Interview – Mikkey Dee + Lex Legion Revisiting King Diamond Legacy Without Retreading

Ahead of the release of the eponymous debut by Lex Legion — theband featuring four-fifths of the recording lineup from King Diamond‘sThem— we spoke with drummer Mikkey Dee (Motorhead, Scorpions) about this exciting new venture.

With this new band, Dee has reunited with Andy LaRocque (guitar), Pete Blakk (guitar) and Hal Patino (bass), all of whom who joined forces with vocal powerhouse Nils K. Rue (Pagan’s Mind, Holter), who bringshis own ear-piercing charm to the band and on his own terms.

While a sizable portion of the album’s 35-minutes directly channels King Diamond vibes (each member aside from Rue have played on at least three King Diamond albums apiece, LaRocque being on each of the 12 studio LPs), Lex Legion aren’t merelyretreading the past. It’s possible to revisit your legacy while still moving forward, with other elements of the music drawing inspirationfrom Iron Maiden and Queensryche as well.

lex legion band

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For the legions of King Diamond fans who have endured a nearly 20-year wait for a new album (with no release date in sight), there’s even better news — a second album is already in the works.

“Next year we’regoing to go out and do some live shows,” Mikkey Dee shares, “We are writing the new record as we speak.This year weare trying to put the band on the map and, at the same time, trying to finish up the new record by the end of this year, so we can release it fairly early next year.”

The hope is that, with two albums of material, Lex Legion can embark on a proper headlining tour, though a support slot remains an option if the tour package is right.

Dee’s 2026 is going to heat up with Scorpions tour dates on the books as well as another Las Vegas residency scheduled for the fall.

But, in this exact moment, his focus is on telling the world all about Lex Legion. Read our interview with Mikkey Dee directly below.

Do you remember the first time you heard his voice? It’s obviously unmistakable.

I lived in Copenhagen and kinda was hanging out with [Mercyful Fateand King Diamond members] Timi Hansen and Michael Denner. That’s how I actually got to know them and King. They were a great band. Long story short, King told me that he wasgoing to split from the band and he wasgoing to bring Michael and Timi and he wanted me on drums.

King is great. He is singing in a very unique style and tone and sound.The way he approaches songs with hisvoice is very special. There was never any doubt about wanting to play with the band. It was fun music. It was very complex. I had to come up with a lot of cool shit. But when you’re a young buck, that’s really what youwant to do. Youwantworld champion in drum fills and weird backbeats and shit.I’m very glad for those years because I became a good drummer and we did some fantastic U.S. tours. Touring was amazing.

We were a bunch of really good friends, we had fantastic success in a way and created something very unique.

king diamond band onstage

Now, King Diamond’sThem recording lineup is back together, albeit without the king and Nils K. Rue commanding vocals. This is something that Andy LaRocque started kicking around in the late 2000s. How did you get involved? Who sent the emails or made the phone calls to finally get this to a place where it was actuallygoing to happen?

Andy and Pete have been writing some riffs here and there since 2008, but that was not for a band, really.We’re all friends and hang out.I talk to them and I see them on a regular basis. The only guy I haven’t seen all the time is Hal Patino because he lives in Norway.

It was actually two years ago when Pete came to me with a couple of riffs. He was away [from music] for many, many years. I listened to it, I really, really liked it and I said, “There’s some badass riffs you got there, Pete. Let’s do something with this. Let’s call Andy and Hal. If the four of us can create something and we find a good singer, maybe we have something.”

Lex Legion, “Sleep Eternally”

Obviously, everyone else had played together in King Diamond and there’s a history of chemistry.Sure, you have to reestablishthat chemistry after all these years,how did the process go with singer Nils K. Rue involved?

Andy had done some sessions with him before and recorded with Nils [on the 2008 album New Universal Order by X-World/5]. Andy said, “How about this guy, Nils? I worked with him. He’s an amazing singer, a very nice guy and he lives in Norway.” It makes it a lot easier for us Scandinavian guys. Thesingers I was thinking about are some Americans and some Brits.

Wesent a few songs to him and said, “Hey, do whatever you feel like doing on this.” And, of course, we were blown away by it. It sounded so awesome and so perfect for what we were looking for, so there was never a doubt that he will be the guy, unless he was a complete moron or an asshole. We didn’t wanna destroy this nice atmosphere with what we have with the four of us, not to bring in some kind of a rockstar bullshit, a fucking big-headed asshole… I’m only doing this if it’sgoing to be be fun. I’m way too busy.

Lex Legion, “Gypsy Tears”

“(I Am) The Resurrected”is one of my favorite songs on this Lex Legion album and that structure is so playful. Your knack for arrangements is something you bring to the songwriting. Has that always been a strength of yours?

I did arrangements with King Diamond as well. With Motörhead, Phil Campbell and I wrote 12 studio records together. I’ve sung riffs for Phil and I can play some guitar as well, but I can’t do these complicated guitar riffs. But melody-wise, I can sing stuff for them.

Arrangements are so important on a song. If the song goes like this or the song goes like that [every time], it’s the same fucking song. And depending on what you do, does it sound monotonous and boring…a traditional producer would tear his or her hair off [working with Lex Legion] — “Why do you have this piece here? Why do you end the song like this? And isn’t the vocal supposed to come in after this part? No, there’s some guitar harmonies there and we have two solos and we end on this piece here.”

[What you hear onLex Legion is]how we wrote in the ’80s and that’s what we want tokeep in these songs.

lex legion album cover

When it comes to arrangements, where did this ability come from? Were there any songs from your childhood that changed your perception on what a song can look like, structurally?

I really don’t know. When I hear a song, I go, “Wow, that guitar riff is awesome. The chorus is great.” And then I say, “Look, the verse is great and the chorus is great, but why isn’t the song great? There’s something missing, so we’ve got to take it apart and put it back together differently.” The whole song just takes two steps up because of some new arrangements.

There’s usually too many chefs in the soup when you make records. The record label is there —”Can you simplify this song so we can play it on radio more?”

With Motörhead, they were on our ass all the time to write a certain type of song, but we just refused. We said, “We don’t come to your fucking office, so don’t come to ours.” It’s a great bonus that people like it, but if people said, “This is the worst shit I ever heard,” we like it. We wrote it the way we wanted to.

Typically with Motörhead, we had producers come in and go, “Hey, guys, I know exactly how you guys aregoing to sound.” Lemmy just spun around on his chair and said, “No, you fucking don’t. I do. So get the fuck out of here.”

Carlo Allegri, Getty Images

It’sthe same thing for Lex Legion. We know how we want to sound and that’s the end of it — you either take it or leave it. It’s very, very simple.

Lex Legion is out June 12 on MNRK Heavy. Follow the band on Facebook, X, Instagramand YouTube. Visit the Lex Legion website for even more information.

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