Last year, King Diamond released a best of compilation called Dreams Of Horror and fans started asking for a new album instead. Now it seems that their wishes are finally being granted as the band will begin working on the successor of Give Me Your Soul... Please (2007). In a recent interview with Full Metal Jackie's radio show, the legendary frontman King Diamond talked about the new album and explained that the heavy metal band will start writing after they finish the ongoing Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival 2015. He doesn't want to rush anything but vows it will be their best work ever.

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Source:	metalinjection.net
Band profile:	King Diamond

After bassist Hal Patino was fired earlier this year, now Swedish bassist Pontus Egberg has officially joined the legendary metallers King Diamond. Egberg (The Poodles, Dark Illusion, Lion's Share) played his first show with King Diamond on July 25th at Gröna Lund in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

The iconic heavy metal band King Diamond just announced the release of Dreams Of Horror, described as the only "best of" album covering the band's entire career. King Diamond and Andy LaRocque meticulously mastered and enhanced these 23 songs into the ultimate editions, chosen by the band from both the Roadrunner and Metal Blade catalogs. To whet your appetite a little, listen to "The Puppet Master" from disc 2 of Dreams Of Horror here where you can also per-order the release.

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Source:	metalblade.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

Jess And The Ancient Ones was Staff picked as the best hard rock album back in 2012, and now Jess And The Ancient Ones are enjoying the attention of King Diamond. The band was picked by the man himself to support King Diamond on their North American tour. Some arenas are already sold out. In other news, the band has recorded two new songs which are to be released on November 15th on 10" vinyl. You can stream the song "Castaneda" below.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Jess And The Ancient Ones

Danish heavy metal veterans King Diamond announced that bass player Hal Patino is no longer part of the group. As it was officially stated, Hal has been fired from the band for the second time (the first time was in 1990). He was part of the group between 1987 and 1990, and again from 2000 till recently. Below you can read the short statement from the frontman King Diamond, regarding this departure.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

King Diamond has confirmed what has been rumored for several weeks: the band will return to North America for a full tour this Fall! The tour will begin on October 11 in Atlanta, GA , and will wrap up with the previously announced performance at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, TX. Tickets will be on sale online and at box offices nationwide on Friday, June 27th. Check out the dates below the official tour flyer.

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Source:	metalblade.com
Band profile:	King Diamond
Event:	King Diamond: North American Tour 2014

Heavy metal legends King Diamond have confirmed an appearance at this year's Fun Fun Fun Fest taking place in November in Austin, Texas. This is the band's first scheduled North American appearance since 2005 and will include their full European festival production stage set up. The Fun Fun Fun Fest line-up also includes Judas Priest, Amon Amarth, Deafheaven, Pallbearer, Sick Of It All, Chelsea Wolfe, Iron Reagan, among many others.

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Source:	metalblade.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

Legendary heavy metallers King Diamond were supposed to be performing at Japan's Loud Park Festival 13 tomorrow but their appearance has been canceled. The festival organizers released a statement explaining that the band cancelled their performance "due to their equipment not arriving in Japan in time" and because they didn't want to use a substitute equipment. This morning, King Diamond responded to this by saying that their performance was cancelled by the promoter and not the band.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

Today's offering comes from Swedish metal veterans Entombed which have teamed up with PledgeMusic to launch a reissue campaign for some of their favorite albums. You can find more details and download Entombed's cover of King Diamond's "Welcome Home" over here. If you don't feel like downloading it, you can also just stream it at the same location.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Entombed

Official press release statement:

Metal Blade Records is pleased to announce that Grammy Award nominated King Diamond has signed a new 3 album worldwide record deal with the label.

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Source:	metalblade.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

The organizers of Bloodstock Open Air 2013 have announced today their first headliner for next year's festival. It will be Danish metal legends King Diamond.

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Source:	bloodstock.uk.com
Band profile:	King Diamond
Event:	Bloodstock Open Air 2013

Danish heavy metallers King Diamond have announced on their official website that they will be returning to the stage soon, after joining forces with Nick Storch at ICM and Paul Ryan at The Agency Group to book new shows.

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Source:	covenworldwide.org
Band profile:	King Diamond

Livia Zita has issued the following update on the health status of her husband, the legendary Kim Bendix Petersen - who underwent open-heart triple-bypass surgery last November:

"Some of you have been asking for an update on King Diamond's health, so I thought I'll write what's been going on.

King has just finished his Cardiac Rehabilitation program this past Friday, and graduated with flying colors. Thanks to the wonderful people at the rehab center, his exercise regimen helpe him gain a lot of muscle, and start on the road of building up good endurance. We will start regular exercises now to get the endurance up to nice levels.

The examinations by his heart surgeon and cardiologist revealed that his health is steadily improving, and they all expect him to feel better than ever, 15 years younger than he really is. I am immensely proud of what he has achieved in these short 3 months, stopped smoking entirely, changed diet and doing regular exercise among other things.

I cannot say anything certain about when he will be back working on King Diamond related things, but he is looking forward to finishing the DVD's eventually, and he is most certainly not stopping music.

I hope this information was helpful, I can honestly say that his progress has been nothing short of amazing. He is the strongest person I know. He would also like to extend his huge gratitude to all of you, for your absolutely amazing support. It has really meant a lot to him.

Enjoy his cardiac rehabilitation 'graduation' picture below."


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Source:	ultimatemetal.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

King Diamond backing vocalist Livia Zita (who is also King Diamong's wife) has issued the following update on King's (real name: Kim Bendix Petersen) health status:

"Let me catch you all up on the past couple of weeks' happenings, because it affects many things.

On Monday the 29th of November, King had to be transported to the nearby hospital by ambulance. After several different tests were done and the EKG machine showing abnormalities, the doctors recommended that he get a cardiac catheterization.

Cardiac catheterization is a procedure where the doctors lead a very thin tube up from the leg and into the heart, where it injects dye into the bloodstream. Then a camera at the end of the tube takes many pictures of the heart's arteries, looking for blockages. After this was done, they determined that King had several heart attacks, and three of his heart's arteries were the cause: one was completely blocked, the second was 90% blocked, and the third was 65% blocked.

The only solution to this was an open heart triple bypass surgery.

If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look it up online. I will only touch on the basics. The sternum (breastbone) is cut in half and pulled apart, to expose the heart. Veins are harvested from other places of the body, in King's case it was his left leg and chest wall. The person is then hooked up to a machine that practically does the job of the heart, circulating and oxygenating the blood. The heart is then stopped, and the lungs collapse (the lungs stop working since the blood is being oxygenated by the machine). The surgeon then sews the harvested veins in place, bypassing the found blockages. Once the surgery is done, the surgeon moves the ribs and breastbone back into place and wires it together. The chest is closed as well. They use an electric pulse to start the heart and a breathing machine is lead into the lungs to restart breathing.

King's surgery took approximately 7 hours.

Everything went well, and King was taken to ICU for recovery. He was walking and eating solid food already 2 days after the operation, and he was the first one in the history of the hospital who walked on his own power from the ICU to normal care. 10 days after the ambulance took him to the emergency room, he is at home and is recovering well. It will be a few months before he feels completely normal and is without pain.

He would like to mention here that he's eternally grateful for the wonderful staff at Centennial Medical Center who took care of him. Dr. Kourlis, Dr. Kamili, Dr. Alang, Nurse Christie and Nurse Thomas among many others made sure that he got the best care and attention he could ever have hoped for. They were always very nice to me too, letting me stay overnight in the ICU after visiting hours were over.

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Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	King Diamond

In a blog on his MySpace, King Diamond is setting some facts straight, regarding to the interview he did for a Danish newspaper just before Christmas:

"The second rumour that's floating around, which is that Mercyful Fate has started writing new material, I really have no idea where it originated from. The present status of Mercyful Fate remains unchanged, meaning that we have not started writing new material. For that to happen, Mercyful Fate's recording contracts have to be renegotiated first. We certainly would love for this to happen so that we can finally make our long overdue "masterpiece". Both guitarist Hank Shermann and I are ready to go if that scenario presents itself, and who knows, that might happen this year.

So... for this year, you will see a double DVD of old private King Diamond video recordings and a double DVD of old private Mercyful Fate video recordings which I am working on as we speak. Guitarist Andy La Rocque has finished remastering "The Graveyard", "Spider's Lullabye", "Voodoo", and "House of God", all of which should also be available this year. And then there is "the big surprise" (not little King babies with horns on their foreheads or Mercyful Fate writing new songs, at least not as we speak) but something that could lead to renegotiations of the Mercyful Fate recording deals. We'll see. Be patient... On a personal note, I do feel reasonably confident that the Mercyful Fate masterpiece will see the light of day."

Mercyful Fate's last studio album, "9", was released in 1999.

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Source:	blogs.myspace.com
Band profile:	Mercyful Fate