Ville and Pekka Himanen ::Translation::

Translation by sineresi from Valo Daily
::Link to Valo Daily:: http://community.livejournal.com/valo_daily/




Full interview here:- Audio only http://ylex.yle.fi/radio/ohjelmat/ylex-tanaan/ville-valo-teen-ensimmaista-kertaa-levya-ilman-kaljaa


After the initial pleasantries (Ville: Give me a hug!), Ville remembers that the last time they saw each other was at Antto’s [Melasniemi] restaurant over wiener schinzels. Ville asks how Pekka’s day has been, and he answers that it has been a week of extremes from meeting Hillary Clinton and being at the White House to visiting Compton. Ville tells that he has a new hobby: walking. He walks ten kilometers every day--five to the studio and five back. Apparently it’s good because it allows him to smoke more.

(Then they talk a while about how Pekka Himanen only got a few hours’ sleep the night before, is going to stay in LA for the weekend and is flying to Geneva on Monday.)

Then Pekka Himanen says that when he started to think about the Dignifi project, the first thing that came to his mind was Ville’s nerve, and Ville wonders what has happened to it. Pekka Himanen wants to know what the philosophy behind it is. Ville says that it’s basically Mige’s classic saying “If you don’t like what’s going on, you can always get the poo poo out.” Ville thinks that that’s a good starting point for your attitude about life, meaning that you should do what you want to do and dedicate yourself to doing it. Then he jokes that none of us have much time left because 2012 is approaching and the Mayan calendar is running out. He thinks that to just stubbornly keep going without a thought to all the adversities, which Finns usually are good at, is a good approach about everything. Everyone has dreams and he believes that most of them can be made to come true. It’s like being a horse on a race track with blinders, like having a tunnel vision, just concentrating on what you’re doing and not thinking about anything else. It has worked for HIM. It’s kind of Juha Mieto-like [very famous Finnish cross-country skier]--don’t worry about the snot running down your face, it doesn’t matter as long as your skis are working.

[Here the video cuts off, the rest is from the audio.]

Pekka Himanen says that when you’re talking about creativity, you just have to throw yourself into things. Ville says that when he was starting out he wanted to throw himself into playing too, but it was kind of difficult when his fingers were bleeding and his bass wasn’t good enough and Steve Harris was just so much better as a bass player. He was about to give up a lot of times, but then his parents and especially his mother just made him rehearse. So it took a while to just learn the basics, but after that you just have to have courage. The booze helps you do courageous things. But being reckless is a good thing as long as you don’t break the law, although that might depend on the country you're in.

Pekka Himanen says that he has talked to a lot of people from Desmond Tutu to Hillary Clinton for the Dignifi project and what he has found interesting is that despite the different fields people are in, their experiences are pretty much the same: when they started out they doubted themselves and didn’t have enough confidence, then they had adversities and almost gave up but in the end decided to keep going anyway.

Ville says that he gives up every night and every morning, but then he drinks a cup of coffee and everything is okay again. He says that to him music is also a game of luck because the competition is fierce and there are a lot of talented people working in music. Making music doesn’t involve just the music but also being away from home a lot and lots of hard work as well. So Ville says he’s a professional quitter who always at the last moment manages to get his head above the surface again (or has so far). He thinks that existentialist thoughts are a part of life, but maybe because of music he has mentally remained a fourteen year old and his teenage years don’t seem to end which makes that kind of thinking difficult--but in a delightful way.

Pekka Himanen asks how the recording is going, and Ville answers that the recording has finished. They started rehearsing for it in February, and now after two and a half months of recording the other guys just flew back home. Everything is on tape now, and the record is being mixed at the moment. Making of this record has been important in the sense that it’s the first time for Ville without a single beer, and he has put all the energy that before went into sitting in pubs and having a hangover into making the record. That’s a reward in itself for Ville, but he acknowledges that it’s not enough. That’s why they’ll keep on working hard until the very end, and the record will be done when it’s done. Then it’ll be time to think what to throw themselves recklessly into next, probably it’ll be the gigs they’re playing in Australia at the end of February.


The other guy is philosopher Pekka Himanen
::see here::
Ville's lecture at the University of Helsinky
http://xvillevalohimfansx.blogspot.com/2009/02/villes-lecture-at-university-of.html