Ville appeared in this weeks Kerrang,
asking lars from Metallica a Question.
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Lumnezia Festival 2008
The Lumnezia Festival 2008 will be shown on Swiss tv in 3 days.
http://tvprogramm.sf.tv/detail.php?slotid=5AC05E57-9E64-4BDB-9C78-59318638E79D&tvdate=2009-03-01
New Soundi article
Credit To :sineresi
There's a five-page article featuring Ville in the new Soundi magazine. In it Ville and Marko Annala from Mokoma exchange iPods without knowing whose iPod they get. They have to try to guess who it belongs to, and then they get together to discuss their relationship with their iPods and stuff like that.
There's a five-page article featuring Ville in the new Soundi magazine. In it Ville and Marko Annala from Mokoma exchange iPods without knowing whose iPod they get. They have to try to guess who it belongs to, and then they get together to discuss their relationship with their iPods and stuff like that.
Soundi article translation
Thank you: sineresi
IN A STRANGE AUDIO LANDSCAPE
Ville Valo and Marko Annala are in the middle of a creative period. Both are currently working on songs for their respective band’s seventh album. Soundi mixed things up by switching the songwriters’ iPods for a few weeks. Did it open strange new doors? Did the shy look of the muse’s eyes get a new glow?
Ville Valo studies with interest the black iPod delivered to his door. The content of the 60 GB device makes him smile.
- Ooh, good stuff. A lot of familiar albums I haven’t heard in a while... Rytmihäiriö. Which album..? Oh, one of the newer ones. Okay. And some Rattus, too. This could belong to someone from Tampere. Maybe the singer of Ääritila [Lasse Aaltonen a.k.a. Laturi, also known for the band Riistetyt].
He continues to pensively look through it dropping other names and excluding unlikely candidates.
- I don’t think it’s the Nosferatu of Nakkila [Herra Ylppö]... It could be someone from Oulu as well.
The soul of HIM is one half of Soundi’s experiment where two musicians anonymously exchange iPods. In a few weeks, they’ll meet and compare their experiences.
- On the other hand, there’s this Erkki Junkkarinen department too. Hmm, yeah. Good stuff for the road undoubtedly. And it points to the Lappeenranta gang. Could it be Hynynen [Jouni Hynynen from Kotiteollisuus]..? Even from Napalm Death there are only the albums with Lee Dorrian... The Finnish hardcore always points to a certain direction. Oh. Meshuggah. Hynynen might not have that... It’s probably one of the guys from Mokoma. One of Pätkä’s friends, that’s for sure.
The lighthouse keeper of Munkkiniemi is starting to get so close that he has to be distracted. Ville gladly starts to talk about the big work of Christopher Shy’s that’s hanging on his wall. And about another one that’s upstairs. But that’s another story.
A few days later, “one of the guys from Mokoma”, or more specifically Marko Annala, is turning in his hand Valo’s 8 GB, also black, iPod. Just like Ville, he’s making music for his band’s seventh album and is gladly participating in the iPod exchange experiment.
- Interesting music. Who could it be..? Maybe Jori Sjöroos. Or Ville Tuomi. Or Jyrki69 or Jussi 69. It’s hard to say. I don’t think it’s a metal musician, but rather someone who plays pop music but also likes metal. The ratio between the two genres is the exact opposite of the one in my iPod.
Marko returns to the issue with text messages. The first one reads: “The reggae is throwing me off because the goth and black metal are exactly what you’d expect. The only metalhead I know that also likes reggae is Ville Valo, but I don’t think you would have talked him into doing this.”
And so also the other participant has guessed right. Because I have to rudely ignore the message so that Ville’s identity isn’t discovered too early, the Mokoma frontman sends another message a day before the meeting: “After Ville, my strongest guess is Joa from Sara, but if it’s not him, it’s still a musician born in the 80’s. And a singer-songwriter.”
After about two weeks, Marko is walking down the nave of the Tampere Cathedral. His face breaks into a wide I-told-you-so smile when he sees Ville who’s making faces for the camera. Ville had wished that the pictures for the article would be taken at the cathedral because he’s interested in the building and especially Hugo Simberg’s art in it.
The singers greet and hug each other. Everybody feels like laughing. The look on Ville’s face says that he’s also glad for guessing right.
After admiring the architecture, the frescoes, and the stained-glass windows and posing for the pictures, we discuss the current situation of Mokoma and HIM. Annala has spent time in a rented cottage in Terälahti where he has put the finishing touches on his new songs with a method that’s uncommon for him.
- I haven’t composed songs acoustically before, but now I’ve tried that too, he says. – The guys were just there spending the weekend, and we arranged a few songs with acoustic guitars and an acoustic bass. I’ve been staring at lynx tracks and made music.
Valo and his group are a little farther along. 15 or 16 ideas are apparently in a trying-out stage, and they have even made it to their rehearsal place already.
- Gas’s first baby was born a week and a half ago, and now we have returned to our rehearsal schedule and turned the amps to position 11. It’s lovely to work on stuff in our family-like work environment again, and I’ve learned to trust more in the coincidences of a creative moment and in shared enthusiasm. It’s nicer to go to the studio when we haven’t beaten ideas to death. So that it’s not just mechanical repetition.
Annala thinks that Mokoma will begin work at their rehearsal place at the end of February. He hasn’t written any texts yet, but he sees clearly the direction they are going in. He estimates that the album will be in the stores “in the spring of 2010”.
Valo hopes that HIM will make a demo in March, go to the studio in the spring, and get the record out “in early 2010”. Selecting the producer is the next big step that he is going to go discuss with record label people in California later in the spring. The next album will not be produced by Tim Palmer.
- We have gotten all we can out of Tim and vice versa. Our love-hate relationship is mutual. You have to take a leap once in while. But we’ll find a role for Tim too; it’s probable that he will mix the album. What’s essential now is that the band likes to rehearse and everyone really likes what they are playing. Without compromises.
After taking the pictures, we move to a more earthly setting. Everyone just wants black coffee and “maybe also some soda pop”, but because Ville says he likes bars more than an average café, we head to a pub on Tuomiokirkonkatu.
The conversation starts with how they both guessed the identity of the other. The link between them is Pätkä who Ville mentioned earlier and with whom they both have recorded a long time ago: Annala with Slumgudgeon and Valo with HIM.
Marko: - I thought beforehand that the most embarrassing thing would be if it were some indie guy who I don’t really know or even recognize. I would sit here thinking who the hell is that guy. I was so relieved when I saw you!
Ville had later become a little paranoid with his guesses. He had started to wonder whether he had the iPod of someone very close to him.
Ville: - I even thought this might be Gas’s iPod. It was missing Queensryche, but otherwise it had a lot of stuff that he has too.
Marko: - It was easy to see that the owner was someone who actively updates his knowledge on music. There are a lot of guys who are our age that think that no good music has come out in the last ten years. And then certain stuff, for example Cat Stevens, Jenny Wilson and Jeff Buckley, made me think that it was a songwriter not just an ordinary member of a band. A songwriter’s iPod, definitely.
And as we saw earlier, Ville situated his borrowed device in the right geographical direction. It was in Lappeenranta where Annala started to make music, even though he has since relocated to Tampere.
Ville: - I was just certain that it was someone from Lappeenranta. Standards, challenging stuff, twisted humor. It reminded me so much of Pätkä. A little bit of the Finnhits stuff to laugh at and a little bit of pop – Kanye West and stuff – but also Morbid Angel. And quite a lot of heavy metal.
Marko: - Your iPod does say a lot about you, but I have to say that I don’t feel like a metalhead. The important thing for me is not that the music is heavy. I like all kinds of good music, it’s just that I’ve happened to find the most to explore within heavier music.
Neither of them confesses to having tried to make themselves look better; nothing has been added to their iPods for this interview. They both have, however, removed their own band’s demos and Marko also other artists of his record company Sakara Records – their presence might have made it too easy to guess his identity.
Ville: - I have a couple of other iPods as well, but I like carrying that small one with me because it has so little space. That way you have to update your selection more often. If you have too much music with you, there’s too much to choose from, and you end up listening to nothing in particular.
Marko: - I also often take my wife’s Nano that has only a couple of GBs with me when I go jogging. But the problem is that at home you think you’ll want to listen to certain stuff, and then once you get outside you curse yourself because there’s nothing you want to listen to. Last summer when I ran a marathon, I uploaded enough albums to last me those four hours.
- When you’re jogging, an iPod is good because without music you start to concentrate on your own panting and other sounds of your body. When you’re listening to music, you concentrate on that and running may get easier.
Ville: - I listen to my iPod too sometimes when I walk to the post office.
Even though both have also individual songs on their iPods, they both agree that they prefer whole albums. Annala has never used the shuffle function, and Valo doesn’t have good experiences with it either.
Valo: - I have sometimes tried it to see how it works. But it doesn’t make any fucking sense. I have sometimes been hooked on some individual songs, though. I occasionally use the repeat function pretty obsessive-compulsively. For example, Goldfrapp’s A&E is like that. A compact, perfect pop song. And I didn’t listen to it analytically or anything. It just made me feel good. I seem to be in that kind of phase right now.
Marko: - Could concentrating on individual songs be because you’re working on new songs yourself right now?
Ville: - No, at least not consciously. Right now I’m listening to Chuck Fenda’s Gwaan Plant where the message is “more marijuana we want”, and that really has nothing to do with HIM. “Farmer go and grow because we need more grass / The better the quality, the better for us / because we are rasta dudes.” That’s the chorus and the content. Ha ha ha. Concentrating on individual songs is a new thing for me. I’d also like to know what it is about. We’re really not talking about me listening to for example Solitary Man by Johnny Cash hoping for some unconscious inspiration.
Marko: - I’ve taken listening to albums so far that now I feel bad even skipping shitty intros! I still see an album so strongly as a whole that if they have put in some noise or an intro that feels unnecessary to me, I guess they have tried to say something with it. If I want to listen to noise, I rather put on for example Autechre.
Ville: - If were talking about albums, the last one I’ve really gotten excited over is Witchcult Today by Electric Wizard that has Sabbath and stuff like that in it. I must have bought it four times because my Mac laptop doesn’t read it or any other black cds. Same thing with the newest Katatonia and Cardigans. I couldn’t upload Witchcult Today onto my iPod, so I ended up buying it from iTunes. If you can’t listen to a new record you’ve been waiting for when you get home, it’s sure to piss you off. That’s the same thing that often drives people to get their music from other sources, so to speak. Same thing with the first copy-protected cds. The system actually made listening to music more difficult. It was pretty damn strange that a brand new cd wouldn’t play in your car stereo for example.
Marko: - I have very unwillingly bought a few copy-protected cds, and I remember being fucking pissed when Playing the Angel by Depeche Mode came with some player that had to be installed on your computer to be able to play it.
Ville brings the conversation back to the “songs vs. albums” territory.
- Often I also just want to listen to silence or the humming of the bus. If you’ve just played a gig and you have 600 kilometers of sitting in a bus ahead of you, the first thing that comes to mind is not blasting something like Disturbed.
Marko: - An iPod is a pretty impossible device on the road. In the Karelian yapping that goes on in our tour bus, it’s impossible to concentrate on anything, and you have to have time to play cards too. Often, when I leave to go on tour, I upload something that I assume I’ll listen to but it’s kind of like the books you pack with you that you never read.
Ville: - I have usually managed to read the books I have brought with me. Maybe the distances we have to cover are a little longer and there’s a little more time to kill while waiting around.
Both the 32-year-old Ville Hermanni Valo and the 36-year-old Marko Kristian Annala consider their iPod solely a tool. Neither is particularly attached to it or has customized its appearance in any way. Neither has modified the software either.
The frontman of Mokoma says, however, that he has turned off the volume limit of his player with the help of a friend. His colleague from HIM says he’s going to do the same. So far to blast music he has had to get out his oldest iPod made before such limits existed. The only more unusual program he says he uses is iPod Ripper.
Annala remembers that he got his first iPod “in 2004 or 2005 because I used it to listen to the demos of Kuoleman laulukunnaat”. Valo says he got “the very first model as a gift” from his friend, the American professional skateboarder/jackass Bam Margera “in 2002 if I recall correctly. The capacity was probably 5 GBs”.
The devices fulfil their intended purpose at the moment, so a switch to an iPhone for example doesn’t interest the men. Marko doesn’t want to “create more waste into the world all the time”, but he also finds a more specific reason for his choice.
Marko: - First of all, I’m waiting for another operator besides Sonera to start to sell it and for it to develop technically a bit.
Ville: - I’m scared of having all the technical appliances in one. I don’t like that you combine a phone and a camera and a music player. When one of them breaks, you can’t use any of them.
These attitudes are reflected also on how they view additional appliances.
Marko: - In Mokoma, we often think in a pretty communist way, so we have bought a docking station together for our rehearsal place and our bus. You have to follow some kind of ecological thinking.
Ville: - I have different… docking stations – the term always makes me laugh because “docking” has it’s own meaning in adult entertainment… if you’re not familiar with it, go find out. In any case, I must have five of those. When the first small stations came out, I bought a few just to try them out. We were on the road a lot back then and they felt like a good idea. But the lower frequencies suck. Especially with reggae they didn’t work at all. They were those cheap Altec Lansings and JBLs. And they all sucked.
- Then the first Bose docking station came out, and the bass worked in it as well. It was the wall-like model that weighed a ton, but it reproduced the lower frequencies well. Thankfully the new lighter Bose model finally has an “aux in” plug that I missed in the older one. Even at home I usually play music with AirTunes nowadays, which means that the iTunes in my laptop is running and I direct music to the room I want through it.
Ville says he’s listening to cds less and less. As an internationally touring musician who spends dozens of days a year on the road or in airplanes, he has noticed that many others are doing the same.
Ville: - If we get back to life on a tour bus, iPods have really revolutionized the whole thing. I don’t think anyone wants to return to the days when you dragged with you 120 cds without covers in those Caselogic suitcases. You always ended up pouring beer on them and all kinds of other shit. When you got back home, you always had to throw some of them out.
Why it is the iPod that has become the standard mp3 player and the most common model, the men don’t really know. They think one reason might be because it’s easy to use, another one being the design aspect that Apple has always been good at.
Marko: - iPod is like Pepsodent, Turun sinappi [famous Finnish mustard brand], or Aurajuusto [famous Finnish blue cheese]. A brand name that you use even if you’re not referring to a Mac appliance. In that sense, the branding of iPod has been very successful. I once borrowed a Creative player, but I didn’t like it. Nor the Sony tube-like device that I have even owned. Adding a screen to these gadgets was a pretty big thing. And when I found iPod, I didn’t have to look for anything better anymore.
One of the ideas behind Soundi’s iPod switch experiment was naturally that the musicians would find new points of view and stumble onto previously unknown artists and bands. Annala has listed Jenny Wilson, Silversun Pickups and CKY from Valo’s selection. The last one he confesses he has previously ignored with the thought “I know they suck without even listening to them”, but he has now changed his opinion.
Valo says that Annala’s music library made him experience several “retro flashes” that made him promise to himself that he will get reacquainted with artists he had for some reason forgotten. The list includes Faith No More, Steve Vai, Satyricon, AC/DC and Soundgarden.
- Goddamnit, Badmotorfinger is a great record! Ville enthuses. – Down on the Upside and their gig in Helsinki around that time left such a bad taste in my mouth, that it ruined Soundgarden’s older stuff for me as well. Which was of course totally unfair. I also remembered what an amazing singer Chris Cornell is. It’s pretty demanding listening to Cornell on Badmotorfinger because he sings so fucking well.
Both still like cds as objects and haven’t become regular customers of iTunes or other mp3 download sites.
Marko: - I really only use iTunes if I can’t find samples of interesting music on for example MySpace. I just bought one song from Carly Simon’s new album.
Ville: - First of all, I have to say that I don’t get Steve Jobs or whoever the hell it is that runs the iTunes store. If there’s such a thing as a “world wide web”, why can’t I buy for example one song as a gift for a friend from American iTunes? What is the point in that American iTunes has totally different stuff than European iTunes?
- The latest thing I’ve downloaded is the new The Crying Light album by Antony & The Johnsons because there is nothing in his album covers to make it worth buying them. That’s it. But on a principle iTunes pisses me off so much that I’d rather not use it at all.
The more sensitive download sites have become familiar only out of sheer necessity.
Ville: - I have always had a rule that if I download something illegally, I also buy it legally. I have done it with a few reggae albums, one I Killah and one Dub Judah. I also looked for Seed of Memory by the interesting British artist Terry Reid at one point for so fucking long that I ended up downloading it illegally. Later I found it on Amazon.com.
Marko: - I have the same attitude. I do it only if it’s virtually impossible to get an album legally. And even then I burn it on a cd and put it on the shelf. Kind of like reserving a spot for the real album as soon as I get my hands on it. I did it with Tulus’s first album that I borrowed and burned. Silent Hill soundtracks and the solo albums of Trey Spruance who was in Faith No More and Mr. Bungle are really hard to get in Finland, so I have agreed to burn them from borrowed albums. But I don’t even know what I should do if I had to go look for a place to illegally download the new Kanye West album, for example. I would be completely lost.
Ville: - I know it a little too well. I once looked for one Paradise Lost album for a long time when I was in a hurry to get it, and it seemed impossible to get. Then I went on some torrent site and after a few clicks and an hour’s wait, I had the whole production of Paradise Lost on my computer. That’s pretty gross. I was thinking: what the fuck. These guys have worked for 25 years, they have released albums and toured all over the world, and then everything they have ever released can be gotten like that for free. With one click. In a shitty quality, but still. Then I ordered the records from some internet store and went on a tour. It was nice to come back home and find the records on my doormat. Then I uploaded them onto my iPod in a better quality.
Ville thinks this is an interesting topic of conversation to study people’s sense of morals.
- Some new band whines that the record company doesn’t support their work, but at the same time they illegally download all the music they listen to. It’s a vicious cycle. Or let’s take the guy who plays the guitar and whose band dreams of a record deal, but because they have illegally downloaded all the music they have ever listened to, there no money going around. And record companies have no money to sign new bands. People are pissing in their own pants out of stupidity.
The quotes:
Marko: “Certain stuff, for example Cat Stevens, Jenny Wilson and Jeff Buckley, made me think that it was a songwriter not just an ordinary member of a band. A songwriter’s iPod, definitely.”
Ville: “I was just certain that it was someone from Lappeenranta. Standards, challenging stuff, twisted humor. A little bit of the Finnhits stuff to laugh at and a little bit of pop – Kanye West and stuff – but also Morbid Angel.
Ville: “I don’t get Steve Jobs or whoever the hell it is that runs the iTunes store. If there’s such a thing as a “world wide web”, why can’t I buy for example one song as a gift for a friend from American iTunes? What is the point in that American iTunes has totally different stuff than European iTunes?”
Marko: “In the Karelian yapping that goes on in our tour bus, it’s impossible to concentrate on anything, and you have to have time to play cards too. Often, when I leave to go on tour, I upload something that I assume I’ll listen to, but it’s kind of like the books you pack with you that you never read.”
Ville: “I have a couple of other iPods as well, but I like carrying that small one with me because it has so little space. That way you have to update your selection more often. If you have too much music with you, there’s too much to choose from, and you end up listening to nothing in particular.”
Ville Valo Moomin Troll
Artist's CommentsFor fans of HIM and the Moomins. How I think Ville Valo would look as a Moomintroll!
~sisterluci
Vintage Interview
scanned & translated by: aidahim
click on pics to enlarge
HIM – cute grouches!
I received the news of the trip to Salzburg for interview with the band HIM with enthusiasm: wow, this is one of the most beautiful European cities. I can not wait to see the castle, and then the other castle and Mozart's house ... Yeahh!!! Not gonna happen. Little did I know that I won’t be capable of doing anything after that interview. After our phone interview, which was published in our last issue, this was our first opportunity to talk face to face so we rushed straight to destination, since we settled in a hotel near the place where the concert was held.
Regardless of the fact that the concert will start in a few hours, we had to push through a lot of in love teenagers, who on the other hand openly envied us, as the guards immediately let us in, however Berty wanted to stay with the girls. After a pleasant conversation with the tour manager Seppa, his assistant, communicative blonde with a tattoo on her left shoulder, and some other people from organization, we headed towards backstage, where the others didn’t have access. At the entrance to a small dark room with irregular shape and full of various inscriptions, graffiti and suffocating smoke, my chin dropped down when I saw Ville, who on the other hand remain very much listless looking at me and my bad hair, “attractive” frog-green sweater, and my other physical and companying “advantages”. In person he is really drop dead gorgeous! Well, he is a bit skinny, but his beautiful blue-green eyes are even prettier when closer. He was wearing black from head to toe with black bandanna around his neck and black nail polish, destroyed but I suppose that’s the way it suppose to be.
The guys from HIM kindly welcomed us, but after they found out that they are short with time and that they won’t be able to go out to see the city after the tone sound check suddenly they’re mood went down and Ville gave us a cold RTG-look. From that moment on I have felt as if someone pushed me into the lion's den. The blond went out of the room along with the keyboard player Zoltan and the drummer Gas, they probably didn’t want to look at me and Berty tortured by grumpy Ville. The bass player Mige and the guitar player Lily stayed in the room; they were probably the bravest and curious. I tried to sound casual for it was silent like in a grave: “OK, we won’t bother you with classic biography. Let’s skip that and go to more personal questions.” Ville made a grimace, and Mige smiled cynically rolling his eyes. Let’s start with your childhood…I began and Ville interrupted me with an answer: “I was a normal child, I’m maybe a bit more relaxed now. Back then I was a hellraiser!” “Wow, what a tone, and I heard that you are cheerful and funny person”, I mumbled to myself, And Ville looked at me and said that he’s not in a mood for joke. “I’d really like to know who your idol was when you were a kid”, I asked rather apathetic, and he answered me even more apathetic: “Gene Simons from Kiss.” “OK and what did you wanted to become when you were a kid?”, and he repeated: “Gene Simons from Kiss”
“Great”, I said, “my editor will be very pleased with these short and very imaginative statements. With whom would you like to get stuck in an elevator?” “Gene Simons from Kiss”, Ville replied again.
“Enough with that guy from Kiss!” I yelled, after which he burst into laughter. That spontaneous and slightly unprofessional moment of my anger was obviously very funny to everyone, so Ville lay down on the couch holding horns above my head while I was talking to Mige, who on the other hand took off his shoes and sat down. From that moment on the lion’s den turned into the kindergarten, so the next phase of the conversation looked like this:
Mige, do you have some kind of phobia? Ville stop mocking at me I can see you!!!
VILLE: Ok, ok!!!
MIGE: Yeah, I’m afraid of ghost. As a matter of fact, I can see them around me constantly.
VILLE: I’m afraid of the heights.
LILY: I’m not afraid of anything, lalala…
Ville can you describe us your first kiss?
VILLE: Who remembers that? I’ve been kissing my whole life; I completely forgot what the first kiss was like.
I can see you’re not really romantic; do you fall in love easily?
VILLE: No. I was never truly in love. I think I’m too young for that.
What kind of pupil were you?
VILLE: Not particularly good, but not bad. I hated gym class. I hate sports in general.
Ok, guys. Let’s see, how would you seduce a girl?
VILLE: I would write her a song! And when it comes to approach, I don’t have a scheme. I always improvise.
LILY: I would buy her flowers!
MIGE: What a woos! I bet you would buy her a cheap, half wilted red rose. I, for example, would wait for a girl to approach me.
What if she doesn’t?
VILLE: He would probably wait for another one to approach him! (Laughter.) He’s very passive; he’s wild only on the stage.
What kind of personality traits does a person has to have to get your attention?
MIGE: Has to be very funny. And talented!
LILY: I like polite people, especially girls.
VILLE: I love when the person has in himself a certain dose of crazy and artistic spirit.
How can you see is the person “crazy” or not?
VILLE: That kind of person has to have a special sparkle in her eyes, and I see that right away.
Ville, we already heard how you got your tattoo while you were drunk, but why the whole hand?
VILLE: On that slogan: all the way! (Laughter)
How do you spend your free time guys?
ALL AT ONCE: We sleep!
VILLE: Actually I bathe and sleep.
MIGE: In addition to sleeping I’m also thinking.
Oh, you’re so very “interesting”. Do you remember at least some embarrassing moments in your lives?
VILLE: Oh, there were many. Once I striped my pants on the middle of the road and showed my behind to someone. In fact I think it happened to all of us.
Ville what does you room look like?
VILLE: It’s normal, with a lot of clutter. One of my biggest flaws is the I’m collecting everything. I have a million of things I don’t need. In the middle of the room is a big bed, and in the corner few old guitars from the 60’s.
What are you sleeping in?
VILLE: Regular underwear.
What kind of boxers do you wear?
VILLE: How do you know its boxers?
Well, it’s not thongs?
VILLE: Noooo, normal, black ones.
How do you bear with all the fans?
VILLE: I always use side entrance! (Laughter).
What’s the worst thing in this business for you guys?
VILL: I’m not complaining. Everything is great to me. The traveling, meeting new people and cultures, fans… all of it!
MIGE: The business bothers me. When people are talking about the money instead of music.
What’s the worse question someone has ever asked you?
VILLE: One journalist asked me am I enjoying necrophilia. (sex with the dead). I believe he only embarrassed the journalism as a profession.
In the middle of Ville’s answer the blond came in and said it was time for the sound check and they were late already. He cheerfully signed the photos and CD’s; he didn’t forget to draw himself horns on the photo. Watching him signing – with his thong out he was like a little child concentrated on his art work –it was clear to me why it took only one single to start a mass hysteria of fans all across Europe. When I saw Mige making jokes with Enrique Iglesias’s picture on the cover of our magazine (he was patting the cover amorously) we left him the copy, and politely said goodbye with the rest of the band, Seppa, and Ville waved to us and said: “It was nice meeting you! Enjoy the concert and... don’t hold something against us!” Of course we didn’t, and neither would you, believe us!
VILLE ABOUT THE BAND MEMBERS
“Mige has very good sense of humor (a bit darker), but he’ is lazy when it comes to taking a bath, so sometimes he has very unpleasant smell. Lily’s often walking with a silly turban on his head, as an attempt to tame his dreadlocks…and he has a big nose. Gas is eating too much Mars chocolate bars and Zoltan is new in the band and we’re still checking him out; so far we didn’t find anything positive, haha…”
HIM LIVE!
Concert was held in Rockhouse, the cult club in Salzburg which is sort of a squirt version of Zagreb’s Gjura or Kulušić. I forgot the name and everything about the bend that preformed before them, and Berty said it wasn’t in his job description. After they finished, around 20:45 Johny Cash started playing, and behind a pink flag with the heartagram emerged. This was an intro to “Right Here in my Arms” and the bend stepped on the scene, accompanied by the screams of the fans. The audience knew every song word by word and we only sang “Join me” (on our surprise they played it in the middle of the concert). The concert ended at 22:30.
click on pics to enlarge
HIM – cute grouches!
I received the news of the trip to Salzburg for interview with the band HIM with enthusiasm: wow, this is one of the most beautiful European cities. I can not wait to see the castle, and then the other castle and Mozart's house ... Yeahh!!! Not gonna happen. Little did I know that I won’t be capable of doing anything after that interview. After our phone interview, which was published in our last issue, this was our first opportunity to talk face to face so we rushed straight to destination, since we settled in a hotel near the place where the concert was held.
Regardless of the fact that the concert will start in a few hours, we had to push through a lot of in love teenagers, who on the other hand openly envied us, as the guards immediately let us in, however Berty wanted to stay with the girls. After a pleasant conversation with the tour manager Seppa, his assistant, communicative blonde with a tattoo on her left shoulder, and some other people from organization, we headed towards backstage, where the others didn’t have access. At the entrance to a small dark room with irregular shape and full of various inscriptions, graffiti and suffocating smoke, my chin dropped down when I saw Ville, who on the other hand remain very much listless looking at me and my bad hair, “attractive” frog-green sweater, and my other physical and companying “advantages”. In person he is really drop dead gorgeous! Well, he is a bit skinny, but his beautiful blue-green eyes are even prettier when closer. He was wearing black from head to toe with black bandanna around his neck and black nail polish, destroyed but I suppose that’s the way it suppose to be.
The guys from HIM kindly welcomed us, but after they found out that they are short with time and that they won’t be able to go out to see the city after the tone sound check suddenly they’re mood went down and Ville gave us a cold RTG-look. From that moment on I have felt as if someone pushed me into the lion's den. The blond went out of the room along with the keyboard player Zoltan and the drummer Gas, they probably didn’t want to look at me and Berty tortured by grumpy Ville. The bass player Mige and the guitar player Lily stayed in the room; they were probably the bravest and curious. I tried to sound casual for it was silent like in a grave: “OK, we won’t bother you with classic biography. Let’s skip that and go to more personal questions.” Ville made a grimace, and Mige smiled cynically rolling his eyes. Let’s start with your childhood…I began and Ville interrupted me with an answer: “I was a normal child, I’m maybe a bit more relaxed now. Back then I was a hellraiser!” “Wow, what a tone, and I heard that you are cheerful and funny person”, I mumbled to myself, And Ville looked at me and said that he’s not in a mood for joke. “I’d really like to know who your idol was when you were a kid”, I asked rather apathetic, and he answered me even more apathetic: “Gene Simons from Kiss.” “OK and what did you wanted to become when you were a kid?”, and he repeated: “Gene Simons from Kiss”
“Great”, I said, “my editor will be very pleased with these short and very imaginative statements. With whom would you like to get stuck in an elevator?” “Gene Simons from Kiss”, Ville replied again.
“Enough with that guy from Kiss!” I yelled, after which he burst into laughter. That spontaneous and slightly unprofessional moment of my anger was obviously very funny to everyone, so Ville lay down on the couch holding horns above my head while I was talking to Mige, who on the other hand took off his shoes and sat down. From that moment on the lion’s den turned into the kindergarten, so the next phase of the conversation looked like this:
Mige, do you have some kind of phobia? Ville stop mocking at me I can see you!!!
VILLE: Ok, ok!!!
MIGE: Yeah, I’m afraid of ghost. As a matter of fact, I can see them around me constantly.
VILLE: I’m afraid of the heights.
LILY: I’m not afraid of anything, lalala…
Ville can you describe us your first kiss?
VILLE: Who remembers that? I’ve been kissing my whole life; I completely forgot what the first kiss was like.
I can see you’re not really romantic; do you fall in love easily?
VILLE: No. I was never truly in love. I think I’m too young for that.
What kind of pupil were you?
VILLE: Not particularly good, but not bad. I hated gym class. I hate sports in general.
Ok, guys. Let’s see, how would you seduce a girl?
VILLE: I would write her a song! And when it comes to approach, I don’t have a scheme. I always improvise.
LILY: I would buy her flowers!
MIGE: What a woos! I bet you would buy her a cheap, half wilted red rose. I, for example, would wait for a girl to approach me.
What if she doesn’t?
VILLE: He would probably wait for another one to approach him! (Laughter.) He’s very passive; he’s wild only on the stage.
What kind of personality traits does a person has to have to get your attention?
MIGE: Has to be very funny. And talented!
LILY: I like polite people, especially girls.
VILLE: I love when the person has in himself a certain dose of crazy and artistic spirit.
How can you see is the person “crazy” or not?
VILLE: That kind of person has to have a special sparkle in her eyes, and I see that right away.
Ville, we already heard how you got your tattoo while you were drunk, but why the whole hand?
VILLE: On that slogan: all the way! (Laughter)
How do you spend your free time guys?
ALL AT ONCE: We sleep!
VILLE: Actually I bathe and sleep.
MIGE: In addition to sleeping I’m also thinking.
Oh, you’re so very “interesting”. Do you remember at least some embarrassing moments in your lives?
VILLE: Oh, there were many. Once I striped my pants on the middle of the road and showed my behind to someone. In fact I think it happened to all of us.
Ville what does you room look like?
VILLE: It’s normal, with a lot of clutter. One of my biggest flaws is the I’m collecting everything. I have a million of things I don’t need. In the middle of the room is a big bed, and in the corner few old guitars from the 60’s.
What are you sleeping in?
VILLE: Regular underwear.
What kind of boxers do you wear?
VILLE: How do you know its boxers?
Well, it’s not thongs?
VILLE: Noooo, normal, black ones.
How do you bear with all the fans?
VILLE: I always use side entrance! (Laughter).
What’s the worst thing in this business for you guys?
VILL: I’m not complaining. Everything is great to me. The traveling, meeting new people and cultures, fans… all of it!
MIGE: The business bothers me. When people are talking about the money instead of music.
What’s the worse question someone has ever asked you?
VILLE: One journalist asked me am I enjoying necrophilia. (sex with the dead). I believe he only embarrassed the journalism as a profession.
In the middle of Ville’s answer the blond came in and said it was time for the sound check and they were late already. He cheerfully signed the photos and CD’s; he didn’t forget to draw himself horns on the photo. Watching him signing – with his thong out he was like a little child concentrated on his art work –it was clear to me why it took only one single to start a mass hysteria of fans all across Europe. When I saw Mige making jokes with Enrique Iglesias’s picture on the cover of our magazine (he was patting the cover amorously) we left him the copy, and politely said goodbye with the rest of the band, Seppa, and Ville waved to us and said: “It was nice meeting you! Enjoy the concert and... don’t hold something against us!” Of course we didn’t, and neither would you, believe us!
VILLE ABOUT THE BAND MEMBERS
“Mige has very good sense of humor (a bit darker), but he’ is lazy when it comes to taking a bath, so sometimes he has very unpleasant smell. Lily’s often walking with a silly turban on his head, as an attempt to tame his dreadlocks…and he has a big nose. Gas is eating too much Mars chocolate bars and Zoltan is new in the band and we’re still checking him out; so far we didn’t find anything positive, haha…”
HIM LIVE!
Concert was held in Rockhouse, the cult club in Salzburg which is sort of a squirt version of Zagreb’s Gjura or Kulušić. I forgot the name and everything about the bend that preformed before them, and Berty said it wasn’t in his job description. After they finished, around 20:45 Johny Cash started playing, and behind a pink flag with the heartagram emerged. This was an intro to “Right Here in my Arms” and the bend stepped on the scene, accompanied by the screams of the fans. The audience knew every song word by word and we only sang “Join me” (on our surprise they played it in the middle of the concert). The concert ended at 22:30.
Kerrang
.
In in exclusive interview in this week's Kerrang! magazine
HIM frontman Ville Valo reveals he's finding it difficult coping with being sober.
"When somebody has to be sober it's always a sad existence," he told K!.
"A lot of people think that if you're sober everything's good, but in fact you see all the shit much clearer."
Valo also went on to reveal that HIM have begun work on their seventh studio album and fans will be shocked by the band's new material.
"It'sa bit of a departure from me this time around," he said. "This time everything is very direct and straight to the point.'
For the full interview, be sure to pick up a copy of this week's Kerrang! magazine.
http://www.kerrang.com/
In in exclusive interview in this week's Kerrang! magazineHIM frontman Ville Valo reveals he's finding it difficult coping with being sober.
"When somebody has to be sober it's always a sad existence," he told K!.
"A lot of people think that if you're sober everything's good, but in fact you see all the shit much clearer."
Valo also went on to reveal that HIM have begun work on their seventh studio album and fans will be shocked by the band's new material.
"It'sa bit of a departure from me this time around," he said. "This time everything is very direct and straight to the point.'
For the full interview, be sure to pick up a copy of this week's Kerrang! magazine.
http://www.kerrang.com/
Ville Valo Getting his Famous Tattoo
ville getting the tatoo he has on his lower stomach
credit to: wickedgame666
credit to: wickedgame666
Back To The Future - 2007
The heavy, dark and progressive Venus Doom is a bold move from a stubborn band, that rather wastes good ideas than plays it safely.The wall of smoke is so thick and gas-like, that it would be dumb to even try and cut it with a knife.
Well, if you can't beat them, join them.
So I light up and step into the cigarette smoke filled reunion room of manager Seppo Vesterinen's Helsinki headquarters.
I pity the reporter whose turn is after me.
He doesn't smoke. Yet.
- Hi! Says the source of the smoke, Ville Valo, and lifts his feet on the table.
- Glad you could make it!
Here I sit with seven Kents in my mouth.
And now I'm talking about the cigarettes, not the band.
There aren't even so many of them.
In the room next door someone plays HIM's new song Passion's Killing Floor on the computer.- We have hired assistants whose job is to listen to our music and compliment it to us, Valo grins.
I suspect he is kidding me.
Earlier that day in Lauttasaari, Helsinki, at the record company Helsinki Music Company's offices, I almost choked on my croissant when HIM's new album slammed my ears with it's heavy, gloomy complexity.
The awaited follow-up to Dark Light is not avantgarde, for sure, but it isn't either a record that you'd expect from a band that is guilty of a succession of commercial breakthroughs.
Venus Doom makes no compromises.-
Thank you.
Many of the song structures and melodies were actually quite pretty, really poppy.
I wanted to make them scarier.
Not too nice, but songs with an edge.- One of the wonderful things in music is that you can find a new method for making every album.
Back in the day I used my first royalty check buying a synthesizer.
First thing I ever did with that synthesizer, was the riff of Join Me.
I had never played keyboards in the past.
- Now we felt like "fuck those gay keyboards". We wanted the keyboards on Venus Doom to play a similar role as on our first album and on Razorblade Romance.
Then I found this fucking great Telecaster, plugged it into a fuzz pedal and started beating it. That's how the basic mood of Venus Doom was born.
Valo, the drummer Gas and the bassist Mige started working on the song projects by rehearsing as a trio, with Ville playing the guitars.
- We just played with no vocals, in the spirit of Cathedral, Sabbath and Type O Negative.
I improvised about 90 percent of Venus Doom's riffs in those sessions, and I'm proud of a few of them.
I like to create in the spur of the moment.
I can't just play 30 riffs on a tape and then rewind it back and forth, even if Tony Iommi does that.
Father Iommi would give his blessings to the riffs on Venus Doom, especially as the frequencies of these vibrate somewhere along the inner circles of Hell.
HIM is playing at moments in such lead heavy dropped tunings, and deepest in these dark waters is the vocalist Valo, who has come up with new footnotes to the low register of his vocal range.
- Bam Margera once told me at an afterparty, that I should sing in a lower key, because it would sound cool.
I thought that maybe I should, because no one else does it in heavy music.
The 69 Eyes is quite poppy after all, and Peter Steele from Type O doesn't sing very low anymore.
That kind of singing fits with the atmosphere of Venus Doom, with those metal vibes.
Venus Doom is HIM's darkest album.
At times it's as black as a frost bite left by a nuclear winter.
Some time before this interview I bought a tabloid paper, in which the journalist says he read somewhere else that Ville Valo suffers from a deep depression, that is now reflected on the new songs.
Is this true?
- The same journalist also said that Revolver is a british rock magazine.
So that speaks about the awareness of that particular journalist.
And if you use some dry, black humor in your interviews, and say that "our record was born out of a deep depression", and laugh on top of that statement, well, doesn't that speak of something else than depression?
What does Venus Doom's darkness speak about then?
- Well yeah, you don't make records as sad as this one by eating sausages and ice cream and laughing.
Art is born from pain and depression.
I'm the biggest fan of Edward Munch and Timo K. Mukka.
Of course you have to suffer, but it's happy suffering. Like a cleansing ritual.
Is it painful to return to those sad feelings by listening to the album?
- No, because it is cathartic.
It's good to pour out the feelings you can't tell to journalists at Lost & Found.
Listening to the album feels surprising, and that's an effect that great music produces.
Seeing the wood from the trees is always surprising.
During the process of recording, you concentrate on such small details, that you kind of live in your own small black bubble.
- I've always been depressed in a way, but when you are truly depressed, you can't make music, and you can't make much else either.
You can write about it afterwards, if you feel like it.
It's like sitting on top of your own hand, let it go numb, and then jack off.
It ain't too interesting.
Except for sailors.
So even if Venus Doom casts deep shadows, it's creator isn't too frowny about it?
- No, no. I've got wrinkles in other parts.
On Venus Doom HIM curves the straights in a way that invites to use the term "progressive". There are complex and progressive tracks on the album, but there is integrity to the structures. Even the epic Sleepwalking Past Hope, doesn't feel like it's really ten minutes long.- Fucking great if it doesn't.
There is a lot going on.
Bridges, tempo changes and lots of action.
Our motto while making this album was to "waste good ideas".
If we came up with a good riff, we put it on the song only twice, and came up with an even better one for the next part.
That way the album became much richer.
Did you have the need to show some people that HIM can be more than verses ticking with eighths and exploding choruses?
- If we had a need to prove something, then it's probably most apparent in Sleepwalking Past Hope, were we are possibly proving something to ourselves.
When that song was finished, it felt natural and complete.
The whole of Venus Doom has been created on an emotional basis, without thinking.
The arrangements were made by free association.
On purpose or not, Venus Doom proves that HIM is not a prisoner of it's own mannerisms.
- I feel the exact same way.
It's nice how without planning it, we came up with this record that is at the same time a polyphonic noise concoction, but still a completely coherent one.
Even when there is a lot going on, it's not just freaking around, there is a sense to it.
I listened to some Jethro Tull at home and started working it.
Our first album, Love Metal and Venus Doom are expressions of the progressive side of HIM. Maybe we should do a one track album next.
A sequel to Tull's Thick as a Brick.
In the middle of these complex changes and walls of riffs there is still always a chorus.
As if you wanted to show that you could have made a pop album, had you wanted to.
- I like music like that. Melodies and choruses you can hum along to. Evertyhing doesn't have to be supercomplicated.On Venus Doom HIM leaves love metal for those who came after them.
At least for the time being.
The band's new style -even more feminine and emotional on one side, and even heavier on the other- needs a name.
May that be venus doom.
- No, we'll call it gay doom.
Gas says that love metal is out, and that HIM plays gay doom.
It suits me fine.
On the other hand Venus Doom is a return to the massive song structures of Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666, the debut album.
- I think Venus Doom is a return back to the future.
The common ground with the first album are the non-linear song structures. But while making the record, all I had in mind was "what would make Lee Dorrian proud?". He taught me the secrets of doom. I played him demos, and he told me all his tricks.From the business point of view, Venus Doom makes no sense. What did the record company think about this artistic license, where a band that just achieved gold record status in the US, discards most of the poppy elements on their new album?
Today, as I visited your record company, I heard the following phrase: "Venus Doom is HIM's classic album, but air play issues have given us something to think about."- The record company had nothing to do with anything.
They liked all that we came up with.
Even the ten minute long Sleepwalking Past Hope.
They didn't speculate anything.
We got to make this album in all tranquility, and everything, even the order of the songs, fell on place automatically.
- We don't give a fuck about what song plays on the radio.
The music industry is everchanging, so thinking about things like that only makes you feel like the protagonist of Fight Club, like beating yourself up.
It's irrelevant.
Let's hope that some song gets a few plays somewhere.
The equation is finally quite simple:- If Venus Doom fucks up, then we'll tour like hell.
If it works out well, then we'll tour even more.
Then we can watch and see how far we drive ourselves into depression, to come out with something new and wondrous once again.
I'm sensing a dash of dryish, black humor amidst all this cigarette smoke.
(Original by Ari Väntänen for SUE Indierockpunkmetalzine -109, August 2007. Finland.)
Translation by Amourder,
Men in Metal calendar
to Download from METAL HAMMER featuring Ville:
DOWNLOAD HERE: http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/news/one-for-ladies-grab-your-men-in-metal-calendar/
Trent Reznor (NIN)
Robb Flynn (Machine Head)
Pepper Keenan (Down/CoC)
Jyrki Linnankivi (The 69 Eyes)
Rob Trujillo (Metallica)
Tuomas Halopainen (Nightwish)
Fox (Grand Magus)
Duff McKagen (Velvet Revolver)
Johan (Amon Amarth)
Zakk Wylde (BLS)
Ville Valo (HIM)
Darrell Roberts (Five Finger Death Punch)
Interview Febuary 2009
http://www.eurorockpromotions.com/interviews/VilleValoInterview.mp3
Thanks so much for the interview celticangel76
Transcript
Thanks to our friend Cappie for transcribing for us!
Euro Rock Radio: All right ,everyone this is the Celticangel. You are listening to Euro Rock Radio’s Heartagram Day party and we have our very special guest, on the phone now, Ville.
Ville Valo: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey dear people!
ERR: (laughs) All right well, we are very, very thankful for you, for doing this for us and uh really appreciate it
VV: Well it’s just started you know nothing’s done yet so uh don’t blame me.
ERR: You answered the phone so it’s good (laughs).
VV: Well uh you know that was the easy part.
ERR: Yeah.(laughs) So how is it there in Helsinki right now?
VV: Um it’s cold. It’s uh I don’t know, I don’t go out that much. It’s uh, it seems to be snowing, that’s, that’s the thing I can see from my monitors. I haven’t been doing the things that I was, trying to get rid of a fever and writing new songs. So that’s uh, that’s my main thing at the moment. I’m working on, you know we, we started rehearsing with the band a couple of weeks ago and everything’s going really well with the new songs and uh-
ERR: Awesome.
VV: and Gas and his lady. They got their first baby about three weeks ago so it’s been, been a very positive couple, couple of weeks.
ERR: Well congratulations to Gas. You have to tell him congrats for us.
VV: mmm hmmm.ERR and VV: (laughter)
VV: I’ve seen, I’ve seen, a couple of pictures and unfortunately it does have a lot of uh, you know, the baby got…the resemblance is clearly there.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: I would have hoped that you know the other way. But uh since you know the wife is sweet, sweet as uh you know whatever. But, but uh you can’t have it all it seems
ERR: (laughs) well, um, speaking of the new album, how’s that going? Is it going good?
VV: Um you know ,we just started…got about…worked on 5 songs now and we’re going to demo them in about maybe a month, two months and uh, um I’ll be heading over to the states to hook up with some label people and talk about possible producers and stuff. So it’s going be pretty intense for the next couple of, couple of months and uh you know it’s…the music is not too far from what it’s been. It’s not as Sabbath-y, it’s more straight to the point, more like um I’m callin’, calling it the 80s-tinged crooner rock with balls of steel.
ERR: (laughs) Cool.
VV: That’s my,um, so it’s,it’s not too far from what we’ve done before but uh it’s tough to say. You know basically at this moment in time, we’re just heading to the rehearsal place every day and uh, and uh picking our instruments and just seeing where the music takes us.
ERR: Well, that’s good. I know you talked recently about deciding where you are going to record. Have you given any more thought to that yet?
VV: Ah. Well I’m quite certain we’re not going to record in Finland. Since uh, since uh with the Venus Doom tour uh we got done with the tour last,when was it? Last, last August or something, you know we’ve been pretty - had a lot of time off, and everybody was spending it over here in, in Helsinki, more or less. And uh I wanna, and I uh want to get out. It’s just cold. Dark. I love it here, you know uh my parents are here and I’ve got a couple of friends here and stuff like that. I’d rather wanna see our band concentrate just on the music than them ,you know, trying to sort out their every day life, you know, like changing diapers
ERR: (laughs)
VV: You know…you know for Gas.
VV and ERR: (laughs)
VV: not for the baby, I mean.
ERR; (laughs)
VV: So uh hopefully we’ll do it somewhere in America and it’s all depending on the producer and uh and we still haven’t had any you know we. Since I ‘m kinda like waiting for us to be ready to do the demo, we’re gonna demo a couple of songs here in Finland and then once the demo’s done, then I’m gonna fly over and hopefully meet some people who are going to be excited working with us. So uh since nothing’s done yet, it’s tough for me to start bragging about how good the music is and how good the next album is going to be, you know I don’t know to be honest with you.
ERR: Oh, I’m sure it’s going to be great.
VV: Well uh you know, thank you!
VV and ERR: (laughter)
ERR: Well, um, Venus Doom was very good, Venus Doom was very good
VV: Yeah but you know, you got try different things out and you gotta take risks and uh, and uh we went fairly far down that path into that sorta of like gloomy,doomy territory so uh, we want to do something a bit more straightforward and direct with uh you know the new ones. You know, all the new songs are clocking under four minutes and they’re very straight to the point so, so that’s um, so that’s the exciting thing for us, you know.
ERR: Right.
VV: …not jam for 8 minutes in a row or oh whatever so there is definately not going to be a song like Sleepwalking Past Hope on the, on the forthcoming album even though I love Sleepwalking Past Hope. You know, it’s a great song for me to have like 3 cigarette breaks, you know, within
ERR: (laughs)
VV:… the actual song. I can just walk off stage and eat a hamburger if I want. But um there are so many jams, and so many solos in it but I guess you know just for our own sakes, we need to try out things and you know, you know how it is!
ERR: Yeah.
VV: The same old, same old gets boring after awhile and especially a lot of people don’t realize the fact that a band works on an album maybe 2 years before it gets released and then they tour with it
ERR: Right.
VV:…for about a year and a half or something. So it’s a long time, you know, living with those songs so obviously you want to try out something different, you know, once ,once the touring is done, and everything… you’re just over it.
ERR: right
VV: Yeah (laughs ) so it’s like relationships in general (laughs)
ERR: ( laughs) Yeah, touring is something …uh we, we gave everybody a chance to email in questions for you and we’ll
VV: Cool.
ERR: …pick some of those…in a while um
VV: hmm hmm.
ERR: We got pretty much over 300 emails but, um, a lot of people where asking-
VV: You gotta be fast then.
ERR: Huh?
VV: We gotta chat, talk super fast then
ERR: Well, um, I’m not going through all of them.
VV: *inaudible*… situation some of that.
ERR: Um, a lot of people were asking about touring though and of course and wondering, when tours are going to start and obviously that’s, that is going to be after the album comes out but um-
VV: Well um don’t know, don’t know yet you know because you gotta remember the summers are happening and there is going to be a lot of festivals and I honestly don’t know. It’s, it’s you know within maybe the next two months, we get a rough idea when and with whom we are going to record the album with and then when, when we know that, that enables us to speculate on the possibilities of doing some touring during the summer. Maybe,
ERR: Ok.
VV: …um, during one of those touring festivals you got in the states or uh, I just don’t know.
ERR: Right.
VV: We’d love to play some, but not too much. I don’t want anything to get in the way of uh, of uh making the best album we can.
ERR: Right, exactly. Well I think everybody will understand that. I know…yeah, everybody is anxious and I got emails from all over the world saying “ You haven’t been here in 10 years, when are you coming back?” and uh well it’s a hard question to-
VV: Well that’s, that’s so very sweet and you know the only problem with that is if somebody is saying that ‘Why haven’t you been here in 10 years’ that usually means that that person is the only one wanting us to go there and uh since being in this kind of a band, we do have expenses, we do have you know trust monkeys, we have people setting up the stage and tuning the guitars and they aren’t super cheap…so um
ERR: Right.
VV: We don’t have the opportunity of playing everywhere in the world, you know, at all times. Otherwise, we’d be on a constant tour like Bob Dylan or something like that.
ERR: Right.
VV: But um we’re trying to write good materials as well which Bob doesn’t have to anymore. So, uh it’s a different kind of situation.
ERR: Well um speaking, I guess, of touring and shows, uh Helldone, this past Helldone was bigger than usual. You added some extra shows and what made you decide to do that?
VV: Uhhh umm…(pause) to be honest with you, I don’t know. Uh, I can’t remember who came up with it…I came up with the idea, oh my god yeah. Um no we obviously we have… in the previous years, we had Fields of Nephilim play here and we’ve had a few international acts as well, but unfortunately the time, the time frame of Helldone, you know, with New Years Eve and around that, it’s toughest to get any bands to play those dates, you know, out of the year because that’s the only time when all the bands are taking time off from their touring
ERR: Right.
VV:…and spending time with their families and stuff like that so it was impossible for us to get any… because, originally we’re thinking of playing a lot bigger venue, not just HIM but making it like a proper big festival here in Helsinki but uh
ERR: hmm, hmm.
VV:…we didn’t have the opportunity of booking any cool bands. We…uh I’ve been trying to get Turbonegro to play the festival for the past six years.
ERR: Oh that’d be awesome.
VV: But,uh, you know that’s one of my favorite bands of all times. We covered their songs, and you know, they, uh, have been very inspirational on all various levels but uh anyway you know it just that uh didn’t work so we wanted to, I wanted to figure out a way to make it more exciting for the band, you know make something new happen rather than just playing Tavastia Club on,on New Years so uh somebody, I guess it was me, came up with the idea of let’s play in the northern parts of Finland as well because we haven’t been there since like 2001, 2002 something like that so
ERR: hmm hmm
VV: So for us it was like traveling abroad to a new country we haven’t played in ages.
ERR: Well do you-
VV: It was fairly exciting in that sense.
ERR: Do you think you’ll do it again this next Helldone? Or no clue yet?
VV: Um you know at the moment, I am basically done with Helldone…we’ve done, we’ve done 10 years in a row and, and thinking about it’s already been 10 years it just makes everyone in the band feel extremely old
ERR: (laughs)
VV:and uh it’s not necessarily the best thing for a rock band to feel
ERR: True.
VV:..but uh I don’t know, the problem and the limitations seems to be the time frame it’s so tough to get you know to get bands to play that festival. So when it’s been going on very well….We want to try out something different of where to go because u know trying to book a band like say Type O Negative from America, one of my favorite bands of all time and the whole band’s. It’s ridiculously expensive to fly one band from Brooklyn, New York over to Finland for a one off. You just play one gig, it’s the flight, it’s the accomidations, its everything. It’s not worth it because there is not a single band who’s on tour at that time of the year.
ERR: Right.
VV: and uh that makes, it makes the situation even more complicated so uh it’s those little things that not necessarily everyone knows about
ERR: Right.
VV:… you know the, the, average club goers but people who go to enjoy rock N Roll and beer. There is like lot of things to set up the whole event, it could be easier. You know maybe maybe start, start having the whole party in, you know, like June or something like that a summer festival but uh that sucks too. There over 200 summer festivals in Finland. So I don’t think, I don’t think, we have the ability to compete with them, the good ones.
ERR: You can come down, do it here because there are not enough summer festivals in the US.
VV: Oh there is not enough good ones.
ERR: Exactly (laughs).
VV: But uh…I just don’t know
ERR: Yeah.
VV: That’s festival thing that’s a funny thing and that is a side project of a lot of bands and mine but that is not what I do, you know I’m trying to write songs and we’re trying to make an album happen. You know I could care less about Helldone at this particular moment in time.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: You know you can’t do it all at the same time. You just can’t. You know you got have your priorities, and you know, you know obviously it’s now getting rid of a fever and being in tip top shape for monday’s rehearsals.
ERR: um well speaking of side projects, um Madagascar 2, how did that come about?
VV: Um, well I wish I could have done the English version as well
ERR: Oh, so do we!
VV: but uh something someone gave me a shout from the company who did the translation and asked me to do it and I,you know, grew up watching cartoons and animated movies as everybody does. With Disney and then what is it the Secret of Nimh and love those films . So obviously I though , you know it’d be a fun thing to do and uh there was nothing particularly spectacular about it…I was asked to do it and I said yes because I wanted to do something respectable
ERR: (laughs)
VV:…and it’s funny how musicians are not necessarily respected for what they do, but when a musician all of a sudden um, does a few lines, um as a hippo…
ERR: Yeah (laughs)
VV: in a kid’s animation all of a sudden you do have some sense of creditability
ERR: Right.
VV: And so now I’m fully credible thanks to a hippo.
ERR: (laughs) a thanks to a hippo that now millions of HIM fans all over the world are worshipping practically (laughs).
VV: well, well, well, well um he seems to be unlucky in love as me so
ERR: (laughs) Aw!
VV: …we share a lot of things so it was very easy for me to, I didn’t have to pretend or act. It was all me, maybe just a couple of hundred pounds difference between me and him…the weight but that is about it.
ERR: Yeah well that has brought up another question that we got a lot of emails, um, asking since you’ve done Madagascar and kinda voice-acting anyways, have you ever thought of doing any actual acting in movies or something?
VV: uhh well I love to do like Vampires part 4 with Jon Bon Jovi. That’d be great if he ever considers it doing a sequel …actor make terrible musicians and vice versa. So the fact that you can strum on a guitar doesn’t mean you can be the lead in the English Patient
ERR: (laughs) Right.
VV: I get that.So,so uh I obviously there are people who can do both but uh no,no It’s not my cup of tea. You know I was asked by a friend. He’s been working on a film like a vampire thing for the past 15 years so uh if he even does that I already said yes to just being a random vampire if he ever does that. That would be fine but uh that’s just for fun and for uh you know for a friend
ERR: right
VV: It’s a different cup of tea. I’m not..it’s not.(pause) .I hate actors anways. So I you know hate myself enough to become one
ERR: well now see,…don’t say that
VV: ah go on .
ERR : (laughs) um with the other emails we’ve gotten uh a bunch of questions
VV: Hmm, hmm.
ERR:… about your new tattoos because anything you do people get obsessed over and must know. So, they’ve asked about your new tattoos. Specifically, one of the new tattoos, we saw a video about the lecture you did recently at a university um…
VV: Oh yeah.
ERR:..and we’ll ask you about that too but um massive amount of emails. In the video we can see a bit of a tattoo above your right elbow and everyone is wondering what that is, what the new tattoo is there
VV: uh I’ve got loads of new tattoos anyway but um you know it’s just um it’s something Kat improvised when I was in LA. It’s just a, it’s a combination of an hourglass with wings and uh and uh, it says hermit in French
ERR: (laughs)
VV: …since I’ve turned into a hermit. It’s just uh, It’s just like a little tiny combination of a lot, not necessarily inside jokes but um stuff only close friends know.
ERR: Right.
VV: So uh it’s like a little puzzle type of thing, more or less.
ERR: And then you’ve got the new portraits also right?
VV: Which ones?
ERR: Portrait tattoos that you did, several of them.
VV: I’ve got several.
ERR: I guess (laughs)
VV: I’ve got several but I’m not done with them yet so um I can’t ruin the surprise. You know?
ERR: Oh gotcha alright.
VV: I’ve got a few, I’ve got one of Klaus Kinksi, a German actor.
ERR: Hmm hmm
VV: It’s just a cool one. It’s from a picture he’s an adult sucking his own thumb, lying on a naked lady.
ERR: (laughs) ok.
VV: So that’s uh, that’s such a psychedelic image and uh it looks exactly like that but uh Kat did that one too and it’s on my lower stomach and it’s looks really good. It’s guaranteed after that tattoo, I’m never going to get laid.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: Um, so that was my mission to get a tattoo that will uh kill all possible sex.
ERR: I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen!
VV: Well um you know I guess I need to find a blind chick.
ERR: The other question everybody has. A very small tattoo, but above the heart on your wrist and above where it says DILLIGAF, you got some symbols or numbers or something and everyone is dying to know what that is.
VV: Oh my god! People just uh, uh that’s weird.
ERR: Yeah uh that’s nothing (laughs).
VV: Well that is, that’s so weird though. It’s one of my friends did it. It’s um it says cunto um which means chapter. It doesn’t mean anything nasty. Um it’s um hold on. It’s from uh Dante’s Inferno.
ERR: ah ok.
VV: From kinda the beginning I guess. You know I don’t know the different translations but um you know…I don’t have the Inferno with me now so I can’t read the exact line for ya but uh, but uh it’s just a line that keeps me going so it’s one of those things I just love uh you know love um u know nothing about getting tattoos to much, just going with the flow.
ER: Right.
VV: You always fight with them anyway
ERR: um ok a whole another random topic now but uh it’s something that I’ve come across a lot on the internet and a lot of people have um and I know you have been asked this before but uh we’ll do it one more time cause hopefully the people will actually pay attention there a lot of people on places like myspace and facebook, etc. that like to claim that they’re you and uh
VV: (laughs)
ERR: So the question that people hopefully will listen to is are you actually on the internet, do you have a myspace or a facebook or a beebo or whatever on the social networking sites?
VV: well uh I don’t know. I only know facebook and the myspace thing but uh I don’t have anything to do with the myspace, um facebook and there’s like a zillion me’s there.
ERR: Oh yeah.
VV: so nobody is the real one and uh and uh I am on myspace but uh it’s not under my name.
ERR: Right
VV: and anybody who can,who can who has been following the HIM situation you know can’t find it to hard to find it out whatever it is
ERR: right
VV: so it’s uh Indiana Jones type of thing. So go for it and search for it, you’ll find it pretty easily
ERR: (laughs) and are you actually adding random fans or only the people you know?
VV: I’ve only got like 3 friends
ERR and VV laugh
VV: it’s a, it’s you know it’s, it’s just a…I wanted to see how the whole myspace thing works
ERR: right
VV: and then I got bored with it immediately so uh so uh I don’t travel with a laptop and um I’m not glued to a computer besides now when I’m being at home but uh, but uh and, and working on protools stuff and…
ERR: right
VV: and uh stuff like that and uh it’s not my cup of tea. It’s a lot of waste of time so I guess it’s better to strum a guitar and if you want to meet people you can just go into a pub.
ERR: Right.
VV: So…
ERR: Alright well uh we just wanted to clear that up for some people I guess. It can, It can get dangerous when there are people out there, claiming to be a celebrity and uh, getting fans’ home address and things like that. It’s kinda scary.
VV: well uh you know, don’t don’t… I’m not you know, I’m not involved in any of that way and that so
ERR: Yeah we know! We know you’re not but just to let people know do not believe everybody that says they’re Ville Valo on myspace (chuckles).
VV: Oh yeah, yeah please don’t, please don’t. It’s never been me so uh
ERR: (laughs) …well uh we’ll do one of the email questions that we’ve got here…
VV: sure
ERR: um this one is from um their screen name, I guess I don’t know if it’s their real name or screen name, but it’s Monserrat from Norwalk, Connecticut. Um they say “ Ville since there are so many people who love going to your concerts and would wait hours outside to see HIM perform if you had a chance to do the same for a band or solo artist, who would be your first choice and why?”
VV: well my first choice is to never que up for hours and hours. My first choice nowadays is to make some calls and try to get a VIP but uh, uh I haven’t done that in a long time. Last time, that was probably KISS in the mid nineties when they played their first kinda masked back on type of tour and they started to tour from Stockholm and that’s when we took the ferry over to Stockholm and uh que-ed up and had a blast. For like 3 days straight, full blown KISS party. I’m still suffering from it, both mentally and physically maybe spiritually a bit as well
ERR: (laughs)
VV: …and not a lot of bands as well not now nowadays. I guess, I guess I love songs but not concerts too much you know Mark Lannegan is always good no matter what he does. I went to see The Gutter Twins a couple of times
ERR: hmm hmm.
VV: on their Scandinavian tour and uh,uh I saw Fields of Nephilim in London, in the UK last summer and uh they played two really special shows at the Shepherd Bush’s Empire in uh and that was about it for me I don’t go out to see random gigs that much. I don’t I, I don’t know. I’m just a spoiled brat I guess
ERR: (laughs) well I doubt that but ok, um another email…we’ve seen this shirt on you and I think Kat has worn it in a picture or two and so everyone is wondering “ What the heck is The Mercy Fvcks?”
VV:It’s uh just go and check out on myspace (laughs).
ERR and VV: (laughs)
VV: So there are my 3 friends.
ERR: Ok.
VV: You can see there …It’s uh a project of mine. It’s uh a thing I’ve been working on for the past 3 years maybe and I just love that name.
ERR: Yeah.
VV: Somebody actually, somebody actually had the idea that it had something to do with religion and that’s definitely not true.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: Because somebody that that I was very anti-religion just to call people you know with some you know.
ERR: Right.
VV: You know spiritual ideas and called them The Mercy Fvcks and that uh u know, nah, nah that wasn’t the idea. It’s uh, it’s a band, it’s uh kinda a band, you know the only band member at the moment I have is uh is uh I don’t have a bass player or a guitar player. I have a pool player and that is Mr.Brandon Novak
ERR: Ah!
VV: …from Baltimore
ERR: ok!
VV: so uh so uh I got a skateboarder/ex-junkie/pool player in the band so what more do you need in rock n roll?
ERR: Exactly that’s it
VV:…except a couple of songs, I guess.
ERR: Well that would be good to…
VV: But uh nah. It’s just, just, just a project you kinda… It never took off( laughs)
ERR: Well see all you had to do…
VV: I had a lot of time on my hand and I uh I uh was just uh, It’s a band that never performed that kind of a thing. I have a couple of bands like that and uh and uh. It’s healthy to let your imagination run wild and just uh go with the flow and do something totally different from uh from uh what we do with uh HIM.
ERR: Right.
VV: Linde’s been working on a new Daniel Lioneye and stuff and he needs to be recording stuff. Burton, he’s been working with his side project. And uh you know everybody gots their thing to do and not say HIM is super serious but occasionally we have to take it a bit seriously. It takes so much of our time. It’s a passion we don’t want to fuck it up so for, for the wrong reasons at least so it’s cool to have side projects don’t necessarily matter that much.
ERR: Right.
VV: and well they don’t matter that much, they do matter a lot.
ERR: Right.
VV: When you can take things relaxed and you can just go with the flow and do exactly what you want like something with The Mercy Fvcks.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: It’s just one of those things.
ERR: Alright and since I didn’t say from who that question was that was from Sophie in the UK.
VV: well uh cool Sophie, Sophie used to be one of my friends on myspace. I sent her a t-shirt and she was. She was the first person who found the, the myspace site.
ERR: oh cool!
VV: You know, one of the, she was the first person that wasn’t like a friend and uh…
ERR: Right.
VV:…wasn’t in on the joke so uh so uh she actually wanted to you know a myspace friend or whatever.
ERR: Right.
VV: and I was like yeah sure I’ll send you a t-shirt and stuff so uh so uh she was in Finland as well for all of the 3 Helldone acts all over in Finland so she’s a, she’s a real trooper.
ERR: oh cool well awesome. Sophie! We wanted to come to Helldone this year but it’s just so expensive to fly over there from the US.
VV: it is…yeah we know ( mumbles) what can you do? You know?
ERR: yeah
VV: We’re trying our best. There is a lot of people flying in from all over the world and it is expensive. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort for just a gig, a couple of gigs or whatever. So that’s that’s the original reason we wanted to start the Helldone thing. You know?
ERR: hmm hmm.
VV: Have just more than one gig. You know originally it wasn’t called Helldone and it was just us playing our New Years Eve gig and uh all of a sudden so many people started flying in and so we thought that you know if they’re flying in for one gig, let’s give them a couple of more gigs to enjoy do that was the reason we had 69 Eyes and Negative and all those bands play
ERR: Right.
VV: uh this year so people can have a lot more to look forward to than just a crappy gig from HIM.
ERR: Your gig is why everyone went (laughs) It wasn’t a crappy gig
VV: Ahh I’m blushing here.
ERR: Aw! Alright well this question may make you blush a little bit more than…umm I tried to stay away from any kind of naughty questions because a lot of those came in but uh this one (laughs) have to ask we’ve seen video of this and it’s been talked about on the HIM forums and everything…The concert in Tilburg during the Venus Doom tour..
VV: Oh with the vibrator?
ERR; Yes, Yes. The lady that threw that up there .. Her name is Wendy by the way um.. she wanted to know what you thought when that came up cause she said your face was priceless when you saw that though
VV: it’s, it’s let say that it’s one of the few moments I’ll won’t forget especially when it comes to gigs so, so um. It was fun thing and a great thing since you know she probably knew that I’ve been working in sex shop. I kinda know how those things work. I was checking out the brand and stuff like that. I was, I was uh just laughing my ass off but then the funny thing happened after that, after the gig then. Somehow the Finnish press got wind of that thing and they started speculating since whether I lost my mind. They thought that I brought that vibrator on that gig and I’m using that vibrator as a prop you know during a gig and it’s not necessarily a bad idea but it’s not necessarily a good one either. So, so that was a punchline to the whole thing. It got totally out of hand.
ERR: (laughs) But it was hilarious though. There is video of it all over youtube.
VV: oh yeah. It was great. I’m extremely happy for it
ERR: (laughs) All right here is one more, We’ll do, oh two more of these and then we may let you go.
VV: sure
ERR: and enjoy your night.
VV: Fair enough
ERR; ha, ha this one is from Sophie. Um she says um “Fame seems to separate people in some way and I wonder whether all this attention, makes you feel like an outsider who is somehow separated from the normal people.”
VV: uh what do you mean by that? Or what does she mean by that?
ERR: Well uh I think you know uh It’s not so much in Finland from what I heard but uh if you’re, if you’re very famous and you’re walking down the streets in the US… You pretty much get mobbed. You can’t go anywhere, you got people following you around or like for instance, people that kind of stalk around your house..
VV: uh well that’s that just stupid.
ERR: ( laughs)
VV: I hate those people. You know I don’t hate a lot of people but uh, but uh I hate the fact that there is one and only safe haven that I have which is my home and I write all the songs and you know well, well like two weeks ago I had to call the cops on a girl
ERR: Oh lord
VV: since like uh uh she wouldn’t leave, she, she kept on knocking. She was full-blown drunk probably under 18. Kept on knocking on my door for three hours straight.
ERR: Oh my god.
VV: and I, you know, I told her to get out, you know it’s private property so uh get out . I’m working on a song, I’m working on stuff, stuff that probably made you come here, knocking on my door in the first place…
ERR: Right
VV: and um so I’ve got my face in a paper and um a vibrator in my hand on stage somewhere in Tilburg
ERR: (laughs)
VV: so um so it’s jus, just that was just so weird you know..c’mon.
ERR: hmm hmm um
VV: You know? That’s just terrible. Nah uh you know besides from that it’s uh you know it’s easy…People do have to respect and we are not that well known and I can’t (mumbles) um give a fuck . people, people, people talk to people
ERR: hmm.
VV: and look at people and if you start feeling paranoid that that doesn’t have to do anything with fame
ERR: True yeah.
VV: You know? It’s it’s like one of those things when when you know ( pauses and lets out breath) like let’s say a couple of actresses in America, you know how can’t you not be seen if you walk with shades the size of the sun on your face?
ERR: ( giggles)
VV: and like brag and have an entourage of a zillion people and uh have like massive bodyguards and like all that, other people are going to look at you and , and think who are you?
ERR: Right
VV: and they don’t even know who you are. But they,they are just thnking who is that crazy girl?
ERR: hmm hmm.
VV: so that’s um one way a lot of people actually um direct the attention towards them because they are so paranoid
ERR: hmm hmm.
VV: So um nah you know maybe,maybe I’m saving for the money you know cool, cool bodyguards and the shades obviously.
ERR: (laughs)
VV; so uh it will take a while.
ERR: (laughs) well one more question and um we got this from several people that uh they love it when you talk about the books or things you’re reading because you actually have a lot of people who will go out and get them, them and m books you mentioned that you like uh people will go out and buy so uh is there any in particular you are reading right now
VV: ummm
ERR: or just something you read recently?
VV: um hold on I’m reading a couple of art books and um and um I’ve started collecting porn you know
ERR: (laughs)
VV: For the first time in my life but uh you can’t you know talk about that.
ERR: (laughs)
VV: I can’t say the name of the magazine but that name is sort of fantastic..it’s the new, It’s called The New C, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.
ERR: (giggles) alright ok.
VV: and uh it’s so good. It’s from the 70s in Denmark. So uh, so uh I’ve been collecting that stuff now um but um but um hold on I’m just in my bedroom…trying to figure out what I’ve been reading.
ERR: ( inaudible in the background - Brandy saying ‘He’s just opened the flood gates’).
VV: (sighs) hold on, I’m on my bed now uh I’ve got shitloads of books…
ERR: (laughs)
VV: um I’m reading one now on um on an artist called Hans Bellmar.
ERR: ok.
VV: It’s called uh “ Death, Desire and the Doll. The life and art of Hans Bellmer” by , by uh Peter Webb so check that one out. He’s uh He was a fairly interesting character
ERR: Oh cool ok.
VV: and uh, you know so I haven’t been reading that much to be honest with you I’ve been been uh I’ve just been a, I’ve just been a…
ERR: (laughs)
VV: you know working on songs and if you read too much, you get too much in the vibe of a book
ERR: right
VV: and uh and like it does influence you’re writing a bit And I wouldn’t to that too much. Just read bits and pieces and usually I read poetry when, when writing songs so uh it helps me out with lyrics and stuff but uh uh I don’t know maybe I’ve just been lazy
ERR: (laughs)
VV: to be honest with you
ERR: ok hold on for a second for me. We are going to get everybody back on some music and uh we’ll let them listen to a little Killing Loneliness and again thank you very much for doing this.
VV: a pleasure, a pleasure.
Venus In Disguise
Our Diabolikal Club proudly presents the "Venus In Disguise" Carnival Ball Party on Saturday 28 February 2009 at DADAist Club in Athens with DJ set by Bloody Valentine. We are waiting for you...
Poster & Flyer
Poster & Flyer
click to enlarge
Poster & Flyer created by Miron Design
Doors Open: 20.00
Entrance: 5.00 Euro + Beer
DADAist Club
Address: Ogigou 11, Psiri, Athens
Tel.: 210 3319846
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/_dada2007
Sponsors Warner Music Greece & Miron Design
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