Soundi interview

HIM played about 170 gigs after their last studio album.
At the end of last year, their singer and songwriter spent about three weeks in California planning the future with people from the record label.

Ville Valo brought home from his trip also two new tattoo. Kat von D has tattooed the portrait of Maya Deren on his chest and of Klaus Kinski on the left side of his stomach.

There’s a rumor circulating about Ville being part of the music team for Tim Burton’s new film. This the singer denies.

“I hadn’t even heard about that. It would be cool though.”

Along with some side projects, he has concentrated on making new songs for HIM. Valo says that he has “eight or nine” songs at a point where he can consider presenting them to the band.

He hopes a new HIM album will be released in twelve months. It is well known that Ville likes to set deadlines to motivate himself to work, and he sees the beginning of the year as a good time for releasing an album.

“It would be an ideal situation if we could start a world tour right after Helldone 2009. But that means that we would have to release an album at about the same time. Which means that we would have to go to the studio pretty soon and finish recording before autumn. The album would have to be completely done by next Christmas.”

HIM recorded their latest album at Finnvox (in Helsinki), but they are planning on recording the next one outside of Finland.

“The good thing about recording close to home is that you have your own bed and your sweetheart or family close by. On the other hand, that doesn’t make concentrating on working any easier. If you look at how we’ve done things in the past, it’s time for a foreign studio again.”

“It has always been nice to record in England. The older studios there often have some sort of rock myths associated with them. But it would be nice to try a new place too. I have actually looked into a few studios in Jamaica. They’re damn expensive, but the surroundings can hardly get any better than that.”