Legendary metal frontman King Diamond was recently asked about the time that KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons almost sued him over his facepaint.
In a new talk with Metal Hammer, King Diamond was asked by a fan: “Gene Simmons sued you for allegedly ripping off his makeup. Have you bumped into him since?”
“No, I haven’t,” King Diamond replied. “I think that would be a lot of fun. I have no outstanding stuff with him. There’s a lot of reasons why this happened: [KISS] dropped their makeup around this time, but they still had the copyright on the look. I was never influenced by them – my influences were Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper. I said, ‘I don’t have a lot of money that you can sue me for, but you have a lot of money that other people can sue you for.’ They were not the first to wear makeup. It never got to be a lawsuit, it just got stirred up.”
King Diamond and MERCYFUL FATE played their first show in 23 years in Germany last week, and also premiered the new song, “The Jackal of Salzburg.”
King Diamond recently said of the new track: “It’s quite a monster, I would say. It’s almost nine minutes long. So, it’s not just a quick little [song]. We hope we can play it. We’re gonna do everything in our power to play it. It’s not recorded yet. So whatever version we might play for you could change before it is fully recorded. Some drums have been recorded — that’s what I can say.
“But we will do our damnedest to play it. We [may] put it early in the set, even. But that’s something to look forward to… Now we’ve gotta make it sound correct, ’cause the early demo versions have lots of stuff on it that create a certain mood in the whole thing, which we can’t do [live]. The live version will be different. I can’t do the backing vocals, naturally, that is intended for the song. But that’s also a challenge, to do a version that works live… It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be heavy.”
You can check out MERCYFUL FATE‘s performance of “The Jackal of Salzburg” below.
