Mercyful Fate recently parted ways with bassist Joey Vera, who originally joined the band shortly after their reunion in 2019. Now Mercyful Fate has announced their new bassist Becky Baldwin, who fans already know from her fill-in shows with Mercyful Fate in 2022. Baldwin also states that she’ll be the one playing on the new Mercyful Fate album outside her new live duties.
“It is a great honor to now be a permanent member of Mercyful Fate”, said Baldwin. “I can’t wait to join the recording of the new Album. When I joined as a stand-in on the 2022 U.S. Tour, the acceptance and encouragement from the fans was exceptional. A huge thanks to the band, team and fans for the warm welcome. See you in Chile and Brazil this coming April.”
Now we’ll just wait for that new Mercyful Fate record. Last we heard was from Diamond himself in June 2023, who had the following to say about that record and his own solo stuff.
“There’s a lot in the works right now. I’m writing with Hank [Shermann, guitar] for Mercyful Fate and writing with Andy [La Rocque, guitar] for King Diamond and writing on my own for King Diamond. For King Diamond, it’s an album that’s gonna be called The Institute, which is part one of two; there’ll be two full albums that will be completing that full story. As the title says, it’s gonna be some creepy, weird stuff. And for Mercy, I also have the title, but I’m not giving it out to anybody at the moment. We have the front cover for the new Mercy too. It’s very correct, very right for Mercyful Fate. It’s very back to basics.
“For my part with both Mercy and King Diamond — even more King Diamond, I would say — all vocals are gonna be lead vocals again, like they were in the old days for me. It didn’t matter if it was a choir singing on the right or the left side or whatever; they would still go in and pick up parts of the lyrics to progress the story and so on. So it’s gonna be anything goes with the vocals, for sure — back to the old style. And for Mercy too; it’s gonna be very old-fashioned. Hank is writing very much like the old days. And it’s nice to feel that we can capture that again.
“So that’s the two albums that are being worked on, that will be done by the time we go out on tour again, I’m sure.”
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Greg Kennelty
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