King Diamond’s guitarist, Andy La Rocque, recently spoke with Finland's Chaoszine about the band's eagerly anticipated new horror trilogy, starting with the album Saint Lucifer's Hospital 1920. The project faced setbacks due to unexpected health issues within the group. La Rocque explained (via Blabbermouth), that right after finishing their fall 2024 U.S. tour, they intended to dive straight into working on new songs, but their plans were disrupted by unforeseen circumstances
"Right after the 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. 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. 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."
Despite these delays, Andy said the groundwork is firmly laid out, especially concerning lyrics, courtesy of the band's iconic frontman, King Diamond himself.
"He’s 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.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."
He elaborated further about the duo’s songwriting dynamic, indicating a collaborative, iterative approach: "I would say me and King write the music. That's how we want it to be. 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."
"Sometimes I play the bass, and we want Pontus Egberg to play the bass, of course, but to get the complete picture of what we want. And also I try to make as much of the keyboards as possible too," he added.
Regarding track selection and refinement, Andy emphasized their openness to suggestions from one another: "King can call me and say, 'I think you should just take that part out or double that section because that's really good.' … 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.'"
We already had a taste of the upcoming album through live performances of new tracks such as "Electro Therapy" and "Spider Lilly," with Andy confirming: "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. 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.'"
As for the album's sonic character, Andy once again stressed a deliberate move towards a more natural, less polished approach reminiscent of the band's early years: "Not really. That's what we don't do this time around. We don't do a lot of tweaks to it. It's organic also in the way of the playing is not like copied and pasted, stuff like that. It's more relaxed play."
"There might be some things you hear that are like, 'Oh, yeah…' We're gonna keep that… 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."
As for when Saint Lucifer's Hospital 1920 might arrive, La Rocque offered a tentative timeline: "We have been talking about we have to have 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."
Touring in support of the album is still being mapped out, though something could materialize in late 2025.
"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."
Meanwhile, King Diamond recently kicked off their spring/summer 2025 European tour at the Sweden Rock Festival, marking a new chapter in anticipation of the album we have been waiting forever for.
