Metallica released their Mercyful Fate medley on the 1998 covers album Garage Inc. which featured the band performing "Satan's Fall," "Curse of the Pharaohs," "A Corpse Without Soul," "Into the Coven," and "Evil." Garage Inc. has gone on to sell over 5 million copies in the United States alone, of course with a chunk of those sales being when it first came out.
In an interview with Dean Delray of Let There Be Talk, Mercyful Fate vocalist King Diamond said that initial bump in royalties allowed him to sell his old Trans Am and buy a Corvette. So pretty damn good! Diamond clarifies that he doesn't see too much in terms of royalties these days from the medley, but notes that it's not nothing either.
"Right when [that] came out, yeah, it was nice. 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.
"I did something with Volbeat — [the song 'Room 24'] that I did half the lyric for 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 will hit the road with Kreator and Midnight later this month. They've also been playing a new song called "The Jackal Of Salzburg" live lately, so get stoked on hearing that too!
10/25 Dallas, TX – The Factory
10/27 Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
10/29 Inglewood, CA – Youtube Theater
10/30 Wheatland, CA – Hard Rock Live Sacramento
11/1 Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
11/3 Gary, IN – Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana
11/4 Cincinnati, OH – The Andrew J. Brady Music Center
11/5 Detroit, MI – Masonic
11/8 Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring
11/10 Brooklyn, NY – Kings Theater
11/11 Laval, QC – Place Bell
11/13 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall At Fenway
11/14 Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore Philadelphia
11/16 Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
