King Diamond guitarist Andy La Rocque has given an update on the band’s long-awaited horror trilogy, speaking with “Reckless” Rexx Ruger on the Pod Scum podcast. The first installment, Saint Lucifer’s Hospital 1920, remains on track for a potential 2026 release — though La Rocque is cautious about the timeline.

“I really hope so. That’s our goal. We have most of the songs. I sent [King Diamond], I think, eight songs, like, four years ago, and we decided to use three of those. And we actually played one live from those songs,” La Rocque said (via Blabbermouth)

“As soon as he’s done with this stuff — he’s gotta write five songs, I believe, and he’s got a lot of the stuff already written down, with the lyrics and everything. As soon as that’s recorded and arranged from his side, we can put the right guitars on, the right drums, bass, and everything. So I really hope it won’t take very long before we can continue working on that. And if that’s the case, we can start recording soon, and during the summer, then we have a chance for it to be released at the very end of the year.”

On how he approaches playing new King Diamond material as a guitarist, La Rocque explained the difference between writing his own songs and contributing to King Diamond‘s.

“It depends. Nowadays, King usually has a request for me to play the song the way he would like it to be played. So I probably play my songs a little bit differently than his songs, because I know that, for example, he doesn’t like when I play the rhythms with a vibrato kind of thing at the end of a riff or whatever, because that might be interacting with his vocals that come on later,” he explained.

“But on my songs, I just do what I feel is right to do. I mean, if it’s good for the song, it’s probably good. And if it doesn’t fit, when he puts the vocal on, I change it. But first of all, I just write what comes out of the heart. I don’t really care what other people think about the style or whatever. I just write my stuff, and it’s kind of based in the ’80s. I mean, standard tuning — we don’t tune down with King Diamond, so it’s standard tuning, pretty straightforward. And melodies are super essential. I think it’s so important to have melodies in the songs and create space for melodies, too, for the vocals. That’s really important.”

La Rocque also broke down the band’s songwriting and recording process in detail, in a separate interview with the Heavy Demons radio show last June.

“Pretty much a complete demo with a programmed drum track and some keyboards on and some rhythm guitars. And I try to make my demos as complete as possible with everything — except for the vocals, of course — but sometimes even with some solos that we can use on the album, even, and the right guitar sounds, and hopefully the right keyboard sounds too.

“When it comes to King‘s stuff, he’s a little more basic with a few of the things. For example, the guitars — he lets me re-record the guitars. And then I put solo on, and then Pontus [Egberg], the bass player, puts the bass on and all that stuff. So it’s a little bit different, but it’s quite complete anyway, from his side. You totally understand what he wants with the feel and the atmosphere of the song.

“And once that’s done, and we’re okay with the arrangement and stuff, we send that out to the other members in the band so they can start recording. For example, Matt [Thompson, King Diamond drummer] has his own recording studio in Dallas, where he lives. So when he gets the demo from us, he just mutes the drums, puts his drums on, and sends it to me so I can fix the drums and set up a good sound on everything. Same with the bass player and also with Mike [Wead], the other guitarist — kind of the same procedure.

“And once the drums are done, and we’re okay with everything, King is doing the vocals. So that’s about it. And then, of course, we can go in and change a few things too. If something needs to be added or changed — a rhythm part on the guitar or solo, whatever needs to be changed — we can do that whenever. So it’s a pretty creative procedure.”