Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

The Metal Voice recently spoke to former Mercyful Fate and King Diamond drummer Snowy Shaw. Watch the interview below.

Excerpts from the interview

When asked if the band  Ghost who is also from Sweden took his stage ideas and made them popular 
“You are certainly were not the first to ask about that. Gus G the guitar player told me, WTF this band (Ghost) is getting so popular they are doing what you did with Notre Dame way back. I suppose but it all stems from, Author Brown starting off with corpse paint, then it was Alice Cooper, onto Kiss onto this theatrical thing. We all take bits and pieces and copy and inspire and do our own thing and do our own version of it. King Diamond is also a result of Welcome to my nightmare (Alice Cooper), that kind of theatrical show. I want to say that Ghost hasn’t ripped me off but they have certainly managed to make it big.”

When asked if he was a little disappointed in not being asked to participate in the upcoming Mercyful Fate reunion
“I’m not upset. My wife she called me from work and said I saw Mercyful Fate is getting back together weren’t you involved in that band? Yes I was but what  lineup is it?  So I called Mike Weed (guitarist) cause apparently he is going to be in the reunion. So it means that Michael Denner is not going to be there. Who is playing the drums then? Is it Bjame (Holm) who replaced me he (Weed) said we are going to continue from the last album 9 and we are going to pick it up from there. And I said how about Sharlee D’Angelo (bassist on 9) . No we haven’t contacted him, it’s going to be Joey Vera (Armored Saint). I don’t want to get involved in that I wasn’t upset. I haven’t been in that band for many years. I rather move forward and take on new challenges rather than go backwards. “

When asked if it bothered him that they used a drum machine on the King Diamond’s album The Eye 
“It’s not a drum machine. The thing is I kind of regret spilling the beans or maybe a slip of the tongue. I was doing this interview with Borivoj Krgin for Metal Maniacs magazine (at the time) when we were doing the Memento Mori album in 1993. And he said wow I love the drumming (The Eye), it’s so technical and progressive and I said yeah it was a drum machine. My English was so- so, even worse back then (Snowy eludes to that he misspoke using the wrong choice of words due to lack of English skills at the time). But it wasn’t a drum machine obviously. I was playing on pads  and parts were sort of programmed because that was what King insisted on doing. We didn’t have any time to rehearse or do anything like that was kind of their justification for that and I couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t a drum machine.