- Features
If you get captivated, Andy LaRocque, notorious for his neoclassical-inspired licks and wicked tone with King Diamond, can leave you speechless. And that’s likely by design, given his muscular rock influences.
“I was very influenced by mid-‘70s music,” LaRocque says. “I loved Uriah Heap and Status Quo. Those were the reasons that I picked up the guitar.
“I was very inspired by the guitar playing within glam rock like Sweet, Slade, and T. Rex, Later there was Michael Schenker, who has such amazing melodic sense, along with Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai.”
Given his ability to kick your teeth in and leave you smiling, it’s easy to lump LaRocque in with other ‘80s shredders. But his drenched-in-melodicism licks were outliers, and hinged on tone above all else.
LaRocque could shred with the best, but he came from a different place, eschewing theory and relying purely on instinct. “I don’t have a ton of theory knowledge,” he says. “I’m inspired by it, but I mostly use my ears to pick up on interesting things, which is what I did back then.
“So if people come up to me and say, ‘Why don’t you play this note or this scale?’ I honestly don’t know what they’re specifically talking about. I play what sounds good. I skipped the whole music theory thing and focused on what was important to me.”
These days – along with his production work at his home studio, Sonic Train – LaRocque remains active with King Diamond, who are working on their first album since 2007’s Give Me Your Soul… Please. Their 13th release is rumored to be titled The Institute.
“We haven’t been out playing live for a couple of years,” LaRocque allows, “but we are working on new songs. I’ve sent King a bunch of songs, which are still demos. We’ve been working on those for a year and a half, and once that’s all done we’ll tour.
“That aside, I’m doing guest solos, so the songwriting and the riffing is still there. And, of course, I’ve got a lot of bands coming through here in the next few months. I still love doing that, and there’s a lot coming up.”
(Image credit: Pernilla Allhage)
What led to your joining King Diamond?
“I knew [original drummer] Mikkey Dee back in the early ‘80s. He’d moved down to Copenhagen in Denmark with a different band, then ended up in King Diamond. He called me one day saying, ‘Andy, we need a guitarist.”
