ourselves [using] nine GoPros [cameras] every night, placed in different places: in a coffin, on lanterns we used [around the stage], grandma's wheelchair had a thing on it, on guitars and railings… It was everywhere; we didn't even know where they were until after [we saw them]. And there was 25 shows that we did it to. And then the two shows we did with nine pro cameras on top of it."

At this point, King and his team are "98 percent done" editing and mixing the Philadelphia show, "and it has blown my mind," he said. "Every time I watch a few songs from it, I see new things I didn't see before."

Andy said in a 2017 interview that he was "pretty sure" KING DIAMOND's next album would once again be a concept record. As for the disc's musical direction, the guitarist said: "I don't really know yet, because we don't really have the songs yet. Whatever comes to mind, I believe. It's probably gonna be a good mix of everything. Probably, I would say, a classic KING DIAMOND album, with a good sound."

According to Andy, he and King Diamond will jointly produce the band's next album. "And then we'll see what's happening, depending on what way we're gonna go with it," he said. "But King's got his own home studio set up, so he's gonna record all the vocals back him, in his cellar — black and dark, of course, with spiders and bones and skulls."

The "Abigail In Concert 2015" tour saw KING DIAMOND performing the classic 1987 album "Abigail" in its entirety.

KING DIAMOND in 2002 released an album called "Abigail II: The Revenge", which was said to feature a storyline that was the sequel to the original "Abigail" LP. via Blabbermouth