-thank you for the interview Mayra-
About a month ago, shortly after returning from Vegas, I published on my column a summary of my latest conversation with H.I.M. front man Ville Valo. You can easily find a scan of that online, as many of the H.I.M. fan sites posted it and translated it, but I cannot post the actual text which is owned my newspaper, Folha de São Paulo. Since I am fully aware of how passionate H.I.M. fans are, I promised to post the transcript of our conversation, which happened about thirty minutes before Ville went onstage at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, located at the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Strip. Despite being on a tight schedule, he kindly greeted my husband Coyote Shivers and I backstage, and sat with us for a chat prior to the concert.
As a lot of you already know, Ville and I first met last summer in his hometown Helsinki. The singer had been rehearsing a lot and was getting ready to travel to Los Angeles to record his seventh studio album, “Screamworks: Love In Theory and Practice”, which came out on February 5th. After picking up the album and falling in love with it, I felt like it was my obligation to follow up on what happened after the summer was over, right up until the much anticipated release.
You can now read a faithful transcript of what we talked about in Vegas. I appologize if you expected a lengthier interview, but I can not control an artist’s schedule. :)
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Thank you so much for having us.
Well, thank you for coming. I’m sorry about all the possible hassle.
It’s not a problem at all. So Ville, the last time I met you in Helsinki, ten months ago –
Oh, it’s been that long! Time flies!
I know! You had been rehearsing a lot, and you were still about to go to Los Angeles to start the recording of the new album. How did that go?
Well, the album came out. That’s a positive thing. When you start working on an album, usually a lot of shit happens. Either technical or personal, or whatever, it just takes ages to get it done. This time around, everything actually worked out really well. When you and I met, we were rehearsing all the time. We took the songs and went into the studio, and it took half a month to record it, two or three weeks to mix it, and only three times to master it. Which is not a lot.
You were also working on it 24/7…
More or less, more or less. The album was done on Halloween, and after that I flew back home and recorded the entire album acoustically for the special edition. While that was going on, we were still working on the masters and the cover art work.
And that’s “Baudelaire in Braille”, right?
Yeah.
I want to ask you about that. Baudelaire is one of my favorite writers, or poet, of all time. So I wonder where the title comes from, and what does it mean to you?
To me it’s about the confusing nature of love and relationships in general. Imagine Baudelaire in Braille if you don’t know Braille. That’s what life is for me. It’s like searching, trying to figure out what the fuck it’s all about, bit by bit. But the cool thing about it is that it is as confusing to everybody. It’s not easy for anybody, I don’t think so.
I picked up the album and obviously the first thing that I looked at was the cover. It gave me sort of a feeling of dizziness and drunkenness. So I wondered if that has anything at all to do with your sobriety and the fact that you are not seeing things blurry or double anymore?
No, well… I was thinking if that is there subliminally. I’ve always liked optical illusions. I like pictures that put your brain into overdrive. And that’s one of the most classic ones, with the double eyes and the double lips, because the person can’t concentrate. You see zillions of people through your life, and your brain is used to seeing certain things, and when it doesn’t, it messes it up. To me it’s very David Lynch, and very much like Siouxie and the Banshees, color wise.
It’s one of your most colorful album covers so far…
“Razorblade Romance” was pink, but yeah, it’s pretty colorful.
How does it feel to be sober in a place like Las Vegas, on a Saturday night, having to deal with people wanting to party as hard as they can? Is it hard at all or at this point is it only enlightening?
Vegas is crazy, no matter what day of the week it is. I don’t know, last time around I was asleep for half of the time. It is rather boring here if you’re not fucked up.
We have both been sober, my husband and I, for a few months.
It’s terrible, isn’t it? But yeah, Vegas is funny. As a musician and since we’ve been touring, I’ve never been to Vegas as a tourist in the way that you come here to party, hang out and gamble, or whatever. It’s always been about playing, so that’s the party. Afterwards, I usually hang out for a bit, but Vegas is too busy.
The hotels are crazy tonight!
We actually found a good place.
You are not staying at the Mandalay?
No, Mandalay is tough. Hard Rock is nice.
We actually got married last month and stayed and had our after party at the Hard Rock.
Oh, congrats!
Michael Monroe’s band played at our after party.
Oh, fuck yes! I miss Mike, I was supposed to see him while I was in L.A.
Have you checked out the new line up yet?
Well, it is based on Demolition 24, isn’t it?
Yes, Mike and Sami.
And with Ginger. I met Sami a couple of times; he was a friend of my ex-fiancé when he was based in New York. It’s a small world! I am so happy for them! Demolition 23 was one of the best bands that I have ever seen live. I’m glad that Sami and Mike got together and I think that it’s a good thing that Ginger is in it too, he is a cool guy.
I’m a huge Wildhearts fan. But anyway, back to business. You have always stated that you are a hermit, so I wonder how you fell when you are on tour, having to deal with press, fans, harassment. How is that part of your life since you enjoy being by yourself a lot?
I like people. I like meeting people, I don’t have any problems with that. What I mean with the hermit thing is that I like solitude, and I need a certain amount of solitude. If I’m having a day off, it doesn’t mean that I would wake up early in the morning, then see museums, then go to a restaurant for a brunch, then walk around the city, do this and that. What I do is sit back and relax, maybe read or do my laundry. I like the quiet. It’s probably because this is very colorful. The dressing rooms, and the gigs, and the traveling. So it’s really nice to do nothing, to be boring for a second.
Back to the album, you have said that this is basically a Valentine’s Day card. Is that correct?
In a way, yes.
Is it directed to anyone?
Yeah, I had a muse. I had somebody who I still do care about a lot.
Obviously, this person knows the album is about her…
Yeah, she knows. I was in a position where I not necessarily had lost hope in relationships in general, but wasn’t in that good of a place. Then I met somebody who gave me a bit of a kick in the butt, gave me the energy, a little bit of hope. Actually, a little bit of hope is a lot. And from that little bit of hope, that thing was born. I can’t blame it all on her, but she was on my mind a lot, like a guiding star in that sense. I’m really happy for that, and she likes the album.
Would you say that you are happy right now and do you think that it is scarier to be happy and to be able to lose everything, or to be sad and only have the opportunity to get better?
You gotta take risks, and just go with the flow. As oppose to what you said about being so scared about the happiness that you don’t dare to touch it in case you might lose it. Obviously, you are going to lose it someday. You are going to lose everything someday. But no, I’m not necessarily happy. I’m contemplating. I think the right thing to say is I’m soul searching. I’ve been doing a lot of touring, haven’t had a lot of time to sit down. Where my head is at the moment, is I think I will find my happiness once I find a new sound or song. So I’m waiting for a bit of time off to go back home and work on new musical ideas. That’s what makes me happy.
Can you work at all while you are on tour, or on schedule?
I do a bit, I work on different kinds of stuff and the ideas are really disjointed. I need more time. If I work on a song, I need at least 24 hours. I got to live through the whole day with that one melody in my head. Might be done playing music, could be done watching TV, but I’m still thinking about that song, or that mood, or that idea, or whatever. And when the mood strikes you, you can’t kill the mood. It’s the same as if you’re painting or in your case writing, or whatever you might be doing that you care for. You have to enable, give the passion enough space. On tour it’s very, very hard.
I would think it is.
Yeah, I’ve traveled with acoustic guitars before, and trying to be in a tour bus when some of the guys are trying to sleep and some of the guys are drinking beer, and you’re trying to be in the back, playing acoustic guitar in the middle of the night… you know, I can’t sit down and tell myself that I’m going to write a song now. For me it doesn’t work like that and that’s probably one of the reasons why I still care so much about music. It’s still surprising and it happens when it happens. It’s like that Vegas aspect. That lottery or roulette type of thing, so it’s good.
What would you say is your favorite song on the album?
I think it’s still a bit too fresh. I love the Blondie vibe of “Love The Hardest Way”. For some reason it reminds me of Blondie, though I know it doesn’t sound like Blondie at all. And I like the last song.
It’s almost time for you to go onstage, so of course I have to ask you this - do you have any plans at all to go to Brazil?
We’ve been talking about going to South America, because it would be lovely. And we heard that there might be people who might be interested. We discussed It, but logistics, you know, it’s tough. We are from the other side of the world, and flying everybody and all the instruments, and everything for a couple of gigs, you have to be sure. Nobody is making a lot of money. We can’t lose a lot of money by playing gigs either. I’d hope to see us support some really big act.
You guys have a huge following in Brazil.
It’s something that we don’t see, and we don’t understand.
I wrote on my Twitter that I was coming to meet you and a lot of people begged me to ask you if you have plans of going to Brazil.
Please send my love to everybody. Tell everybody that we are really working on it, we’re trying to make it happen this year. It would be lovely, but I just can’t promise you anything. There is only a few places we haven’t been in the world, and we would be great to be able to go there. I do have friends who live in Rio.
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