Cultpjfan
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HIM in Kerrang!
here is the interview with Ville Valo in this weeks edition of Kerrang!
Mr Loverman
Crying out for a little romance in your life? Then lie down and relax because HIM frontman Ville Valo is here to spread
some sexual healing.
People can't help but stare when Ville Valo walks past.They Don't know who Ville Valo s,but they know he must be someone for he oozes the sort of
insouciant cool that only the staggeringly confident and achingly hip can pull off.To walk alongside Valo throught the hateful tourist trap that is
London's Leicester Square on a chilly spring evening is to know how it must feel to be invisible,for passers-by are blinkered and focused as their
puzzled,questioning eyes lock on the Finn's chiseled features,searching for clues as to his identity.They'll search in vain,for in this country,Ville
Valo is bibody,albeit a decidedly handsome nobody.
In mainland Europe,though,things are different.In Mainland Europe,Ville Valo is a bona fide 'face'.As the frontman of gothic metallers HIM,the 26 year
old is rarely off MTV,and a bankable cover star of both teen glossies and metal mags.This month,his band's new album 'Love Metal' will top the charts
in at least three European countries,most likely Germany,Austria and Finland.In the UK that same album,HIM's fourth,entered the chart at number
55,hardly comparable,but an encouraging result nonetheless for a band who have hardly been greeted with open arms in this country - indeed,one early
Kerrang! review memorably described the Finns as 'plodding along like a nocturnal donkey wearing fake fangs and a cape'.
"My Hopes are that this album will sell more than Micheal Jackson's 'Thriller' and then I'll be able to buy Neverland and live in an oxygen tent with
Bubbles," he deadpans."But I suspect that's not going to happen.And I've just git ti live with that somehow."
We're sitting in a North London bar,and Villw is puffing on what is possibly the 30th or 40th of the 100 cigarettes he'll get through on any given
day.When he laughingly insists that these cancer sticks are an essential part of who he is - "They make me sound more husky and sexy," he smiles "If I
quit I'd sing like a fucking choir boy" - it's clear that his bone dry wit hasn't been blunted one iota by the raging hangover he's nursing following
a night out at the UK premiere of 'Jackass:The Move'.Valo insists he's not a fan of such swiss occasions,but he's been invited along by 'Jackass' star
Bam Margera and it seemed rude to refuse,particularly since Margera is one of his best friends (and also incidentally the director of the video for
HIM's current single 'Buried Alive By Love').Anyway,he got to drink for free and see The Darkness for the first time,so it was all good.
There's every chance that right now you might already have decided that you hate Ville Valo,with his celebrity buddies and rock star lifestyle and
smouldering good looks.But he's also laid back,witty - this is a man who cites the 'Blood of Christ' as his favourite drink - and immensely personable
character.Besides,anyone who'll snigger when called a sex symbol and rasp out a couple of lines from Marduk's black metal anthem 'Jesus Christ...
Sodomized' in a trendy Camden watering hole is alright by us.Oh,and sorry girls,he's taken.
If you must point a finger,blame Gene Simmons,for - as with Trent Reznor,Kurt Cobain and just about every US rock musician who hit puberty in the
1970's - it was the sight of KISS' expansively tongued stack-heeled lothario who put the idea of this whole rock 'n' roll malarkey into Ville Valo's
head 14 years ago.Up until young Valo spotted the God Of Thunder in a rock magazine,he was a normal well-adjusted kid...or at least as well adjusted
as any kid who grew up in Helsinki as the scion of sex shop owning parents can be.
"I remember the first time I found a dildo in my house I was like,"what the fuck is this?"," he smiles."and so my dad sat me down and told me he owned
a sex shop and said,'don't worry about it and just come down and visit one day'..When I was 18 I used to go down there and make copies of all the porn
tapes .That way I had more money to spend on cigarrettes and alchol."
When the music bug hit young Valo,it bit hard.Every day he'd rehearse with a different band - Monday night mean singing with a grindcore band,Tuesday
meant playing bass in a reggae band - but all along he dreamt of assembling a heavy,melodic and theatrical band in the image of his heroes Black
Sabbath,KISS and Iron Maiden.When the band came together in 1995,his fellow Finns took one look at their name - His Infernal Majesty - and assumed,not
unreasonably,that Valo was fronting a satanic black metal band.Around the time that the band had to halt a gig because of a pitched battle between
"penguin mask wearing" black metal fans and Bible-wielding religious zealots,His Infernal Majesty became HIM,the world's first,and only,'love
metal'band.
"There's too manu bands singing about hate and politics and religion and that's what I didn't want to do with my music." he explains. "I hate all that
happy shinny people bullshit and I always wanted to be in a black metal band,but when I heard Dimmu Borgir's 'Enthrone Darkness Triumphant' I knew
there was no point.Anyway,love and sex is at the core of everything.I know I'll never figure love out,but I can keep trying."
It hasn't all been plaing sailing.A couple of years ago,HIM were unwittingly dragged into European tabloid newspapers when a cassette of their 1999
album 'Razorblade Romance' was found in the walkman of a German teenager who'd committed suicide,and it was claimed that the hapless teen had been
driven to his fate after listening to 'Join Me In Death'.a fatakustic tale of immortality-seeking lovers.The story soon died down,but it left a bitter
taste which lingers still for the young singer.
"No-one kills himself over a song," he mutters."I'm not a psychologist abd I'm not qualified to heal people's preoblems.I just want to make music."
When Ville Valo talks of his band's career he does so with humility and no small amount of realism.When he says that 'Love Metal' will be a Number One
album in his homeland he does so without arrogance or false modesty,as both 2001's 'Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights' and 1999's 'Razorblade
Romance' hit the top spot in Finland.But while HIM (completed by guitarist Linde,bassist Mige,keyboardist Burton and drummer Gas) may have sold two
million albums worldwide - 10 of them to Kelly Osbourne,who snapped up copies to distribute among her mates,some of who now sport tattoos of HIM's
trademark 'heartagram' symbol on their teenage flesh - but they've yet to secure a recording deal in the US or Japan,two 'territories' every rock band
dreams of conquering.Ville Valo doesn't mind,indeed,he says he likes the fact that his band "can play to 100 people in Glasgow one day and then 8,000
people in Berlin the next".
When HIM comes to an end,he says he'd like to go to college to study theology of mathematics("solving a maths problem gives you the same sense of
achievement as writing a good song" he reckons),but right now he ses his band as having a very simple mission.
"Most European rock music sucks," he shrugs."We're just trying to fight back and prove that some Scandinavians can be good at what they do.But if only
have the money to buy one album right now get Black Sabbath's 'Black Sabbath'.You can get around to our album another time."
HIM's 'Love Metal' album is out now on BMG.The band play a sold-out show at London Astoria on May 3rd.
The Shape Of Finns To Come:A rough quide to HIM...
Black Sabbath + Celebrity Friends + Cigarettes X Love = HIM
All that was in in this weeks issue of Kerrang!
I know have cramp in my left hand.
:P
Fuck it all and fucking no regrets I hit the lights on these dark sets.
MetallicA St.Anger
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RedVelvet
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Darren, have you been........
CONVERTED? You've been practically gushing about HIM lately. Not that I mind. Granted, I'm not a fan of Manuela's caliber, but they have grown on
me, too.
(And wow, they used the word "insouciant" in that review. Is that word used frequently in the UK? Most people here in the states would probably have
to look it up. Just sayin.)
WARNING: the crumsumpten of alcahol may Mack you tink you can tipe real gode.
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b.star
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can't believe u really TYPED all this!
thank you!
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taokow
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Just a little question, who the hell is HIM? is this an acronym?
I said "Elemental" and just then, it started to rain.
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Cultpjfan
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| Quote: | Originally posted by taokow
Just a little question, who the hell is HIM? is this an acronym? |
HIM = His Infernal Majesty
HIM are a band from Finland.
I take it you didn't read what I posted otherwise you would already know this.:P
Fuck it all and fucking no regrets I hit the lights on these dark sets.
MetallicA St.Anger
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moya
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| Quote: | Originally posted by taokow
Just a little question, who the hell is HIM? is this an acronym? |
"I hate all that happy shinny people bullshit "
my god!!!! that means it's not just me who thinks like this??????!!!!!!!
thanks for that Darren
*** All the suffering in the world arises out of wanting happiness for self. All happiness in the world arises out of wanting happiness for others
***
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ThRiLKiLl13
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WOW!!!
:flame::angel:
See ya in space cowboy.....
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