Yes, King Diamond lives in Texas. The Danish singer of Mercyful Fate has made Dallas–Fort Worth his home for about three decades, and North Texas is where much of his work since 1993 was made. Every Mercyful Fate studio album from 1993 to 1999 came out of two studios there: Dallas Sound Lab in Irving and Nomad Recording Studio in Carrollton. He is alive and active as of October 2026.
The Short Version
- Who: King Diamond, born Kim Bendix Petersen on June 14, 1956, in Hvidovre, Denmark.
- Where he lives: the Dallas–Fort Worth area, for about 30 years.
- Made in Irving: Mercyful Fate’s In the Shadows (1993), Time (1994) and Into the Unknown (1996), plus King Diamond’s The Spider’s Lullabye (1995), all at Dallas Sound Lab.
- Made in Carrollton: Mercyful Fate’s Dead Again (1998) and 9 (1999), plus King Diamond’s House of God (2000), all at Nomad, and Abigail II (2002), begun there.
- Made at home: King Diamond’s The Puppet Master (2003), recorded partly at Nomad and partly at his Dallas house.
Where Does King Diamond Live?
King Diamond lives in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. The Austin Chronicle‘s Michael Toland wrote in November 2014 that the singer had “called Dallas/Fort Worth home for the past 20 years.”
When he moved is less settled. Wikipedia says he “relocated to Dallas / Fort Worth, Texas in the 1980s.” The Chronicle’s 20-year figure points to the early 1990s instead. The paper trail is clearer than the move date: by 1993 Mercyful Fate was making records in the Dallas suburbs.
He has talked about the house himself. In an October 2004 Blabbermouth interview about a new live album, he described how guitarist Andy LaRocque’s equipment crossed the Atlantic for the sessions behind The Puppet Master. “We fly all his best gear over from Sweden to my house in Dallas and turn my living room into a studio,” he said.
Why King Diamond Matters to Thrash Metal
Mercyful Fate formed in Copenhagen in 1981, led by King Diamond and guitarist Hank Shermann. Their debut album, Melissa, came out on Roadrunner in October 1983. Don’t Break the Oath followed on September 7, 1984. The band split in April 1985.
Two albums were enough. Wikipedia’s band article calls Mercyful Fate “a formative influence to the then-nascent genres of thrash metal and death metal,” and elsewhere names Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer among the bands that took from them. Lars Ulrich called them “a very, very big inspiration for our sound.” Metallica put an 11-minute Mercyful Fate medley on Garage Inc. in 1998.
What thrash took was the riff writing and the horror. Shermann’s twisting, multi-part songs showed that heavy metal could run long and change direction often. King Diamond’s falsetto and face paint showed it could tell ghost stories. If you only hear one record, start with Don’t Break the Oath. It is the tighter and heavier of the two, and the better first listen.
King Diamond vs. Mercyful Fate: What’s the Difference?
It is the same singer fronting two bands. Mercyful Fate is the band he started with Hank Shermann in 1981. King Diamond is the band he formed in 1985, with Mercyful Fate guitarist Michael Denner and bassist Timi Hansen, after the first split.
The difference is the format. King Diamond records are full-length horror stories with recurring characters. Abigail, released May 29, 1987, was the band’s first concept album and remains the place to start. Mercyful Fate records are collections of songs built around Shermann’s riffs. Both bands ran side by side from 1993 to 1999. Mercyful Fate then went quiet until it re-formed in 2019.
Mercyful Fate
Copenhagen, 1981. Start with Don’t Break the Oath (1984), then Time (1994), the best of the North Texas records.
King Diamond
The concept-album band he formed in 1985. Start with Abigail (1987); for the Texas era, House of God (2000).
Mercyful Fate in North Texas: The Dallas Sound Lab Records
Despite the name, Dallas Sound Lab sat in Irving. Russell Whitaker founded it in 1980 at the Dallas Communications Complex on East Royal Lane in Las Colinas. The studio’s own history lists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Pantera among its clients.
The reunion album came first. In the Shadows was recorded at Dallas Sound Lab from February to April 1993 and released by Metal Blade on June 22, 1993. King Diamond, Hank Shermann and Tim Kimsey produced it. Lars Ulrich plays drums on the bonus track, “Return of the Vampire... 1993.” (The label’s story is in our Metal Blade piece.)
Time followed from the same room. Mercyful Fate recorded and mixed it at Dallas Sound Lab between May and August 1994, again with Kimsey co-producing, and Metal Blade released it on October 25, 1994. It is the most confident of the reunion records and the one to hear first from this period.
The third Irving record was Into the Unknown, cut in January and February 1996 with Kimsey engineering and mixing. Metal Blade released it on August 20, 1996.
King Diamond’s own band used the studio too. The Spider’s Lullabye was recorded and mixed there in September and October 1994, with drummer Darrin Anthony of the Texas band Mindstorm, and came out on Metal Blade on June 6, 1995. Recording for The Graveyard began at Dallas Sound Lab in March 1996. The room had already made a very different Texas record: Rigor Mortis cut its 1988 Capitol debut there with producer Dave Ogilvie.
Dallas Sound Lab Now MediaTech
Mercyful Fate made three albums here between 1993 and 1996, and King Diamond made The Spider’s Lullabye here. Whitaker’s engineering workshops at the studio grew into MediaTech Institute, whose first class was licensed on January 4, 1999. MediaTech’s Dallas campus is now at 13300 Branch View Ln.
The Dallas Communications Complex, 350 E Royal Ln, Irving, today. Photo: Travis Hawks via Google
Nomad Recording Studio and the Living-Room Studio
From 1997 the work moved north to Carrollton. Mercyful Fate began recording Dead Again at Nomad Recording Studio in October 1997, and it came out June 9, 1998. The band returned in February and March 1999 for 9, produced with Kol Marshall and released by Metal Blade on June 15, 1999. It is still Mercyful Fate’s most recent studio album. King Diamond’s House of God was tracked at Nomad from February to April 2000. Abigail II: The Revenge started there in May 2001.
The Puppet Master, released October 21, 2003, was made a new way. LaRocque’s gear went into the living room of the Dallas house, which became a studio, and King Diamond said the setup “has proved to be very fruitful.” “Then, we went into Nomad recording studio to record the drums and the vocals,” he told Blabbermouth in 2004, and the album was mixed back at the house.
Nomad also tied him to local players. On January 27, 2012, a makeup-free King Diamond walked on at the 5th Annual Nomad Recording Studio Throwdown at Trees in Dallas. Blabbermouth reported a three-song set of “The Family Ghost,” “Burn” and “Evil.” His band that night was Michael Harris, Neil Brincks, J.T. Longoria and drummer Matt Thompson.
“He is unbelievable; he is the best guy I ever worked with in a studio.”
That was King Diamond on Longoria, in the same Blabbermouth report. Thompson has been King Diamond’s drummer since 2000. Dallas–Fort Worth had long been a recording town before any of this; Rotting Corpse cut its first three demos at Pantego Sound between 1986 and 1988, a story told on our history page.
Nomad Recording Studio Open
Nomad was in Carrollton when Mercyful Fate made Dead Again and 9 there. The studio, with Gary Long still named on its listing, now works out of the Dallas Design District. Its own website was offline in October 2026, so the link goes to its booking page.
The live room at the current Dallas studio. Photo: Nomad Recording Studio via Google
King Diamond on Texas Stages
The Texas shows go back to the solo band’s first years. On August 21, 1986, Austin’s Militia opened for Metal Church and King Diamond at the Ritz, as our Militia history reports.
Later dates cover the state:
- Austin, November 2014: he headlined the second night of Fun Fun Fun Fest at Auditorium Shores, on his first U.S. tour in over a decade (Austin Chronicle).
- San Antonio, July 31, 2015: Mayhem Festival, where the photo at the top of this page was taken.
- Dallas, October 25, 2022: Mercyful Fate opened its first North American tour in over two decades at The Factory in Deep Ellum, with Kreator among the support acts (Blabbermouth).
- San Antonio, October 15, 2024: King Diamond opened his Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920 North American tour at Boeing Center at Tech Port, with Overkill and Night Demon in support, and debuted two new songs, “Spider Lilly” and “Electro Therapy.” The tour ended at home in Dallas on December 6 (Blabbermouth).
- San Antonio, September 2026: he joined My Chemical Romance on stage at the Alamodome.
Where Things Stand in 2026
The biggest change this year is on guitar. On July 24, 2026, Metal Blade announced that Gus G. of Firewind would “compose, record, and tour with KING DIAMOND going forward.” The label thanked Andy LaRocque, whose gear once filled that Dallas living room, for roughly 40 years in the band.
Both bands are now in the studio, and Mercyful Fate goes first. In a September 2026 Metal Injection interview, as reported by The MetalList, the new Mercyful Fate album was due to be finished by December 2026 for an expected May 2027 release. It would be the band’s first studio album since 9. King Diamond’s Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920, part one of a planned horror trilogy, is aimed at around April 2028. As of October 2026 these are targets from the interview, not release dates Metal Blade has announced.
As for his health, he had triple-bypass surgery in 2010 and has been recording and touring since.
Where to Hear It Live
As of October 2026, neither King Diamond nor Mercyful Fate has announced a Texas date. Mercyful Fate’s first shows since 2024 are two European festivals: Bloodstock at Catton Park, Derbyshire, England, where it headlines the Friday night (August 5–8, 2027), and Leyendas del Rock in Villena, Spain (August 11–14, 2027). Watch the King Diamond tour page, the Mercyful Fate tour page and Metal Blade for announcements.
For Texas thrash in the meantime, Rotting Corpse’s upcoming Texas dates:
- Saturday, November 14, 2026: Rotting Corpse with Fort Worth’s Iron Jaw at the Haltom Theater, 5601 E Belknap St, Haltom City (details).
- Saturday, December 5, 2026: Rotting Corpse at Spam’s Bar and Lounge, 2321 Sherwood Way, San Angelo (details).
The full list is on the shows page.
Start with “The Price of God” (1987)
It’s from the second demo, cut at Pantego Sound in the summer of 1987 with Vinnie Paul engineering, so it’s a good way to hear the DFW studio scene six years before Mercyful Fate came to Dallas to record. The lyric sheet even keeps the spoken intro.
Sources
- Wikipedia: King Diamond
- Wikipedia: Mercyful Fate
- Wikipedia: King Diamond (band)
- Wikipedia: In the Shadows (album)
- Wikipedia: Time (Mercyful Fate album)
- Wikipedia: House of God (album)
- Wikipedia: The Puppet Master (album)
- Austin Chronicle: Welcome Home, by Michael Toland (2014)
- Blabbermouth: King Diamond discusses new live album (2004)
- Blabbermouth: Makeup-less King Diamond performs surprise three-song set in Dallas (2012)
- Blabbermouth: Mercyful Fate announces first North American tour in over two decades (2022)
- Metal Blade Records: King Diamond welcomes Gus G. to the band (2026)
- Blabbermouth: King Diamond debuts two new songs at 2024 North American tour kick-off (2024)
- ThePRP: Mercyful Fate announce their first live show since 2024 (2026)
- Blabbermouth: Mercyful Fate, Electric Callboy and Motionless In White to headline 2027 Bloodstock (2026)
- Wikipedia: Into the Unknown (Mercyful Fate album)
- Wikipedia: 9 (Mercyful Fate album)
- Archaic Metallurgy: King Diamond, The Spider’s Lullabye album credits
- Wikipedia: MediaTech Institute (formerly Dallas Sound Lab)
- CommercialCafe: Dallas Communications Complex, 350 E Royal Ln, Irving
- MediaTech Institute: Our History
- Mix: MediaTech Grows (2007)
- MediaTech Institute: Contact (Dallas campus address)
- The MetalList: King Diamond on the Andy LaRocque split, Gus G. and the new albums (2026)
- Tagvenue: Nomad Recording Studio, Dallas
Frequently Asked Questions
Does King Diamond live in Texas?
Yes. King Diamond lives in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. The Austin Chronicle wrote in 2014 that he had called Dallas/Fort Worth home for the past 20 years, and in 2004 he told Blabbermouth about turning the living room of his house in Dallas into a studio.
When did King Diamond move to Dallas?
Sources disagree. Wikipedia says he relocated to Dallas / Fort Worth in the 1980s, while the Austin Chronicle’s 2014 profile says he had lived there for 20 years, which points to the early 1990s. Mercyful Fate was recording in Dallas by 1993.
Which Mercyful Fate albums were recorded in Texas?
Every Mercyful Fate studio album from 1993 to 1999 was made in North Texas. In the Shadows (1993), Time (1994) and Into the Unknown (1996) were recorded at Dallas Sound Lab in Las Colinas, Irving. Dead Again (1998) and 9 (1999) were recorded at Nomad Recording Studio in Carrollton.
What is the difference between King Diamond and Mercyful Fate?
Both bands are fronted by King Diamond. Mercyful Fate is the band he formed with guitarist Hank Shermann in Copenhagen in 1981. King Diamond is the band he started in 1985 after Mercyful Fate split, known for full-length horror concept albums such as Abigail.
Is King Diamond still alive and active?
Yes. In July 2026 his band added guitarist Gus G., and in September 2026 he joined My Chemical Romance on stage at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Mercyful Fate is booked to headline Bloodstock in the UK on August 5–8, 2027, and to play Leyendas del Rock in Spain on August 11–14, 2027. As of October 2026, a new Mercyful Fate album, the first since 9 (1999), is targeted for 2027, and King Diamond’s Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920 for 2028.
