ANDY LAROCQUE (Interviewed on December 22, 1999)

ME : After the release of "Voodoo", KING DIAMOND (the band) is planning to record a new album during January 2000. Are impatient to enter the studio?

ANDY LAROCQUE : Oh, yes, definitely! Very impatient! I spoke with King last night and I've got the basic story line, it sounds very interesting and I think, you know, the songs we have this time are very very strong. It's all about two weeks to enter the studio (3rd of January).

ME : What can you tell about the story of this album?

KING HAS JUST CHANGED ALL THE CONCEPT OF THE STORY. SO, ANDY ASKED ME NOT TO WRITE HIS ANSWER ABOUT THE PREVIOUS STORY. AS SOON AS I GET MORE INFORMATION ABOUT IT, I WILL PUBLISH THEM IN THE NEWS SECTION...

ME : And about the music? Did you already write some songs?

Andy : I wrote about 5 songs and I think King's got about 6 songs on the album. So, this is definitely the album I wrote the most of the songs for.

ME : The kind of music is more melodic or heavy?

Andy : King's songs sound like a little bit like "Them". My songs... Well, you have to judge yourself! Some are very heavy and melodic, some are really fast. I'm sure that it's gonna be a very good album.

ME : Is there gonna be an instrumental on this album?

Andy : Yes, a classical Andy La Rocque song, actually. I can't give you the details but it's called "Piece (Peace?) of Mind". It will be the last song of the album.

ME : King is the singer of both bands KING DIAMOND and MERCYFUL FATE. You are the main guitarist of KING DIAMOND, you have create the LOS ANGERED Studio,... Isn't it too hard for you and King to be at two places at the same time? Do you think that the band will survive a long time with so busy musicians?

Andy : People might think so but we never had a problem with that. It's only when I got a couple of hours, we send tapes to each others and all the material recorded, so we can be updated with what's happening.

ME : Is it possible to keep a good relationship between the KD members with such an activity?

Andy : I think so. I mean it's enough to see each other a couple of time in the year. That's enough.

ME : What's the future of the band ILLWILL?

Andy : We don't know. We are actually talking about recording a second album but the response hasn't been good and as we had problems with our label Dzynamite Records. They were so fucking late with everything. So, everything was wasted. We thought we recorded a really good album and I still think it is. It should have been out back in 1994-95 so the the label was very late. If it had been released at that time, the response would have been a lot better but it came out last year...

ME : Do you already have some plans about a KING DIAMOND tour during 2000?

Andy : Yeah! We will come doing an European tour in May and June and we'll probably tour in France, too. We have about 20 shows dates confirmed at the moment. It's gonna be Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark, Finland but nothing in Germany at the moment. But we're working on it and a couple of festivals. Hopefully in Dynamo in Holland and we are talking about something in Italia.

ME : There have been many line-up modifications in the band, especially regarding the drummers. Why?

Andy : People decide to go different ways, I mean, people decide to do other things in life and that's one of the reason we changed line-up quite often actually. But I can say that John, the drummer we have now, is really good. We are really happy with him.

ME : What kind of material do you use?

Andy : Very, very basic material : B.C. Rich guitars which I still think are the best. 4 X 12 cabinets... But I don't use a lot of computer effects.

ME : As for Hank and Mike, I'd like to know your best and worst memories from KING DIAMOND tour.

Andy : I don't really have any bad experience but, you know, KING DIAMOND tours are pretty cool. I don't even know about the bad things, there are of course some but mostly we have a lot of fun, when we are on tour. The fun part of it has to be saved.

ME : What are your life's dream and nightmare?

Andy : dream : To stay healthy I guess and being in the rock 'n' roll business: playing guitar, being on tour, recording albums,...
            nightmare: To die I guess!

ME : Can you give a mark between 0 and 10 to all KING DIAMOND albums?

Andy : Fatal Portrait : 7
            Abigail : 9
            Them : 8
            Conspiracy : 9
            The Eye : 9
            Spider's Lullabye : 4
            Graveyard : 6
            Voodoo : 8
            And the new one : 10 !!!

ME : BRAINSTORM:

- Could you give your opinion on the following albums :

Andy : METALLICA : "Garage Inc" : I don't know because I never heard it.
            MERCYFUL FATE : "Don't Break the Oath" : very good album. It's a classic one definitely even if I wasn't a big MERCYFUL FATE fan in the '80's.
            MARDUK : "Panzer Division" : really good album.
            J.-S. BACH : all : pretty good.

My favorite bands are probably all 70's ones, you know, like BLACK SABBATH, URIAH HEEP, UFO, LED ZEPPELIN, TNT...

- Can you comment the following words :

Andy : HUMAN : too many.
            SATANISM : tricky question!!! There are so many people who call themselves satanists! But King is very different. I don't believe in satanism, that are King's stuff. All I can tell you is that I'm not a satanist. Maybe am I agnostic. Even if I do belive in a higher... But I don't believe in any church, you know.
            SCHOOL : I didn't like it too much. The last years I was so into rock 'n' roll, so...
            BEER : lovely!
            NIETZSCHE : I haven't read him too much.
            FAMILY : that's great, I've got a family myself : two kids and a wife.
            HELL : that's tricky! Being without money probably.

ME : What are your favorite movie and book?

Andy : Film : probably TITANIC. That was really cool. Books : should probably some books by Stephen KING and manuals about studio equipment.