Rockinwords.com
Cologne /04.06.2008/

Can we expect to hear some songs you haven’t been playing for a long time, or maybe at all, if they’re from Venus Doom - today or at the summer festivals? Ville: Well you know, for us a long time is not playing a gig for a month and a half. So for us, playing a song we haven‘t been playing for a month and a half and pull if off very well that‘s…
Mige: A miracle!
Ville: A miracle. A personal success. It‘s like reaching the pearly gates in advance.
Let‘s say a long time is more than a year…
Ville: Ooohh…you know in that sense…we have been playing one track we haven‘t been playing at gigs. Which is Rebel Yell.
Oh yeah…really???
Ville: But I‘m not sure whether we‘re playing it today. We‘re still rehearsing for Bam.
Aha.
Ville: We‘ll try to play it, maybe.
Gas: I‘m not sure if it will be today, but we will.

[Seppo enters]

Mige: Our manager is terrible when it comes to the psychology of the band. Fucking horrible! Crashing the morality of the band!
Ville: He‘s good with money and contracts but…
Mige: You know I felt pretty ok when we came here on this trip but now I feel just miserable! Now I wanna go home! And that‘s thanks to Seppo!!
Ville: Ahahahaha!
Mige: Seppo, our manager!
Ville: Seppo makes me nervous…
Mige: And he steals. Money!
Ville: Especially when Seppo is behind me!
Shall we go on?!
Ville: Sure…
Mige: I can‘t do an interview when Seppo is in the room! He should go out and stand in the rain!

[Seppo walks out]

Ville: Sure…

Last year, you’ve opened up for Metallica and you weren’t welcomed with too much enthusiasm…At least that‘s what I saw on the internet…
Mige: Internet is for porn!!! But uhm, we weren‘t that well received, it‘s correct.
Ville: Actually Oslo went down very well…
Mige: Yeah it wasn‘t so bad, I mean it could have been a lot worse.
Ville: Lot‘s of people wrote about the response when we played in England, when we played Wembley.
Exactly, yeah.
Ville: But one thing people really easily forget is that if there are 60 000 people and there is about a thousand who don‘t like us in the front rows, obviously that‘s gonna show for the people who‘re gonna…who have the…*thinks* Since they‘re working for a magazine they have have the opportunity go get VIP passes. They don‘t have to queue like people, they get the best seats of the house. If they don‘t clap hands, they‘re only gonna see that. So it wasn‘t that bad. Not at all. We‘ve played a lot of worse gigs, where people really hated us. So Metallica was ok. It was a challenge…*thinks* *laughs* And yeah, we were hated. But gently hated. At the end of the day, you have to remember that Metallica sold about a hundred million records. And there is another hundred million teenaged metal fans in the world. They‘ve been a crossover band and a lot of different people like them. And at I guess everybody in this band has been growing up listening to their music. And Metallica asked us to go with them. So a) we felt an honour and b) we considered that by playing a few tracks before them maybe we get the opportunity of reaching a lot of people who have never heard of us and to get a new image since a lot of people do have a image of us, through magazines or whatever, that we are a pop band, or …eeerm …a straight forward goth band… which we obviously still are *laughs*

Do you care about bad reviews, when they‘re basically lying without being constructive?
Ville: We don‘t. I don‘t read them much. At the end of the day everybody‘s got their opinion. I remember very well that we got a really really shit review from a Finnish Festival which was like 3 years ago and it was written by a friend…or…yeah… an acquaintance, Nolle. And in the end of the day I heard that the reason why he had written such a shit review was the fact that he had down two bottles of vodka and he couldn‘t get to the VIP backstage area with his girlfriend. There are lots of stories like this.
Mige: So the lesson was that we should have let Nolle into the VIP with his girlfriend *laughs*. Next time we‘ll remember it! And then we‘ll sort him out, in a spectacular fashion.
Ville: Nolle is of course on top of my priority list…
Mige: No. 1!

You’ve released the you first real live DVD recently. Unfortunately it appeared on the internet prior to the release. Such things happen on a regular basis. Do you care about it?
Ville: Well we do care about it, but everything does leak. But at leaks from the press demos usually. It doesn‘t hurt us so much since it‘s a live DVD. But obviously we‘ve spent like hundreds thousands or dollars putting the whole thing together, and we started working on the plan in 2005. It would be nice if we could recoup rather than owing a lot of money to the record company, because people are stealing from us. Because it‘s definitely not making us millionaires. It‘s just for compensating. Since we owe the record company a lot of money. And that‘s the fans who are doing it, making our depts grow and grow. So, thank you.

What about this years Helldone Festival, it was in the media last year, that you have consider making it bigger. How that plan develop?
Ville: *smiles* Well the plan was the band to get bigger, but unfortunately it never happened. We should start eating…maybe we’ll get there at least physical…
There aren‘t a lot of big venues in Helsinki. But didn‘t you plan to expand it on several different locations?
Ville: Well there have been a lot of different discussions. But there are also a lot of bands, like Nightwish and Sonata Arctica and a venue called Nosturi who started using the same idea when they realised that there are a lot of people travelling to Helsinki for Helldone. They started playing their own gigs around the same time. We‘ve been asking those people and those bands if they one be part of Helldone so that we would make it a big family oriented festival type of thing. But they just wanted to have their own audience. We have been asking Nightwish to play and stuff like that but they only wanted to play their own gig two days after. So - I do understand greed is very powerful.
Mige: Things are not what they seem in Kitee!

HIM is around since over 10 years now, and I am sure there were lots of things to remember. But could you filter 5 particular moments in your career, that were *the* most memorable moments to you?
Ville: *smiles* Memorable or best?
Erm…it‘s up to you…lets do memorable or best.
Mige: It just occurred to me when we were talking about Nolle. I‘d say it was finding his boots.
Ville: That‘s a pretty old story…
Mige: No that‘s not. Because you realise that in private life, and through that in music, you can do many things.
Ville: So, what is the story then?
Mige: No, I just don‘t wanna go into detail.
*everybody laughing*
Mige: Well we shouldn‘t go into details because maybe Nolle doesn‘t know all the details…
Ville: So Nolle is a journalist in Finland and we shat and puked and pissed in his boots.
Mige: And cummed.
Oh. Nnnniiice.
Ville: So that‘s the story.
Mige: And our first keyboard player Antto came in. *everybody laughing*. So I told you, I didn‘t want to tell you this but, you know…
Alright. Any more memorable or best?
Ville: Erm. *laughs*
Mige: *laughs* I realise it‘s a bit hard now. It should have been maybe like number 5 or 4…
Ville: Well…the gig in San Francisco last year was very good. We played at Warfield. And it was a good gig and a nice club. So that‘s memorable. It‘s little tiny bits and pieces more than big events. If we are talking about big events than it would be: recording the first demo, signing, releasing the first album, getting the first gold album, getting the first gold album in Germany, getting the first gold album in America. If we‘re talking about it career-wise, the highlights of the career, which are visible. But I do consider the highlights to be a bit more personal, for us as a band. The up and down sides of the industry as well as life in general.

Do you still set yourself certain goals concerning the further development of the band or have you already reached all you’ve ever wanted?
Ville: We have done *smiles*. Nonono, well the goal is to play the gigs well in the summer. And after that - nobody knows. That‘s probably the best. We had a lot of plans concerning future in the past 10 years. So maybe it‘s good to have an opened end to the particular fairy-tale.

Can you name a single line of text, which you would consider to be the best one you have ever written?
Ville: *thinks* A single line…*thinks*…depending…*thinks* yes…*thinks* no…what is this, hold on…there are so many things. I like „My heart‘s a graveyard baby and to evil we make love on our passion‘s killing floor.“ I like the character of it, and the form, and the doom.

Is there a question you always wanted to be asked? If yes, what would be the answer.
Ville: We‘ve been blessed with the opportunity to talk to a lot of journalists around the world. Journalists are people too, and they have a lot of questions. And we try to answer all of them to our best abilities. So I can‘t figure out one question we haven‘t been asked. Maybe I have to interview myself.

Thaks a lot, we’re done!