Mikkey Dee is Rooting for an Original King Diamond Lineup Reunion
King Diamond has had a number of notable musicians in his band over the years, the outfit’s band member Wikipedia entry reading like a restaurant menu of Swedish metal royalty. But, as so often tends to be the case, it’s the band’s original lineup which first captured fans’ hearts that remains heralded as the “classic” incarnation of the band.
In a new interview, original drummer Mikkey Dee — who has played with Motörhead and Scorpions since his time with the King ended — said that he’d love to see that original lineup reunite for some magic on the road, adding that he’s on solid terms with everyone involved. For good measure, he even tossed in some names who weren’t technically original but were involved during Dee’s tenure — which lasted from 1985 through 1988 — to make it an all-inclusive old-school KD party.
Speaking to The Cassius Morris Show, Dee explained:
“Unfortunately, [bassist] Timi Hansen is dead, but you could have Andy [LaRocque, guitar], Michael Denner [guitar], you could have Hal Patino [bass], Pete Blakk [guitar], myself, just for a tour, and only play the stuff that we did — from ‘Fatal Portrait’ to ‘Conspiracy’. That could have been a really fun and successful tour.”
That’d certainly be fun, right? While a certain cadre of old-school fans would revel in the reunion, it’s not as if King Diamond’s star or draw have suffered in the years since… he’s still done very, very well, so it seems folks will show up to see him no matter who’s in the band. Still: would be cool!
Dee added that it’s “totally up to” King himself, of course, “Because he [also] does Mercyful Fate. I don’t see why not. If I’m off with Scorpions, then I could easily have done that. That would have been so much fun, I think, because we were a great bunch of guys. And I still talk to Andy and Pete and Hal and King as well.”
King Diamond isn’t the only past endeavor to which Dee has nostalgically been looking back on of late. Dee joined The MetalSucks Podcast last November and took some time to reflect on his tenure with Motörhead. When asked whether he ever wanted to play Ace of Spades in its entirety while on tour with the band, Mikkey shared some thoughts on that as well as a bit of insight into how Lemmy would construct the band’s sets, answering:
“I mean, we would try and entertain that [playing Ace of Spades in full]. I’ll take a little bit of credit on this one because I wanted to play more songs from that record. And Lemmy was not the easiest guy to get to change too many songs or whatever. He didn’t want to change up the set. Once we had the set, we kind of played around with two, three songs, changed from one here to the other.
“He liked the record of course, but we never did that. It could have been great now, thinking back on it, it wouldn’t be bad at all.”
The King himself hasn’t been in the news much of late. In February of last year, he openly grieved the passing of a four-year-old fan he’d recently met at a show.
[via Blabbermouth]
