When Metallica released Garage Inc in 1998, it not only gave the world's biggest metal band the chance to cover some of their favourite songs by the heroes who influenced them in the first place; it also exposed said bands to a whole new generation of fans.
One such legendary act was Mercyful Fate, who got the full Metallica treatment on Garage Inc courtesy of an eleven-minute medley that featured Metallica's takes on Satan's Fall, Curse of the Pharaohs, A Corpse Without Soul, Into the Coven and Evil. As it happens, Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond - currently reunited with the band - made a nice little pay packet from the royalties earned from the Metallica medley. In a new interview, he's revealed exactly how he spent it.
“Right when [Garage Inc.] came out, yeah, it was nice," he tells Let There Be Talk. "I got a Corvette out of it at the time. I got a black Corvette at the time that I could not have gotten otherwise. I had a Trans Am; I sold that and got a Corvette. So, that was the initial impact at the time.
“Now, it’s, like, I guess if they do something special with it or whatever, then it does something, but that’s not what I live off, I can tell you that," he adds. "I did something with Volbeat; the song that I did half the lyric for [Room 24, from 2014 Volbeat album LP Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies and it was nominated for a Grammy.”
Listen to the rest of the interview below.
