Metallica have always gone out of their way to pay tribute to their heavy-metal heroes, which has not only helped shine a light on bands like the Misfits, Diamond Head and Mercyful Fate, but also put some extra dollars in their respective pockets.
In 1998, the thrash OGs hailed the last of those three groups by recording a medley of classic Mercyful Fate songs — "Satan's Fall", "Curse of the Pharaohs," "A Corpse Without Soul," "Into the Coven" and "Evil" — on their covers album, Garage Inc. In a recent interview with comedian Dean Delray on his "Let There Be Talk" podcast, vocalist King Diamond was asked if the royalties from said tribute are "a good help" when he's not touring either with Mercyful Fate or his eponymous band, and the helium-voiced singer dropped a little nugget about how he used his first Metallica money.
"Right when [Metallica's medley] came out, yeah, it was nice," Diamond said, as transcribed by Blabbermouth. "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.
"The same… I did something with Volbeat — the song that I did half the lyric for ['Room 24'] and it was nominated for a Grammy. But it's not like… I can't eat off of it; I can't pay rent or anything off it. But that's our own stuff that is doing quite well now; our own stuff is doing [well]. The tours are doing good. There's more projects going on all the time."
Mercyful Fate are set to kick off their first North American headlining tour in over 20 years later this month.
