Andy La Rocque on why he is no longer a 120mph soloist – and we can expect from the long-awaited King Diamond album
Once he finally opens it up to the public, King Diamond's Saint Lucifer's Hospital 1920 album is going to be insane.
It's been a few years since the Danish occult-metal icon started talking up this much-anticipated project – which will be his eponymous band's first full-length release since 2007's Give Me Your Soul…Please. The famously falsetto-flying frontman first teased its storyline around a supernatural asylum when he dropped the Masquerade of Madness single in 2019.
Though Saint Lucifer's Hospital 1920 has been inching along in the background since then, the launching of King Diamond's tour last fall showed great promise for the project when the group debuted two brand-new bangers at their opening date in San Antonio – Spider Lilly, a phantasmagoric prog-metal slam propelled by a pinch-squealing walkdown riff from longtime guitarist Andy LaRocque, and a chugging creeper called Electro Therapy.
LaRocque says both songs are part of their developing concept record about 'this place where you kind of end up between life and death,' an oddly prescient parallel to a record seemingly caught up in production purgatory. But when it came to Spider Lilly, which features neo‑classically sculpted and shredded solos from LaRocque and co-guitarist Mike Wead (the latter also performing with the King in equally evil-sounding metal greats Mercyful Fate), the song actually came together quickly.
'King presented the idea of Spider Lilly maybe a week before we left,' LaRocque says from an Atlanta tour stop, adding that the full band – which also features bassist Pontus Egberg and drummer Matt Thompson – cut the track between their respective home studios before hitting the road. The guitarist recently gave it a rough mix from his Sonic Train facility in Varberg, Sweden.
'We have about four songs more or less recorded,' LaRocque says of the broader progress. 'As soon as we get back from the tour, we're going to pick that up again and really work it out. Once we have the arrangements, it's only going to take us a few days to record. We'll send King a basic rough mix, and he can start doing the vocals.'
Before we behold the full bedlam of King Diamond's next album, LaRocque discusses 40 years of making exquisitely ghoulish horror-metal alongside the face-painted metal royal, the guitarist's new signature shred-machine and more.
Some parts are going back to Fatal Portrait and Abigail when it comes to the riffing style, but it's also going to be totally different from what you've ever heard from us before
You and King have mentioned over the past few years that these next songs would be, in some form, a return to the earliest King Diamond records. What elements from the past did you want to tap back into?
'It's mainly to get that organic sound back, where everything doesn't have to be… placed perfectly in time, or even in pitch. There's got to be some rock 'n' roll to it. [Laughs] If you listen to an album that's totally perfect, it gets boring. We wanted to make an album where it's a little bit more alive, like it was in the Eighties.
'We're trying to avoid the stiffness of the albums of the Nineties and early 2000s. Really, we're just trying to loosen it up a little bit. Then again, we also had a talk about going back to the roots with the songwriting. Some parts are going back to Fatal Portrait and Abigail when it comes to the riffing style, but it's also going to be totally different from what you've ever heard from us before.'
You're nearly 40 years into your partnership with King. What do you recall about linking up with him during the Fatal Portrait sessions, and coming into the band after they'd already started making the album?
When I came down to the studio and first heard all the songs, I was blown away. The horror feel… I'd always been into that – Kiss, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath
'That was a really cool thing. I knew [drummer] Mikkey Dee from Gothenburg, where we both lived; we'd been jamming together back in '83-84. And then when he joined King Diamond, I thought, 'Hey, this is really cool!' They were in the studio for about two weeks [in 1985] when Mikkey called me and said, 'The guitarist didn't really work out for us, so I think you need to come down and meet the guys.'
'I was working in a music store at the time, so the same day I called my boss and said, 'Hey, I really gotta do this. I have to quit.' The next day I left for Copenhagen with my Marshall head and my guitar, and I met the guys at [Sound Track Studio]. I listened to a few of the songs, and then later in the afternoon they asked me to audition on a song called Dressed in White.
'I played along a few times, worked out a solo and recorded it, and then they had a meeting. After an hour or so, they said, 'Welcome to the band!' That was a great moment. That solo was the first thing I ever did for King Diamond.'
You shaped that solo, but ultimately the bones of those songs were already there. Do you have a different relationship with Fatal Portrait as compared to anything from Abigail onwards, because of that?
'I guess a little bit. It was [mostly] written by the time I came down to the studio. The only thing left, I believe, were the vocals and solos from me and [former King Diamond/Mercyful Fate guitarist] Michael Denner. But when I came down to the studio and first heard all the songs, I was blown away. The horror feel… I'd always been into that – Kiss, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath. That, mixed with Dracula and Frankenstein movies. That was a totally cool thing to me.'
Before joining King Diamond, had you been involved in any projects that went for that grand, theatrical presentation?
'No, it was mostly local bands. My first show with King Diamond was in Copenhagen a couple of days before Christmas 1985. At that time, we'd gotten our first stage set, which was not as grand as what we have now… but it was still epic! We had parts of an old castle up there, and little gates. People were freaking out over the show.'
What's your setup on this latest tour, and how different is it compared to that first show?
'Back then, I had two Marshall cabinets, a 50-watt Marshall JMP head and an Ibanez Tube Screamer. That was about it. Very basic, but that's what you had in the Eighties. Nowadays, me and Mike are doing the Neural DSP Quad Cortex, which is really convenient because you can do your own captures.
'I had a Marshall head and cabinet in the studio, a really good microphone in front of the cab and an overdrive from a Swedish company called ZETA – great pedal, kind of like an aggressive Tube Screamer. I did a capture of that with the Neural, and that's what we are using live. I've got the Neural and an analog wah pedal. No cabs. Everything is coming out of the wedges and the PA.'
How about guitar-wise? You're an ESP player at the moment, right?
'I love ESPs. I was with Dean at the time, but I tried one of Mike's ESPs around 2015 and was like, 'This is exactly the neck I want.' So I talked to Chris Cannella, who worked for ESP at the time, and he hooked me up. Right now, I'm with LTD, which is also owned by ESP.
'I'm actually playing a prototype of a guitar that will be my new signature model. That's going to be released sometime [in 2025], I believe. It's based on a Horizon. One single coil, a Seymour Duncan STK-S6 and one JB Humbucker. With a Floyd Rose.
'The cool thing is it's not the Strat scale; it actually has the Les Paul scale, which is a little shorter. It's 24.75' instead of 25.5'. I feel more comfortable with the shorter scale; it's easier to play this way. When I presented the idea to ESP, they were like, 'We can't believe we didn't do this earlier!' I just love it.'
This tour has introduced new material, but what are some of the older songs you're excited to be playing again after five years off the road?
'We start with Arrival from Abigail, which is a great song. I would say some other favorites would be Sleepless Nights or Eye of the Witch. We also do Welcome Home into Invisible Guests, which are really intense songs to play back to back. You really have to be focused when you play those leads. They're just crazy, the things we came up with in the Eighties.'
What side of your technique are they pushing the most?
'You have to be an acrobat to play some of those solos. They're just very intense and fast and all over the neck. Some whammy bar things. They're not laid-back, bluesy solos at all. You've got to keep your tongue in your mouth to be able to pull it off.'
How has your philosophy on solos changed since the Eighties?
'Back then you thought you had to compete with all the other guys, in a weird way. You were listening to Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert… all kinds of crazy-fast players. And you tried to keep up with them. Over the years, though, you start to feel more relaxed and confident with everything. It doesn't have to be 120mph. Parts of it can be fast and flashy, but a basic melodic structure is so much more important to me now than it was back then.'
You said there are four new songs recorded. Does the band have an arrival time in mind for the next album?
We're going to do some festivals in Europe next summer, so everything has to be recorded and done before we do that, that's for sure
'We're going to do some festivals in Europe next summer, so everything has to be recorded and done before we do that, that's for sure. We're still working on some of the other stuff we have. It's going to be eight or nine songs on the album, I believe.'
You're touring with King Diamond again, and you've got the record in the works. How has this affected the flow of your job producing and engineering out of Sonic Train?
'It hasn't ever been a problem, because the people that come into the studio absolutely understand that I'm a touring musician, too. [Sonic Train] has never really been a conflict with what we're doing with King Diamond. I know I'm going to be busy with King Diamond for the next year, so I'm not making lots of plans in the studio right now.'
King Diamond are touring Europe from June. See King Diamond for dates and ticket details.
This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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