Erin Broadley's interview with Ville Valo
18th oktober /2004/

Listening to HIM is like getting hit over the head with a valentine, except on the front of the card, on the cartoon cupid, frontman Ville Valo has drawn devil horns and a dangling cigarette and signed "love, your sweet 666." The valentine wafts faintly of tobacco, not perfume, and on the inside you’re more likely to find a couple drink tickets to the local bar instead of candy hearts. Based in Helsinki, Finland, the band HIM—completed by bassist Mige, guitarist Linde, drummer Gas and keyboardist Burton—has taken rock romanticism, cranked up the volume, added a dash of sardonic humor and created a signature sound that critics have dubbed "love metal." HIM’s music is the gloom and doom of Black Sabbath meets the tragic romance of Depeche Mode. It’s the soundtrack to a young romantic crying through vintage eyes and heavy metal sunglasses, wiping his tear stained face on his Iggy Pop and the Stooges t-shirt, smearing his eyeliner. But it’s not all that depressing, when the music kicks it kicks hard and there are more than a few songs than can be called upbeat. The music has charisma and the fans know it.

Though relatively new to American listeners, HIM has spent the past eight years courting audiences overseas, and with four albums released and sales reaching a collective 2 million, the group is one of the most successful rock bands in Europe. HIM re-released its album Razorblade Romance (Universal) stateside on October 28 of last year and launched a sold-out supporting club tour—their first in America—later that Fall. The band has since signed a major deal with American label Sire Records, re-released the album Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights (Universal) on September 28 and is gearing up for their second American tour (supported by Auf Der Maur and Monster Magnet) which kicks off November 12 in Worcester, MA and wraps December 4 in Los Angeles.

Prior to signing with Sire, Ville Valo took some time to talk with SuicideGirls about HIM’s American experience and the current state of popular music.

Erin Broadley: You recently wrapped up your first tour in America. How did it go? During our last interview you mentioned that you were looking forward to touring here and wanted to get beaten up by hillbillies in a redneck bar—the true American experience. Any such luck?
Ville Valo: Unfortunately we just toured the East and West coasts so we didn’t run into any rednecks (laughs). We were saved from all the violence. But the tour was excellent. The weather was beautiful most of the time. All the gigs sold out. Loads of kids knew all the lyrics to all the songs, even from albums that haven’t been released here yet. It was really a big surprise for us. We thought we were going to have to go back in time—time travel—and start from scratch.

EB: I heard that some fans were paying upward of 200 dollars for tickets on Ebay.
VV: Did they? Oh for fucks sake. Well, for us, it’s always better not to have too many expectations and to just go with the flow because then it’s always a big plus no matter what happens. I’m truly happy. The tour was pretty easy but pretty hectic. We had a few days off in Seattle. Nothing weird happened. It was a new culture and new country for us to experience. It was just us walking around and going to Starbucks and getting a cup of coffee. We didn’t really do loads of interviews or any PR. We really just wanted to enjoy the first tour and hang out, like we did in most of the countries in Europe on the first tour. It was just nice to be able to party and hang out a bit and not make it too excruciating.

EB: Do you see any particular similarities or differences between the way the music industry functions here in America as opposed to Europe?
VV: For us, the music industry is a weird situation in the way that now we’re done with the BMG [record] deal in Europe. So we’re free men to be slaves again, so to speak. So we’ve been negotiating with labels now and its looking good. We’re in a wonderful situation that there are loads of American record companies that like what we do. And that’s a lovely thing. So we’re just trying to pick the lesser of the evils.

EB: Do you think achieving success via one’s creative endeavors is harder here? Los Angeles in particular gets criticized for strangling the creative life out of bands.
VV: Well that’s part of the music business as well. Los Angeles and New York are the big centers of the music industry worldwide so of course it can be hard for newcomers who don’t know what to expect from the music business. But we learned loads of lessons back in Europe so we know how the business works, more or less. We’ve released loads of albums. We’ve been working with record labels since 1996. And we never seem to have any problems with it because, like I’ve said to you before, their business is to sell records and we’re just trying to make the record itself. Basically, that’s how it is. We’re trying to have the band create something beautiful that hopefully one day, 20 years from now, can be picked up by a kid and hopefully have the same effect that Neil Young had on me, or Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. That’s what we’re aiming at. We hope people understand the amount of emotion we put into our work and that they can hopefully get emotionally attached to what we do as well and then create a situation [by hooking up with a record label] where that music is available to listen to.

EB: Last we talked, you mentioned you were working on some rough versions of new songs. How is that coming along?
VV: Yeah I’m still writing. I’ve got about 14 tracks now. But we’ve been on tour so we haven’t had time to get back to a rehearsal place. When we have time off we’re just going to concentrate on rehearsal and see what happens. It’s a complicated thing, especially with our new label situation happening, but we’re in a good situation where we’re not in a hurry to get a new album out.

EB: Being that music is an art form and artists are expected to be able to talk about their work, cite references and place it within a historical context, do you think it does the music a disservice when musicians talk about their craft solely in terms of wanting to "rock out" and don’t engage in an actual dialog about it?
VV: Well it’s hard to say. It’s like speculating about where the line exists between eroticism and porn.

EB: There’s a big difference.
VV: Yeah but where’s the line? It’s the same thing because of course, on one hand, there are bands singing about Jacuzzis and fast cars and silicone boobies and drugs. But for me personally music is a different thing, like Neil Young singing about the "Heart of Gold," emotionally speaking. So none of it’s bad but it’s very hard to say where to draw that line. And I think that you do have to draw that line. Music for me is an emotional thing and it really does make me happy. It’s not a tool for me to get fame or see my face in the papers or anything like that. It’s about the fact that I really do enjoy it. It’s about the only thing in this world that makes me happy. And that’s a big thing and I want to cherish that. It’s magic to me.

EB: When it comes to music scenes and the nature of popular rock these days in New York and in Los Angeles, this whole raw, revival rock thing is still pretty big. Where do you see HIM existing in the midst of all that nostalgia?
VV: I’m not thinking about things like that. Most of that New York stuff is shit, like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, the Strokes, the White Stripes, Jet—even though the White Stripes and Jet aren’t from New York—you get what I mean, that whole vibe. They’re all bringing back a style of music from a different era, like 20 or 30 years ago, but they’re not mixing it up with anything new. For me personally, I don’t like it so much. We [HIM] find ourselves somewhat like a safe haven in some way, a bit outside of it all, like an Alcatraz, if you know what I mean. It’s cool when young people get into Jet and all that stuff but it’s a shame when they can’t admit all their influences. For example with Jet and that one single that’s like "Lust For Life" [Iggy Pop and the Stooges] straight on. I don’t think those people have anything to lose. What they’re doing is beautiful and they’re doing it for a reason and they shouldn’t be necessarily hiding the reason.

EB: Do you think there’s a problem with musicians being too derivative these days? I mean, having influences is a given. You’re going to. No art exists in a vacuum. But do you think it insults the music when bands don’t cite those influences openly?
VV: Well, it’s like links on the Internet. You’ve got to have links. So people can hop onto a different world from yours, and then from there a different world and through that world a different world. Then people understand that it’s a very complicated, thick cake with millions of layers. And that makes it a lot more interesting. That’s how is see it. Nobody’s doing anything so interesting these days or that unique that one particular act would be the reason to live or be everything that a person needs in his or her life, musically speaking. It’s the same thing in visual arts.

EB: Yeah, there was a conceptual and minimalist based photography movement spanning from the early 60s to early 80s that dealt with issues of appropriation where photographers began photographing existing photographs or other found images. So in visual arts it’s that same thing, everybody has references and links, so to speak. It seems a parallel in music might be song covers.

EB: Of course not. People adore the covers HIM has done over the years like Chris Issak’s "Wicked Game" and Billy Idol’s "Rebel Yell." What music has been able to hold your attention lately?
VV: I haven’t really been listening to a lot of stuff. The new Black Sabbath box set, I’ve been listening to that. The solo album by John Frusciante, I love that album. Mark Lannagan’s solo stuff. Some electronic stuff. Some dub reggae. I’ve always been a huge reggae fan. I love Johnny Cash but I don’t love country music that much. Some genres I’m not a huge fan of but there are always exceptions that break the rules. There are always a few people doing it in a way weird enough to grab my attention.

EB: It seems that ever since the popular rock audience got into Johnny Cash, since he did that NIN song, it seems to be more acceptable that country is leaking back into the rock genre, at least here.
VV: I think it’s the same everywhere, I think it is. The moralistic story about Johnny Cash and the whole Cash revival before his death is that you can be at a decent age and still make it. I found that positive. You don’t necessarily have to die at 27 to become a legend.

EB: Definitely not. Are you 27?
VV: Yes (laughs).

EB: Do see yourself at 80 years old in your rocking chair on your porch with your guitar?
VV: Why not? I can see that happening (laughs). Music is the thing that has been there for me since the beginning of my days. But it might be that one day I’m going to wake up and be like, "I don’t want to play guitar anymore" and instead be a cop. You never know. I don’t want to get away from all the possibilities. There are so many possibilities and different ways of wasting your time.

EB: How do you feel about music being used as a platform for things like political or religious beliefs?
VV: It’s the same with visual arts, you have some really cool, wonderful striking images that make you think and then again you have wonderful striking images that just take you away from the existing world for a second. And I like the latter a bit more. I like it being like a one way ticket out of here. That’s how I see music at its best. That’s the way it’s worked for me. That’s the thing about music that makes me happy. There’s loads of shit happening in this world and I don’t want to think about that any more than I have to. Of course I’ve got my own opinions and ideas but I don’t think that should overshadow the music. Music, for me personally, is born out of more personal, emotional things rather than political or…

EB: More inward as opposed to outward.
VV: Yeah, exactly.