King Diamond
Explore the band's historical lineups, musicians, and studio albums.
Active8 formations12 studio albums
Formation chronology
Newest first
Formation 8 of 8
Jul 24, 2026 – Present
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Gus G.Guitar
- Mike WeadGuitar
- Pontus EgbergBass
- Matt ThompsonDrums
Formation facts
- Hal Patino left in July 2014, and Pontus Egberg took over on bass. Egberg's first show was July 25 at Gröna Lund in Stockholm. He stayed on through the long stretch that followed, while the band completed no new studio album.
- On July 24, 2026, King Diamond and Andy LaRocque announced that they had mutually decided to part ways after 40 years. Gus G. joined as guitarist that same day. King said Gus would compose, record, and tour with the band from then on. Pontus Egberg stayed on bass.
Formation 7 of 8
2000 – Jul 2014
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Mike WeadGuitar
- Hal PatinoBass
- Matt ThompsonDrums
Formation facts
- Abigail II: The Revenge happened because fans would not let the first story go. King has said so many people kept asking for another album with that complexity that the sequel was finally made. He also said he already felt there was much more of Abigail he could write.
- On a day off in Budapest in 1999, while Mercyful Fate was out with Metallica, King walked the old streets and came across the National Puppet Theatre. He wondered what it was like inside. Back at the hotel he spent that night writing ideas on the hotel notepad, which he still kept years later. Those notes became The Puppet Master.
- After heart surgery, King returned to the stage at Metallica's 30th-anniversary celebration. On December 7, 2011, at the Fillmore in San Francisco, he sang with Mercyful Fate on the second of those shows. It was his first public performance since the surgery.
- The video for Masquerade of Madness almost disappeared, even though the song did not. King said the band filmed it in a day during 2019 tour rehearsals, then COVID arrived and the footage was all but forgotten. They never saw a frame of it until years later, when the finished video finally appeared in 2023.
- The Spider Lilly video used a real place. Part of it was filmed at Pennhurst Asylum, outside Philadelphia, on a travel day two days before Halloween during the band's North American tour. King called the shoot a dark but great experience.
Studio albums
- Give Me Your Soul... Please (Jun 2007)
- The Puppet Master (Oct 2003)
- Abigail II: The Revenge (Jan 2002)
Formation 6 of 8
1999 – 2000
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Glen DroverGuitar
- David HarbourBass
- John Luke HebertDrums
Formation facts
- A real wolf named Angel sat inside House of God. King had her from the time she was a puppy, and when she needed a different life he had to give her up. He later said that sad goodbye is the feeling in the album's love story, and that Goodbye is the day he let her go. In the story the wolf became a girl who kept the name Angel.
- King found the setting of House of God in a travel magazine. The article described Rennes-le-Château and a church with the words "This place is terrible" inscribed above the door. He had not been there. He later said that strange place was where the story should happen.
Studio albums
- House of God (Jun 2000)
Formation 5 of 8
1997 – 1998
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Herb SimonsenGuitar
- Chris EstesBass
- John Luke HebertDrums
Formation facts
- A bad car accident left Darrin Anthony unable to drum, and John Luke Hebert stepped in. King later said a lot of Voodoo's harder, more precise feel had to do with the new drummer: in rehearsal Hebert played the older songs so accurately that a 1987 piece sounded like 1987 again. King also credited the recent tour and the move to Nomad Recording Studios, so Hebert was one part of that turn.
- The horror story on Voodoo started with reading, not a trip to a ritual. King asked the bassist, who was working at a nearby university, to bring him library books on voodoo. He read about its spiritual side, unwritten laws, curses, and burial customs, including the belief that the dead are fed and that food and wine are left at graves. He said he had never attended a ritual himself.
Studio albums
- Voodoo (Feb 1998)
Formation 4 of 8
1994 – 1996
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Herb SimonsenGuitar
- Chris EstesBass
- Darrin AnthonyDrums
Formation facts
- Andy LaRocque has described The Spider's Lullabye as one of the hardest King Diamond albums to make. The rhythm section was new, the band was recording in the United States with a different producer, and about four years had passed since The Eye. He said everything felt new, and that the old chemistry was hard to find again.
- Some of The Graveyard reached back to a tape King had forgotten. He later said three guitar riffs on that album came from a 1987 demo of himself playing alone in his Copenhagen apartment. He did not name the songs those riffs became.
- The Graveyard became difficult even for the people making it. King said that while writing the lyrics he had to stop and walk away, because getting inside the perpetrator's mind was the hard part. The first time Andy LaRocque and engineer Tim Kimsey heard the girl's scream, both went silent. The scream stayed, because it frightened everyone who heard it.
Studio albums
- The Graveyard (Oct 1996)
- The Spider's Lullabye (Jun 1995)
Formation 3 of 8
1989 – 1990
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Pete BlakkGuitar
- Hal PatinoBass
- Snowy ShawDrums
Formation facts
- Snowy Shaw's job began as a drunken Christmas remark, not a formal hire. Mikkey Dee, home from Los Angeles and drinking, told Shaw he was going to quit and that Shaw should take the drum chair. Shaw assumed it was the alcohol talking. A couple of months later Pete Blakk returned, said the Los Angeles auditions had not found a drummer, and offered Shaw the job for real.
- The Eye was not invented as pure horror fiction. King's notes for the album say the main part of the story is unfortunately true, drawn from French witch persecutions between 1450 and 1670, and that people such as Madeleine Bavent were real. The necklace that lets a witness see those events is the album's own frame.
- Listeners argued for years that the drums on The Eye were a machine. Snowy Shaw later said it was not a drum machine. He played electronic pads, and some parts were programmed because King insisted and there had been almost no time to rehearse.
Studio albums
- The Eye (Oct 1990)
Formation 2 of 8
1988 – 1989
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Pete BlakkGuitar
- Hal PatinoBass
- Mikkey DeeDrums
Formation facts
- The opening drum figure in Welcome Home started on a bad night. Mikkey Dee later said his girlfriend put him out of the apartment, so he went to the rehearsal room drunk, played around four in the morning, and slept on his drum riser. The next morning he found the reel-to-reel, reversed part of what he had played, and suggested it as the start of the song. He said the beat would not have existed if that night had not happened.
- After "Them", Mikkey Dee left the regular lineup, then came back to record Conspiracy as a session drummer. Snowy Shaw later said that more than 40 drummers had already failed to replace Dee by the time Shaw was offered the job. Shaw did not play on Conspiracy.
- The music-box chime that opens and closes "Them" is one King had as a child. It is the same small sound at both ends of the record.
Studio albums
- Conspiracy (Aug 1989)
- "Them" (Jul 1988)
Formation 1 of 8
1985 – 1987
Members
- King DiamondVocals
- Andy LaRocqueGuitar
- Michael DennerGuitar
- Timi HansenBass
- Mikkey DeeDrums
Formation facts
- King and Michael Denner started No Presents for Christmas as a joke. King later recalled stumbling onto a Christmas tune, with Denner playing along and suggesting a Christmas single just for fun, to show they were not only a serious heavy metal band. The joke came out heavy, and it became the band's first release.
- Andy LaRocque got into the band by a direct studio test. Mikkey Dee called him to Copenhagen, the band asked him to play a solo on Dressed in White, and they recorded it. The same afternoon, they told him he was in.
- A violent thunderstorm in Denmark woke King, and he started writing instead of going back to sleep. He made coffee and kept going through the night as the characters and the possession story of Abigail took shape. He later said about 75 percent of the storyline came together overnight, the only time that much of a record had arrived in a single night.
- A fan sent King a photograph of an old headstone. He later said he took the name Abigail, and the date July 7, 1777, from that stone, and he believes the picture came from a graveyard in Seattle. Those details entered the mythology of Abigail. The story around them was his.
Studio albums
- Abigail (May 1987)
- Fatal Portrait (Mar 1986)