Interview: Lex Legion
The meaning of Lex Legion, it’s power, it's a little bit dark, little bit mystic, it has all the ingredients.
New heavy metal supergroup Lex Legion consist of vocalist Nils K. Rue, guitarist Andy La Rocque and Pete Blakk, bassist Hal Patino and drummer Mikkey Dee (who between them have played with the storied likes of Motörhead, Scorpions, Death and King Diamond), and have just unleashed their self titled debut album, and it is a fast paced metal assault from start to finish. To celebrate the takes do the album, Gavin Brown caught up with Pete Blakk to hear all about his return to music with Lex Legion and how the band got together and with four fifths of Lex Legion having previously played with King Diamond, we discuss Pete’s time with the King as well as his other musical endeavours.
E&D: The new self-titled debut album from Lex Legion has just been released. How excited are you to be releasing this album with this new band?
Pete: Very excited. I felt for many years, I was done with music. The other boys have been playing, as you know, along the way, Mikkey with Scorpions, Motörhead, and Andy with the King, but I felt like I wasn’t done, so for me, it’s an amazing opportunity to come back and show the fans that I’m still alive!
E&D: As a brand new band, do you and all the other members feel reenergised with this album?
Pete: Oh, yeah, it’s so refreshing, because the way we write music is still like the same style as we wrote back in the 80s, but with, of course, new technology, Everything has developed so much studio wise, and Andy knows his stuff. We’re recording in his studio the way we wrote in the 80s, but the songs are fresh, new, and I think they’re a good fit for both new audience and old.
E&D: Have you had good feedback for the album?
Pete: The feedback has been amazing, totally insane! The internet exploded when we released the first single, and we released the comeback of the band, because we kept it secret until the first release of the single.
E&D: What was it like coming together to make this album?
Pete: Oh, it was awesome. When we did the first video shoot, that was the first time we’d all got together, all five of us, because the way we record is, I write maybe a couple of songs, and Andy writes a couple of songs, and we try them out in his studio. We record with just basic tracks, do some drum machine on it, just to have something to listen to. Then we bring Mikkey in, and he comes down to the studio. We rearrange his input so it’s us three. Hal and Nils, they live in Norway, so they record by themselves in their own studios up there. When we got together for the video shoot, it was like we had never been apart, with the same jokes, we had fun, we were laughing, it was awesome!
E&D: How did Lex Legion start as a band in the first place?
Pete: It’s a long story! I’ll do the short version! Me and Andy started doing some recordings, because we’re all friends. We’ve known each other since way back, when King Diamond started, it was me and Mikkey. We were down in Copenhagen with our old band, Geisha, and Mercyful Fate had split up, and we were asked to join to join forces with King, Michael Denner and Timi Hansen. Back then, I said no at the time Mikkey said yes, and joined, and they recorded Fatal Portrait, so we have been friends for so long. In 2008, Andy and me said maybe we should do a record, maybe just a guitar instrumental record. We just started to do some stuff, never happened, it fell behind the chairs, Then during the lockdown, I saw that Mercyful Fate was going out on tour, so I called Michael Denner up and said, “Hey, what the fuck is going on? You’re not in the band, you’re not going on tour, and he’s, “No, they’re doing it without me. So I got the idea of recording a couple of songs, maybe putting something together with some guys, I didn’t have any special names, so I did a demo with five songs that I recorded in San Diego, because I was leaving the US at the time, the summer of 21, I was at Mikkeys house, and I said, ‘Hey, do you want to listen to a couple songs I recorded? and I played it for him, and he said, ‘What the fuck? This is amazing. I want to be part of this. I said, ‘What I mean, you’re in Scorpions, you don’t have the time? And he said, ‘Well, let’s call Andy, and I was like, but Andy’s so busy with King, he’s not gonna do it. Two days later, he called me up and said, Andy’s in, and I was like, what the hell? And Hal was with me at the time, so here we are, all four of us, and so we started recording and found Nils through Andy. Andy had done some projects with him years back, and he knew he was an amazing singer, so he introduced the idea. We had two songs ready so we sent two songs to Nils, and when they came back, I said, it’s him, it’s not gonna be anyone else!
E&D: With four fifths of the band playing with King Diamond at different points, does it feel like a reunion?
Pete: Yes, in a way. I called King up, maybe 2015. I said, ‘Hey, if you want, I can come back into the band, we can reunite, do something amazing. But he wasn’t interested, so here we are, the four of us, we are friends. Me and Mikkey had never stopped being in contact wherever he is. We’ve known each other since the late 70s in Gothenburg. We love each other. We are super tight friends. There’s no ego, We work good together, like me and Andy. A trademark that we had back in the day with King was me and Andy’s trade-offs that we did, the harmonies. Now we don’t have to talk in the studio, it’s just the synergy, it’s just there. I do something, and he fills it in, and he does something, it’s just chemistry.
E&D: Do you have good memories of making the King Diamond album Them with the rest of the members of Lex Legion?
Pete: Oh yeah, that was the classic album that we did, and we had so much fun. Unfortunately, the sound maybe could have been a little bit better. I appreciate King’s stuff that he did on that album more today than I did when we recorded. I’m blown away by all the characters and the different voices that he does, and the story in itself, with the music, because it all fits together, and what people don’t know is that we always, me and Andy, we always contributed, so if King had a eerie, scary, moment with the lyrics, or in the song, we were trying to do the same with the guitars, to come up with a theatrical feeling, and if you listen to Them and Conspiracy, on both those albums, a lot of that is guitar stuff, where we try to contribute to King’s story, so it was an amazing album to record. It was fun.
E&D: Did you also have a good time making the Conspiracy and The Eye albums as well?
Pete: Yeah. All those albums were different, Them was we recorded in Copenhagen in a new studio we never been in before with Roberto Falcao and Conspiracy was recorded in LA in Rumbo Recorders where a lot of famous bands recorded like Kiss. Guns N’ Roses made Appetite for Destruction there. A lot of famous bands did their recordings in that studio. An awesome studio. It’s not there anymore, unfortunately. They tore it down, but that was special. We were living in LA at the time, and we booked the studio for months. Mikkey was out of the band, but he did the drums on Conspiracy, we convinced him, me and Hal, because we were hanging out, me, Hal, and Mikkey were always partying, bot me anymore. I have been sober for many years, but back in the day we were out drinking all the time, and hanging as buddies, so it was a fun time because you spent half of the time at the Rainbow and half of the time in the studio.
E&D: What were some of the other highlights of your time playing guitar with King Diamond?
Pete: Just being part of the band, contributing to those classic albums that have put a mark on the map. I can tell you funny stories! I moved to US in 2007 and I had the moving company bring all my stuff there, and I hadn’t played for many years. I’d kind of put my guitars on the shelf and didn’t do anything. One of the guys moving was asking me, he’s like, “Oh, are you a musician? I said, “Yeah, I don’t play anymore, I used to, and when he dug into the van with the stuff, he saw my King Diamond cases, and he freaked out because he was such a King Diamond fan! That moment, I realised, wow, we put such a mark on the map, that was 2007 and I had been out of the business for so long, so that’s when I got the idea of starting to do something again, and I recorded the Disaster/Peace album two years later. That gave me a hint of wow, people still remember us, and now it’s crazy! King have continued touring, and you can see he’s still pulling huge crowds everywhere, even though he hasn’t recorded an album for so long, and that was actually the idea of this band, I knew that the fans were out there waiting for some real music, not to say that his music is not real, but there hasn’t been a King Diamond album for so long, and I knew that there were fans out there that wanted, this real music.
E&D: Going back to Lex Legion, what does the name of the band refer to?
Pete: It hasn’t got any special meaning. We were looking for a name, we had an idea, actually. We were bumping around with Legion. We like Legion because Legion is a force, people together, Legion. So we were working on that, and we had Lost Legion, but then unfortunately a band in, I think, Chicago,, they had the name and haven’t done anything big, but you still you can’t use the name, so then Mikkey came up with Lex Legion, you know, because if you, Google it, or see the meaning of Lex Legion, it’s power, it’s a little bit dark, little bit mystic, it has all the ingredients, so yeah, Lex Legion!
E&D: What about Lex Legion live dates, has that been discussed?
Pete: Yes, we have. It’s not official yet, but it will be. So, we will be playing in 2026. We will not go on tour because there’s no time for that, but we will be playing here in 2026. We are already planning for 2027 to go full berserk all over, as much as we can. Hopefully Mikkey is not too busy!
E&D: Are you looking forward to getting back on out on stage yourself?
Pete: Oh yeah, that’s gonna be so fun with this band, with these songs.
E&D: Have you missed playing live?
Pete: Oh yeah, I missed it a lot. You can’t. regret the past, because that’s neurotic. You can’t change what happened, but I could have stayed in King Diamond back in the day, when I left the band, and I left the band, I wasn’t kicked out. I’m here now, so many years later, and doing this,
E&D: Does it feel like it’s come full circle?
Pete: It actually does, because, like I said, I wasn’t done, I had the feeling I had more to contribute. I wasn’t done with music, and I did a couple of my Blakk Totem albums and Disaster/Peace, but I felt I had more, more in me, and and yeah, it’s full circle for sure.
E&D: Who are some of your biggest influences as a guitarist?
Pete: I was a huge Richie Blackmore fan, but he was so hard to copy! He was my number one idol, and then I had a guitar friend here in my hometown. He told me some advice. He said, “Hey, Pete, you know, it’s not about playing fast and do all the runs all the time. You gotta have the tone. That was way back in the 70s when I was a youngster, and he said, “You got to start listening to Billy Gibbons, so I did, and you better have the tone! Then, of course, Michael Schenker and Randy Rhoads came along and influenced us all, I think.
Photo by Patric Ullaeus
