"I hope that everything goes so well that…the album is called Tears On Tape, we are working on the cover art at the moment, we start mixing at the end of November, mastering in the middle of December and the whole show is done before New Year which means that then we try to find some label that suits us and cares about us enough and hopefully we get the album out in Feb-March latest in April"
5/11/12
Jussi: The embassador of love, Ville Hermanni Valo, what an honor
Ville: I thought it was you! The embassador, I thought I'm your personal assistant when you have time for it
Jussi: Yeah but long time no see and this really is an honor, you havent really talked anywhere much
Ville: Yes it's an honor for me too, we havent seen each other in such a long time, you've been busy with your stuff and I've been busy with my stuff and that's how it is sometimes, we can't just hang out and talk shit, you gotta work sometime too
Jussi: Right, right. You have 2 things you promote which are the dusty past...
Ville: Come on! Dusty? *laughs*
Jussi: Okay but let's talk about the past. What's different in your head now than let's say before Razorblade Romance
Ville: Suprisingly I'm just as nervous about the promo and new album than back then and you know what happened with Gas, so after a long break you kinda have to learn everything from the start again, I don't have the smart one liners anymore, it's not like it used to be
Jussi: So it's not a routine? You haven't turned into a robot?
Ville: Unfortunately not *laughs*
Jussi: So 8 months, but Gas is fine now, right?
Ville: Yes and it's also psychosomatic, think about it yourself, if your arms would break and youd have to tell the guys to wait for you. It's getting to you when the doctor says you have to wait and then wait some more and as a band we had to think why are we doing this, does it make any sense to do this and we decided that yes it makes sense to dot his
Jussi: So that's what's different, you probably didn't think those things back in Razorblade Romance era, everything was new and exciting
Ville: Yeah right, then we just went on and didnt look back *break* So I went to buy socks to some market and they played Join Me so it was a bit suspicious but..
Jussi: I danced a horrible techno remix of Join Me in some club in Bratislava
Ville: Lovely, lovely. *breaking* It was snowing and I looked outside and saw this girl talking to phone on my backyard, I asked what the hell are you doing here and she said I'm talking to you and I said no youre not I'm here and I dont have a phone in my hand *break*
Jussi: What else you do than play guitar and write songs, everyones interested, really, do you sit at some curtains closed and write your love songs, do you do anything else, is there life outside HIM
Ville: Of course there is, I dont know how to put this but HIM is my life, it's involved in everything, you dont have to take it off, it's not like my day time job, you know when you do music its 24/7, but yeh I take baths and kiss and listen to rock
Jussi: As a HIM fan I don't remember any song that doesnt tell about love
Ville: Well we had Kiss Of Dawn, it's kinda a love song but it really tells about a person who ended his life
Jussi: Okay so 1 song
Ville: Of the 60 songs, but I feel like theres no better subject to make a song that about relationships, it's the only thing that moves, I'm not a fan of political music or some violent horror music like cannibal corpse, it's humour and it's funny but I don't want to spend my time writing songs about rotten corpses, it's not interesting to me
Jussi: Now that were in the subject, have you had an inspiration to write love songs
Ville: I dont know what you want with that question but...
Jussi: Are you happy or are you wasting away or in what kind of feeling you have while youre doing new songs
Ville: I'm happily wasting away, I think that if you do music you gotta have a conflict between you and some thing, if everything is really well you enjoy the situation, it's important when you create something, you know when youre miserable but there's light at the end of the tunnel, it makes the drumming so much better
Jussi: Yeah you're right, can you do songs when youre happy or have you ever been happy? Has everything been easy for you?
Ville: Oh you ask so big things
Jussi: But this is so rare when we can talk so lets talk about this now and then we can talk about lets say boobs
Ville: Like in Donald Duck back in the day, the one who has luck and happiness should hide it (it's a saying), but there's happiness and then theres satisfaction, they are different things, its not just one word that says it all, but you always want more whatever it is and you always find something you can be better in...this is tricky, youre in a philosofical mood and tricky questions
Jussi: *laughs* I've never heard anyone say that I'm philosofical
Ville: Well this is the first time
6/11/12
Jussi: Back in business, full of energy, did you get stressed right away like oh fucking hell, record labels look at the promo schedules and now you should start touring and Seppo's nagging that you haven’t been to Brazil yet…
Ville: *laughs* Have you spoken with Seppo? That sounded just like him, but yeah we’re doing a new album, it's not completely finished, but isn’t the most important thing that we’re doing the album and if there are some promo stuff then that’s next week
Jussi: I was kinda mirroring myself here, when a new album comes out I'm excited about it and it feels great but at the same time you have a zillion emails and you'll notice that the next free day is in December 2014 and then youre like fucking hell I can't do this
Ville: We have exactly the same schedules, pdf files fly around. You have a record label but we don’t even have that yet, we make the album by ourselves and then see and then we see who likes it
Jussi: So this is where we are now, you pay it for yourself, sounds exciting
Ville: Well you know what it's like, lovely a&r’s (?) are lovely when they have good opinions and can help you but it's not necessary I believe
Jussi: In this room we have 2 persons who do music and only one thing separates us, only the other one has written a song called Join Me and a few others so the negotiations with the a&r gotta be not at all stressfull, I don’t think they will come to you and tell you how to make a hit
Ville: I don’t like fighting at all, if someone comes to tell me how I should do things ill look his credits and think about how much value it has
Jussi: Has anyone told you in let's say during the last 10 years?
Ville: Yeah sure but they are opinions and you can take some inspiration to yourself of it, Asko Kallonen is a good example, we’re close and sometimes almost fighting, but asko is a good guy cause he's always honest about how he feels so you can't really blame him for it, you can only say that Asko I don’t want to do this teddy bear so go home and don’t talk to me anymore *laughs*
Jussi: Yeah Asko has a passion for music or then he lies and acts very well but I believe…
Ville: Asko is lovely and I've been in contact with many foreigners and if you have constructive critic its never a bad thing, if there are 5000 words that are bullshit and a few good lines then take the good ones and use it to make things better, the band and the producer don’t necessary see the bad things when they do an album for a long time and only see the one way how to do it, then it’s a good if an outsider comments it, girlfriends haven’t given negative comments though
Jussi: *laughs* Not from girlfriends! I know some girls who like this next song and if you ask me I don’t remember if anyone has ever written a more beautiful love song than this, Bury Me Deep Inside Your Heart
Jussi:… There a dusty XX in the markets now but let's talk about the new one.
Ville: *laughs* I'm so hurt
Jussi: Oh don’t…I dared to say it, this time its easy for you to answer to the question if this is the best album cause isn’t this the best of or what is this…
Ville: It’s the best example of the things we’ve done so far and an introduction to where we are going
Jussi: I was asking about that, for me the most different albums from each other are Venus doom and Screamworks
Ville: Okay I see your point there, Venus Doom was very organic and it had long things, Sabbath and 70’s stuff and Screamworks was more to the point, but in the end if you listen to the songs next to each other they have the same core in them, the melancholic thing and the voice doesn’t change and lindes guitars don’t change, the personality comes through anyway, the sound of the band that has been there from the start
Jussi: HIM has always sounded like HIM
Ville: And that’s good
Jussi: Well…
Ville: Yeah well *laughs* we have tried other stuff too
Jussi: I was just gonna add that nowadays there are many bands that almost sound like HIM, is it an honor or does it ever piss you off, I remember few years ago Bam had googled some band (sorry I don’t get the name, its Italian?) and you were watching it over Bam's shoulder and asked “Is that me?”
Ville: Is it the Italian band?
Jussi: The singer is Italian, who looks like Ville Valo more than you and sometimes sounds more like Ville than you
Ville: Okay good then we can soon have 3 HIMs touring at the same time, but its kinda a good question, it’s a passion without you cant live, some people do music for the music, some for the money, some for the mathematics of it, but if it’s the only way you can breath things like that don’t interest you, its nice if you can inspire others but it doesn’t take anything away of you and you always have to remember to admire Sabbath, type o negative…they are really important to us and we grew up with them, you had more the glittery stuff, but you know what I mean
Jussi: Is that still your answer if I ask what music inspires you in 2012? Do you listen to Sabbath every week at home? I don’t believe it, whats the latest thing you’ve been excited about?
Ville: Usually I listen to melodic music, in the spring when we started to do music I listened a lot of electronic music, I listened to Huoratron, the latest album which is wonderful, not very melancholic though, then im excited about a band from Canada called the Grimes, a young girl who does…I don’t know what to call it, its kinda like electropop but really artistic and weird and then I like a band called (sorry didn’t get the name) from new York but they hang a lot in Berlin, theres a girl who has a great voice, Grace Jones vibe in it and then theres a guy with a synthetizator on stage, the album is fantastic, I usually try to listen to stuff that’s different, Sabbath doesn’t disappear anywhere, it has left its mark and I cant get rid of it, I don’t have to listen to it all the time
Jussi: At night when you go home play Paranoid
7/11/12
Jussi: You always talk about books, about ug stuff and about art, no matter if its Tuomari Nurmios music or Mukkas books and then you add to the same sentence that you wanna do a Slippery when went – type album that sells zillions. You can't get away with liking both of that stuff at the same time
Ville: Now you got the point of everything, you found my strategy *laughs*
Jussi: I haven’t read Mukkas books
Ville: I haven’t read them all either, you know it's about what you get inspired by, what makes you see the world in a different way, to see some color in a new way, I love color codes and the names of colors and the world is full of stuff you can learn. It's not about trying to be very smart, it's about keeping your eyes and ears open, I cant say I know everything about everything but I know pretty much of some things
Jussi: I wanted to talk about this cause usually artistically well made and done cant sell well and be commercial at the same time, at least that’s what critics say, shortly said, everything that sells is shit. Is it important to you that the album sells and makes people go crazy, it must matter right?
Ville: It has two sides, like Anderson (Andrew? sorry didn’t get the name again) said it's more important that the album touches deeply a few people than a lot of people in a shallow way, that’s a good excuse
Jussi: That’s a good line to quote at interviews
Ville: Yeah like I just did , but I believe that after we’ve done a song and recorded it, we cant know whats going to happen with it, we try our best and. you rather play to 10 000 people than to one person, we’re both rockers and its part of what we grew up with, its an important piece of it all, and the better it goes the better it is. But then you come to the point when it is time to make compromises, if you start to think you gotta wear pink sneakers to sell 50 records more, if you start to play that game it’s a never ending road, no-one has answers to that system, its just better to trust to your own intuition and just go on
Jussi: Well you’ve done this for 20 years so I don’t think anyone can say that the pink sneakers are in your cv
Ville: If I'd put on pink sneakers now, what would happen?
Jussi: I want to tell this before I ask your experience. During the last month I was in Greece in a 5 star bath-hotel and I was the only customer at the bar and every night they played Summer Wine
Ville: Is it the place with a really great terrace?
Jussi: No it was San Torini (?) holiday island
Ville: Okay I thought if it’s the same place with the owner I know
Jussi: Okay well it wasn’t
Ville: *laughs*
Jussi: Summer Wine was played there and last week I was in New Orleans penthouse club where strippers do what they do
Ville: When have you been to New Orleans?
Jussi: Last week
Ville: Lovely, I really miss that place it's so great
Jussi: Well anyway, hiphop was playing load and girls take their clothes off and then dj plays Wicked Game, I thought that’s an achievement, isn’t it? It's great, and your wicked game of course
Ville: It would have been achievement if it was the original too *laughs*
Jussi: When was the last time you’ve been to some place and heard HIM and thought wow?
Ville: Uhmmm last night, I got a few mixes from Tim Palmer from the new songs
Jussi: So on your laptop
Ville: Huh?
Jussi: Sorry, go on
Ville: I listened to them and it was like wow, I haven’t had those goose bumps, tears in eyes, yes! Feelings, it's so great after all the hazzle that something like that happens, but weve had all crazy stuff, like the summer wine you mensioned, it was a surprise, nobody knew it was going to be anything, and it's not HIM, I just went to sing a song in Hamburg, if I remember right it was my idea to pick that song, I thought it’s a good song, lets do that and after that a few german people have taken credits about it but I don’t care, but anyway. You go to buy socks and then they play Join me, its suspicious
Jussi: I've also danced a really bad techno remix about Join Me in some club in Bratislava
Ville: Lovely,lovely
Jussi: *mimics Join Me*
Ville: Yeah I've heard a couple of those, it's kinda cool, and it's like here in Finland and in Germany it's Join Me and then we’ve had the luck that for example in US it's Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly and then Buried Alive By Love in UK, we’re really lucky that different songs have succeeded in different places. Of course you think about if you gotta go to the piano again *laughs*
Jussi: But that’s great, different welcome in different places. Can you compare countries and lets say media? Do they ask anywhere else than in finland about how much you earn, how much you pay taxes and who's your girlfriend
Ville: Well actually nobody has asked and my girlfriend is hurt that no-one has asked about her
Jussi: Don’t lie *laughs*
Ville: They haven’t, people are being really correct, its been a long time so maybe people have realized that my own things are my own and music is music and that’s difficult but no, no differences between countries, lets say some german publications can be a bit more vulgar than others, like you know, but that goes with the territory
Jussi: *plays Wicked Game*
9/11/12
Jussi: I've played HIM pretty much like I've promised, I have picked the songs myself, sometimes Ville. Lets put Ville in a bad place and see what he wants to play himself. XX. What's the song of all you’ve ever done youre most proud of today?
Ville: Fucking hell what a question, I'm going to meet the guys and play them the new song from the new album Tears On Tape, it’s the song im most pleased with today, unfortunately it's not on the best of album, its out next year. But like you know its not about songs, it's about the time you’ve been living, who you’ve met, who you’ve been hanging out with, have you performed the song somewhere or made a video of it that has just stayed in your memory. I like the song Gone With The Sin, it’s a nice song
Jussi: What time did we live back then? Then was soda, Freda and Hamburg, those are the things that come to my mind first
Ville: It was a big hazzle back then but that’s alright, if you think about the song Gone With The Sin, we were young and nobody knew where should be, but we did a fucking great video where I walk through old english graveyards, I love the nature in England, they have different kind of trees than here
Jussi: For the listeners, you can watch the video to see to whos tomb Ville brings flowers
Ville: That too *laughs*
Jussi: We’ll keep this as a secret and you can go watch it from YouTube, lets play Gone With The Sin, great song and great choice
Jussi: I just opened my own Facebook, just after we dissed the social media, the question what you want to ask from Ville
Ville: You didn’t diss it and I don’t diss it, I'm just saying it's not a place for me cause it's not for what I want to do
Jussi: Right, your fans ask a lot, maybe cause its my Facebook, that when are we gonna do a tour together, Russians ask it and Brazilians ask it
Ville: So when we do a tour together?
Jussi: Triple X, so you haven’t been to Brazil
Ville: Not yet, have you?
Jussi: Yeah we have
Ville: Yeaaah
Jussi: We got there with a help from others cause we did the tour with the Scorpions and The Nightwish
Ville: Alright,alright
Jussi: The crowd was a bit bigger than what it would have been if it was just our band
Ville: Ok, ok
Jussi: In Sao Paolo 128 000 people
Ville: Lovely
Jussi: It was awesome, it was a few years ago. You would love it in Rio
Ville: I've heard a lot of good about the place, Mexico City is the closest place to Brazil we’ve been to, but we haven’t had the time, you know when its really busy you just don’t make it, I also believe that if you do less touring it's better than if you do so much that the band get tired
Jussi: That’s a good point
Ville: Many don’t realize it, they keep on going until they burn out. And if you tour too much… if people see you 3 times in a year they get tired, you can't renew yourself that fast
Jussi: Lets go to America together then
Ville: Hell, lets go on tour to (can't hear the country), but touring is nice. And one thing would be nice if we would get an opportunity, when have you been to East neighbour last time?
Jussi: Can't remember what was the last time
Ville: There are many places, we could go to minsk and all the way to Vladivostok, it would be cool to go there together
Jussi: Have you always had a good time when you’ve been vising our East neighbor?
Ville: I've had good time or too good time *laughs* I've had a good feeling when I've been there
Jussi: We’re going there soon, let's go there together, there are many from there… to the listeners just so you know, in a few hours I have 10cm pile of A4 papers of questions for you Ville, most of them are asking when are you coming here, quit smoking and what type of chocolate you like. Do you still smoke?
Ville: Yeah I smoke, I have quit many times, then I started again then I smoke little less or little more, its okay at the moment, I've been growing up with James Dean so that’s where the cancer rolls come from, but no it's not good to smoke and about chocolate I don’t know I don’t eat chocolate…anymore
Jussi: Anymore?
Ville: I was a complete chocolate freak back then when I quit smoking
Jussi: Now that we still play the old music…
Ville: Dusty
Jussi:Yeah, when the new album will be out and when will you tour?
Ville: I hope that everything goes so well that…the album is called Tears On Tape, we are working on the cover art at the moment, we start mixing at the end of November, mastering in the middle of December and the whole show is done before new year which means that then we try to find some label that suits us and cares about us enough and hopefully we get the album out in Feb-March latest in April
Jussi: That’s fucking fast, or I don’t know when you started…
Ville: Year -76
Jussi: -76, since 76, and Helldone, how many days? Four days?
Ville: Four days
Jussi: Who else is there or is it a secret?
Ville: No, there will be Face Of God, our neighbor from the rehearsal place, then theres Final Assault, skate-hardcore-punk type of thing, familiar stuff too and then theres (don’t get the name of the band, sorry, feel free to add) and then (and again I don’t get the name) with Pätkä, aka (something?) aka SON, they are coming there..if I remember right in the eve of new years, it’s a good variation of everything, its nice to be at the backstage when there are familiar faces and talks
Jussi: Sounds very much like Helldone
Ville: Lets hope for the best
Jussi: We are waiting for that and like I said it was an honour to get you here as a guest
Ville: No no thank you yourself, this is cool but..oh well
Jussi: Oh well?
Ville: Let's gossip without the microphones at some point, this was fantastic (not sure if it's ville but) *claps hands*
Jussi: Thanks, thanks, this is Jussi 69 and Ville turned up at some points too
Ville: *laughs*
Jussi: Bye bye!
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