5 Killer Riffs - King Diamond 

1:57 Halloween 3:15 Abigail 5:20 The Family Ghost 6:44 Welcome Home 7:52 At the Graves

Andy LaRocque is probably the most underrated metal guitarist ever! Andy's solos are so recognisable and they are pure excellence!

Michael Denner is also crazy underrated. He & Hank Shermann are one of the best duos out there. Him and Larocque crafted a masterpiece in Abigail

Just a reminder everyone, I'm just here to share my love for what I consider great music. I'm not claiming to be an expert in the minutiae of a band's history or how parts are played 100% correctly. If you'd like to weigh in on the conversation, please do so respectfully. Don't be a dick.

The solos on "Them" are insane.

Andy's work with Death is incredible, my fav is his solo on Trapped in a Corner

Andy LaRocque is one of my favorite and yet so underrated. His sound was so distinct and clear, a guitar master. Thanks for the cool video, now I'm off the binge on some King Diamond.

In the early eighties Andy was working in a guitar store in Gothenburg Sweden. I was alone with him and he brought me in to the listening room and plugged in to an amp and started shredding. After 5-10 minutes people started gathering. He handed the guitar to me and said "Now it's your turn!" Everyone looked at me. "-Maybe another time...hrrm"

The partnership between Andy and Pete on the 'them' album is magic! Probably my favourite dual guitar metal album!

Such underrated musicians. Great songs... Omens, Arrival, Sleepless Nights, 7th day of july 1777, Invisible guests...

"Magic" from The Puppet Master album... My favorite riff!!

Pete Blakk was a great guitarist for King Diamond too! Great riffs btw 🤘

The playing on The Eye is awesome, The Trial alone has a mixture of riffs and solos that's perfect.

Fatal Portrait and Abigail are both masterpieces.

Criss Oliva was a KILLER guitar player, and very underrated. RIP Criss. We STILL miss you.

Andy is great, BUT I can't get "Is that you Melissa?" out of my head for the last 35 years or so....Shermann kills that one!!

Wonderful videos Leon! Keep them coming man!

This could easily be just 5 riffs from arrival and a mansion in darkness which is my fav record introduction ever

The bridge in Sleepless Nights gets me every time...

I remember my first King Diamond album was The Eye. I swear I jammed that half a year and had no idea Them or Abigail even existed tell like a year later when I was in a record store messing around. Turns out I walked out with 2 more King Diamond albums and jesus if I remember right I took the Album them to my drum teacher and asked him to Teach me Welcome Home on drums and he laughed in my face. And said you are not ready for this lmao. Spent like 1 year on that song and every time I hear that guitar riff hit I air drum laughs

Love to hear props for Cris Oliva and Andy laroque you are right 2 of the most under rated guitar players of all time!

Andy has been my favorite metal guitarist since I first heard him 30 years ago. Finally got a chance to see King Diamond this weekend. It was incredible.

Friggin awesome, I've been waiting for someone to do this. Thanks

I live in the same town as Andy. Fantastic guitar player, producer and really nice guy. Abigail is such a haunting riff

Great upload Leon! Solid background and good play.

My man! Can’t wait to dig into this tnt. Looking forward to your Metaltronix patch!

I love King diamond grew up listening to them and yes the tone is great, I'm ordering mine either tomorrow or next weekend. Thanks again Leon

Underrated only because bubble gum band lovers arent listening to.MF or.KD Abigail is.one of the best albums.ever

Family Ghost is one of my favorite King Diamond songs.

Such a great lesson. Thank you

SO many killer KD riffs, picking just 5 is pretty much impossible - maybe 50 😁

Mr. Andy LaRocque is so underrated guitarrist. He is a master. The brain of King Diamond music. From the Conspiracy album, "Sleepless Nights", my favorite riff of the band. Thanks for your videos Leon.

If you want some killer riffs from Andy La Rocque, try Mother's Getting Weaker, from "Them".

Next to Randy Rhoads, Andy has always been my favorite guitarist. I love his tone, and vibrato. My 3 favorite Andy solos; *Sleepless Nights *July 7, 1777 *Victimized

I didn't expect that from Leon. Wow! Cool!

Great video. Love the V and the riffage. You be the man. 😉👍💝👍🎸👍🎸👍

Nice vid again.I appriciate your efforts about underrated musicians.You are obviously talented and have a good taste of music.

Dude!! You just made me even much more of a fan of u for this video \m/ Going to see The King in Atlanta Monday for my second time, Andy will always be my favorite guitarist, been a fan of King and Mercyful fate since I first heard the Graveyard in the 90s, keep it up man and thank u, pumped for show!!

Had no idea you were into the King! Just awesome, so much killer stuff. Respect man!

Thanks for reminding me of such a great band! They're often forgotten for some reason.

Long live the king! \m/ Great killer riffs, Leon!

Oh yeah! King Diamond! Tightest band ever and absolutely, Andy La Roque is underrated. Steven King should have had King Diamond do every score for all his movies.

Great video Leon . You're a true metalhead \m/

very nice Leon great play

Damn dude, you got some PhD on Savatage and King Diamod,huh? Respect.

Sleepless nights is my jam, love that solo and love Andy’s playing, thanks for the vid

Thanks for sharing Leon. Those are some pretty classic riffs and brings back some memories. Andy's rather melodic and flamboyant, killer lead playing however always stood out to me the most. I remember hearing his crazy whammy trills for the first time and his placement of those to further embellish his technical yet melodic shreds was just eargasmic. His style is quite distinguishable to me.

" Pretty Cool!" Great Tones and Well done Brother! Thanks for Sharing, Be Well Leon!

You are good bro!!! Great video, thank you

Just saw King Diamond a couple nights ago and the entire band put on a KILLER show, also had the chance to meet them and ALL the guys are TOTALLY down to earth.

Man, amazing video!!! Andy is really an awesome guitar player and, created a lot of killer riffs!!!

Great justice on the playing bro

Fantastic band.You nailed it.

Andy Laroque is by far one of the most underrated players to come out of the 80's Era. His Riffs, Solo's, and harmonies are briliant.

Thats cool I don't think I've seen a breakdown of King Diamonds stuff before great guitar playing.🤘

Killer tone Leon Todd!

Yes Leon , i love King Diamond all time.

Them blew my mind back in the day! I still love playing those songs.

Killer tone🤘🏻🤘🏻

Good job 🤘

What a great vid bro...watching you go through these classic chords is a thrill..me myself can never play guitar & very much envy most of these metal guitarists. 🤗a big like.

That's some interesting stuff for guy listening for modern metal, thank you very much ^^

Right on bruv, throwing KD some love gets my sub :-) Andy LaRoque is a criminally underrated guitarrist. For my money "Them" and "Conspiracy" are their best work in all respects; storyline, guitar riffage/solos, I just never grow tired of them. Cheers for the content Leon!

Good work. I saw King a few days ago in Detroit and he's still magnificent!

Oh I love these videos.

King Diamond wrote Abigail and most of the songs on the record .Check out the credit's list. Later on Andy contributed a whole unforgettable lot more. Love that band. Love your videos - passion, dude!

I love all the king diamond albums. Andy is amazing

That was great Leon . I couldn't stop seeing how big the dean head stock was ,like a mini flying V at the other end . :-). Ok maybe the gummies and a drink had something to do with it yeeeahh

Abigail and Them are King Diamonds best. Still Love Mercyful Fate! They got me into Metal

I love it!!

Abigail sounds like an alternative version of early Testament, very cool! LaRocque also had pretty killer leads. Like on the more recent album The Puppet Master there was Magic, which has just jaw dropping solos. Also learned only last week that LaRocque used/uses Lee Jackson GP-1000. The same preamp the recently passed Laiho from Bodom made stupidly expensive (in the early 2000's you could get one for like $150, now people are asking +600). Very unique sounding amp, many title it as an awful piece of garbage, but in the right setting it has this beautiful sweet lead tone that you just can't stop playing. Every note is very powerful if you want it to sing and pierce through with a ton of power, screaming for mercy. You're probably aware of that 80's preamp as well, being a Zakk and 80's fan after all and knowing Michael Nielsen. A weird one with two big different versions, and the whole lifetime seemed to have the small changes to component values with only a late version seemingly being what metal guys wanted. But seriously fun one. Probably a lot of guys also hated it because they played it at home, noodling without any backing, because it certainly doesn't pack a big punch in the bass (and a lot of people liking V30 over say T-75). Many used something like SD-1 or Jackson active guitar electronics to boost it and I think Lee Jackson himself recommended something like enhancer/expander whatever unit in conjuction with it.

I’m not big into a lot of dark themes they use but you gotta admit that King Diamond is a tight ass heavy band man. Riffs galore. Great stuff. RIP Timi Also do you live in a guitar store or something? Lol Cool vid subscribed!

🤘Awesome! Hail to the King! Going to see "them" tomorrow night at the Riv!🤘

Great stuff, really learned a lot of technique from this vid. !! Saw King Diamond about a month ago, they are still killin' it. Incredible show. the Institution tour. \m/

Love King Diamond Stuff!

Merciful Fate and King Diamond fan here. They are so underrated. Thanks for recognizing them. Is That Axe Fx Leon ?

Thank you for doing this, King's band is so underrated it is not even funny. Andy and Pete are Gods.

Great work as a great remember too of both Andy Laroque and Criss Oliva(RIP), two of my favorites of all time. The riff of Mother's Getting Weaker, from "Them" album, its another exemple of that genious mind.

Agora faz um vídeo com solos de algumas músicas do king diamond...Abraço e obrigado pelo vídeo

AMAZING demonstration of King Diamond riffs, you chose a great guitar to play them on also...because I have that exact same Dean 'Select' V guitar in that same colour too!!!!!! (When I saw that guitar for the first time I HAD to get it...after a bit of shopping around and seeing what OTHER flying V guitars were out there, I ALWAYS came back to this one on my search!!)

We were talking about how crminally underrated Andy is a couple months ago. I mentioned I had The Eye on permanent play in my car for a whole summer delivering pizza. Just chocked full of killer dark riffs, lots of whole half diminished flavor and stacked minor 3rd evilness to make for a good Halloween jam. Great tone too.

I was waiting for you to hit At the Graves. Like his best song in my opinion. You know your stuff you played really well. Good shit!

King Diamond (band) provides an avalanche of badass riffs. Greetings from Brazil!

I really love the part after "There's no more to tell..." (The Meetings, album: "The Eye" (1990)

Nice video! I've loved KD since I heard the Abigail album on cassette back in 87/88. Andy is a fantastic player, always full of interesting riffs and note choices. You mentioned Criss Oliva and I love his playing as well. Just recently I became interested in the more recent KD-albums (kind of lost track of him after The Eye) and ordered a couple of them on cd. Still a few more to hunt down though.

Right on, Brother! I happen to enjoy Andy's guitar work on The Eye. I most certainly think he is a vastly underrated guitarist.

This was great! Love King Diamond. Still have "Them" on cassette; and, "Conspiracy" vinyl picture disc 🤘🏻🧛‍♀️☠

Awesome video Leon. I'd love for you to do a 5 Killer riffs video on Accept. Wolf Hoffmann is a phenomenal metal guitarist and has a plethora of Metal Riffs!

COVEN reunion show 2021!! Great video!

Hi Leon , wow i love the sound of that guitar.You played them flawlessly. Great riffs from one of the masters of heavy metal guitar playing for sure.I am a metal head from back in the 80's and listened to these guys as well as Savatage , Helloween and Judas Priest among others. I play a double stack Carvin with a Hughes & Kettner 100w head. I love your videos and have learned tons from you. Thank you. ROCK ON \m/

Ok you’re covering King Diamond? I love this channel now

Just got into KD about two weeks ago... I’m 39 and have loved metal since I’m 14. Took a while but man do I love KD now. Just bought Abigail on Vinyl today :)

This was some amazing playing, I love the tone too. What amp model are you using on this? Sounds amazing, keep up the good work

Please do some on Metal Church 🤘🤘🤘

respect ...... job done super cool...... greatings from denmark

Stopped by because Ola had a print screen from your channel in his latest FAQ. Now I see you playing King Diamond, and I hit subscribe ofc. I have spent a significant amount of hours in my teens listening to "Them" and "Abigail".

Bought Them back then to shock my mother - never really got into it but it did work ... shocked my mother.

Love King Diamond. Been a fan since 1984. Looking forward to seeing him Nov.27th in Vancouver.

Insanity or Shrine. Cool tracks too. Nice video.

Such and underrated band King diamond is, rarely see guitarists pay homage to this band, and mercyful fate.