Mercyful Fate Family Tree
This is a project aimed at making it easy to see who inspired the bands you love or even hate. For this I try not to use any influences that the band don’t claim themselves. There will be a focus on predecessors but successors will be added as they site the band. These trees become more and more interactive as new bands are added, allowing you to click any band that has a tree and jump to it.
We want our lists to be better. If you know something that belongs on this list, let us know. When in doubt we will leave it out, so we need reliable sources.
Mercyful Fate is a important metal band that doesn’t get the attention they deserve. Much of the reason being their initial career was relatively short lived. They have been a huge influence on a ton of bands and are far more technical of a band than they are given credit for. They released their first two albums in 1983, and 1984 with the line up consisting of vocalist King Diamond, Hank Shermann and Michael Denner on guitars, Timi Hanson on bass, and Kim Ruzz on drums.
Primarily Writing in the band has been done by Shermann, King Diamond, and Denner. After the first two albums, the band split but reformed in the early 90’s releasing albums through out the 90’s. During that time the band saw some line up changes with only King Diamond and Hank as core members. With the exception of two songs, one by Bassist Sharlee D’Angelo, and another by Guitarist Mike Wead, all other songs were written by King, Shermann, or Denner. Denner was no longer with the band after the fourth album. The influences here will only be that of King Diamond, Shermann, and Denner.
Ollie Halsall
Ritchie Blackmore
Hank names a favorite band/album that I can not identify, “Warning/2 (The Red Album)”
Hank was previously in a punk band, Brats.
King Diamond in one interview talks about how great Dio’s vocals were, but didn’t directly name him as an influence, perhaps he is though. When talking about his makeup King said he was influenced by Peter Gabriel and Alice Cooper. King talking about concerts he saw when he was young named Sex Pistols back then, the Runaways, Thin Lizzy, Grand Funk Railroad, The Who, Blue Oyster Cult, Geordie, and Budgie. I’m not clear if he meant these as influences, but lean toward he was just reminiscing.
Michael said that Hank picked up guitar influenced by Ace Frehley of Kiss.
Some of Michael’s influences are lacking an original source that is till online. These influences include Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, and Ollie Halsall. The original sources seem to be from old Mercyful Fate and Denner/Sherman websites that are no longer active, but I believe these second hand sources to be reliable as the same list has been identically copied in multiple places and other indirect comments give evidence of the list.
Bands influenced by Mercyful Fate!
As this project advances, bands will be added here… there are many!
Sources:
https://hankshermann.com/bio/
https://loudwire.com/hank-shermann-early-mercyful-fate-reunion-hopes-guitar-influences/
https://web.archive.org/web/20160303165043/http://www.tartareandesire.com/interviews/kingdiamond.html
https://www.loudersound.com/features/king-diamond-is-honoured-to-have-inspired-metallica
https://www.kerrang.com/king-diamond-if-there-is-a-hell-and-i-go-there-who-cares-ive-already-faced-it
https://steelforbrains.tumblr.com/post/98725284842/king-diamond
https://www.bardomethodology.com/articles/2020/04/15/michael-denner-king-diamond-mercyful-fate-interview/
https://www.saitenkult.de/2019/09/26/michael-denner/
https://www.johndenner.com/michael-denner/