King Diamond

Diamond King married the Hungarian singer, Livia Zita who contributed as a supporting vocalist for the albums, ‘Give Me Your Soul….Please’ and ‘The Puppet Master’. Livia gave birth to a son in 2017 who was named Byron.

King Diamond was born as Kim Bendix Petersen on 14th June 1956 in Hvidovre Municipality, a suburb in Copenhagen, the Danish capital. During the early years of his life, Diamond developed a penchant for offbeat musical genres—heavy metal, black metal, and hard rock.

Heavy metal and hard rock luminaries, David Byron, Arthur Brown, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Ian Gillan, and Alice Cooper influenced him profoundly.

King Diamond’s professional career took off in 1974 when he signed up with the Danish music band, ‘Brainstorm’ at the age of 18.

After attending a live show of Alice Cooper, he was hugely impressed by the wild, frenzied antics and the outlandish make-up of the band, and decided to emulate the bizarre style. Consequently, he left Brainstorm to join ‘Black Rose’, a local band, in order to have his way with expressing himself the way he wished.

Kind Diamond was in his elements as long as he performed with ‘Black Rose’ staging bizarre acts. Eventually, he felt that he had outgrown the need to contribute to Black Rose and in 1980 he joined forces with ‘Brats’, a hardcore punk music band.

Diamond’s teaming up with ‘Brats’ proved to be a turning point in his career. However, ‘Brats’ comprising the quartet of King, Timi Hansen, Hank Sherman, and Michael Denner, soon split up. Diamond then paired up with Hank while Michael and Hansen bonded up to establish ‘Danger Zone’.

It was providential that the ‘Brats’ foursome were reunited when Diamond helped out Michael Denner with Danger Zone’s demo act following a request by the latter. Brats morphed into ‘Mercyful Fate’ and became a quintet with the induction of Kim Ruzz, a drummer.

Mercyful Fate’s self-titled debut EP was critically acclaimed by the underground media, earning them an opportunity to record the songs, ‘Evil’, ‘Satan’s fall’, and ‘Curse of the Pharaohs’ for the BBC rock show in April 1983. The EP established the band as an upcoming one to reckon with and helped them create a name for themselves in the heavy metal scenario.