Ville Valo - HIM (05/02/2014)
The 59th Sound recently had the pleasure of chatting with a blisteringly enthusiastic Ville Valo, as he comically and insightfully bounded through a range of topics in our all-too-brief phone interview. First up, returning to Australia with his iconic ‘love metal’ outfit HIM.
“I just woke up, it’s nine o’ clock in the morning here. It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt to behave like a regular human being! It’s good to be talking to you, we can’t wait to come over for Soundwave. We have such great memories of the one a few years back (in 2010).”
“It’s so close-knit. A lot of the bands we travel together and share buses together, and airplanes together. It’s one of, or probably the only festival I know of where you actually have the time to meet a lot of musicians from all around the world. It’s pretty exciting, and then you know that you’ve made it when you are in business class on one of those flights. Unfortunately we are not… yet (laughs). It’s not like Faith No More and Jane’s Addiction when you’re in business class all the time! We just laugh our way through to the end of economy.”
“All the little parties there were great, too. I remember, I think it was in Queensland, the stage there was an old gaol, a prison. We were laughing about it so much! You see these scruffy, sweaty and hairy musicians all behind bars. I mean, there’s a lot of bars when it comes to rock n’ roll, but not those kind of bars! We felt like a part of Mötley Crüe, or something (laughs).”
After over two decades of touring as a musician, it’s interesting to see how Valo and his band find ways of staying pumped throughout both the course of the always draining tour cycle, and a new album’s recording process.
“I think the main thing for us is to not tour too much. One of the mistakes I think a lot of the younger bands do is they tour so much that they wear themselves out before anything really happens. I raise my hat to a lot of those American bands travelling from west coast to east coast and flying 365, it’s ridiculous.”
“What we try to do is maintain a sober relationship with recording in a studio. I think it all feeds off each other. If you don’t take a break, the brains don’t have time to readjust and get new ideas. Touring-wise, studio-wise, and all of that. Plus when we started out I had the idea that as soon as possible when we have a bit of money, instead of putting it in our pockets we resorted to getting our own hotel or motel rooms. That’s a big deal, too.”
“A lot of bands they stay in hostels and stay in the same room. If you keep on smelling the farts of your best friend for a decade, they won’t smell as good as they used to! We take a whole psychological angle to it all.”
Some bands rely on reinvention or drastic departures in often misguided attempts to stay interesting to audiences both new and old. Valo laughs when queried about any worries he may have regarding whether or not HIM are still relevant in this day and age, especially after so long together in the one self-imposed genre.
“I guess we figured that out by inventing a category of our own. Being so stupid, y’know? A bunch of Vikings calling our own music ‘Love Metal’ has made us always keep relevant! It’s not a problem for us at all (laughs). If we’d been in the Nu-Metal genre or something like that, it comes and goes.”
For a band that imposes regular time off to ensure they don’t implode, it’s interesting to discover that Valo is still a rather compulsive artist. There is no surprise, however, that Ville has a thoughtful outlook when it comes to being a cigarette smoking vocalist.
“I’m getting better at it. I’m learning to concentrate on something for a little bit. What I’ve been trying to do is not too write too much on tour, because it makes you feel like Marty McFly in Back To The Future in that you’re working on something that will happen in a year’s time as well as at the same time playing songs from twenty years ago. I think the important thing is to maintain the fragile balance between those two.”
“When on tour we just try to concentrate on sets and making them as good as we can. Then when we cam back home there’s always a gazillion ideas, so what I do is drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and play acoustic guitar and find out where to go next. I think the band is pretty good at the moment.”
“I always say guitar players have their fuzz boxes and wah-wah pedals. It’s very similar to vocals; the more you drink, the more you smoke, the more you can control the level of gruffness. If you administer yourself the right dosage you can turn in to Mark Lanegan overnight!”
With the opportunity at hand, Valo is happy to ruminate on how he sees the state of his native Finland’s local music scene from past, present, and future.
“It’s always been thriving, through the 80’s and 70’s there was always a lot going on. I think the problem we’re talking about is the international acknowledgement of Finnish music, and the fact that Finnish are really hard-headed. So when somebody’s having a piece of success it doesn’t mean that in the Seattle kind of way there would be 25 million other bands exactly the same. Every body wants to do it their way. We have a bit of Frank Sinatra in us! (laughs)”
“We have great Black Metal bands and really left-of-centre electronic acts. Because the variety of the bands is so massive, it makes people find it hard to get the whole Finnish thing as a scene. It’s sprinkled all over the place.”
“I haven’t been listening to much lately, because of recording always 120 decibels you kind of want to give your ears a break. We’re five mates and we have a really, really difficult time trying to agree on any kind of musical stuff, except Black Metal! We usually just listen to (says a six-syllable band I can in no way decipher due to a lack of ability to speak Norwegian) and all that Norwegian stuff.”
The topic of where the band finds inspiration leads to Valo’s outlook on how modern technology has positively affected the life of a band in a myriad of ways.
“Because with our band everybody’s in to totally different things we can basically only agree on Black Metal, Black Sabbath, and maybe Iggy Pop, and YouTube! It plays its part at times.”
“The good thing about modern technology is we do have our iPods and iPhones these days, so everybody can just go in their own bunks and listen to whatever they want to. As opposed to back in the day when we started touring in the 90’s when we had those Case Logic CD satchels with us, one boom box. So we had to fight who was going to play what, and all the CDs were scratched in three days!”
“With new bands the important thing is when you go in to dressing rooms these days it’s not about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, it’s about iPads (laughs). I’m fairly glad Steve Jobs, God bless his soul, did what he did and made touring life a little less frustrating.”
Before the interview draws to a close, Valo departs with sage like advice for anyone coming to Soundwave this year, or any other.
“Put your condoms and ear plugs in different pockets so you don’t mix them up!”
Todd Gingell
“I just woke up, it’s nine o’ clock in the morning here. It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt to behave like a regular human being! It’s good to be talking to you, we can’t wait to come over for Soundwave. We have such great memories of the one a few years back (in 2010).”
“It’s so close-knit. A lot of the bands we travel together and share buses together, and airplanes together. It’s one of, or probably the only festival I know of where you actually have the time to meet a lot of musicians from all around the world. It’s pretty exciting, and then you know that you’ve made it when you are in business class on one of those flights. Unfortunately we are not… yet (laughs). It’s not like Faith No More and Jane’s Addiction when you’re in business class all the time! We just laugh our way through to the end of economy.”
“All the little parties there were great, too. I remember, I think it was in Queensland, the stage there was an old gaol, a prison. We were laughing about it so much! You see these scruffy, sweaty and hairy musicians all behind bars. I mean, there’s a lot of bars when it comes to rock n’ roll, but not those kind of bars! We felt like a part of Mötley Crüe, or something (laughs).”
After over two decades of touring as a musician, it’s interesting to see how Valo and his band find ways of staying pumped throughout both the course of the always draining tour cycle, and a new album’s recording process.
“I think the main thing for us is to not tour too much. One of the mistakes I think a lot of the younger bands do is they tour so much that they wear themselves out before anything really happens. I raise my hat to a lot of those American bands travelling from west coast to east coast and flying 365, it’s ridiculous.”
“What we try to do is maintain a sober relationship with recording in a studio. I think it all feeds off each other. If you don’t take a break, the brains don’t have time to readjust and get new ideas. Touring-wise, studio-wise, and all of that. Plus when we started out I had the idea that as soon as possible when we have a bit of money, instead of putting it in our pockets we resorted to getting our own hotel or motel rooms. That’s a big deal, too.”
“A lot of bands they stay in hostels and stay in the same room. If you keep on smelling the farts of your best friend for a decade, they won’t smell as good as they used to! We take a whole psychological angle to it all.”
Some bands rely on reinvention or drastic departures in often misguided attempts to stay interesting to audiences both new and old. Valo laughs when queried about any worries he may have regarding whether or not HIM are still relevant in this day and age, especially after so long together in the one self-imposed genre.
“I guess we figured that out by inventing a category of our own. Being so stupid, y’know? A bunch of Vikings calling our own music ‘Love Metal’ has made us always keep relevant! It’s not a problem for us at all (laughs). If we’d been in the Nu-Metal genre or something like that, it comes and goes.”
For a band that imposes regular time off to ensure they don’t implode, it’s interesting to discover that Valo is still a rather compulsive artist. There is no surprise, however, that Ville has a thoughtful outlook when it comes to being a cigarette smoking vocalist.
“I’m getting better at it. I’m learning to concentrate on something for a little bit. What I’ve been trying to do is not too write too much on tour, because it makes you feel like Marty McFly in Back To The Future in that you’re working on something that will happen in a year’s time as well as at the same time playing songs from twenty years ago. I think the important thing is to maintain the fragile balance between those two.”
“When on tour we just try to concentrate on sets and making them as good as we can. Then when we cam back home there’s always a gazillion ideas, so what I do is drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and play acoustic guitar and find out where to go next. I think the band is pretty good at the moment.”
“I always say guitar players have their fuzz boxes and wah-wah pedals. It’s very similar to vocals; the more you drink, the more you smoke, the more you can control the level of gruffness. If you administer yourself the right dosage you can turn in to Mark Lanegan overnight!”
With the opportunity at hand, Valo is happy to ruminate on how he sees the state of his native Finland’s local music scene from past, present, and future.
“It’s always been thriving, through the 80’s and 70’s there was always a lot going on. I think the problem we’re talking about is the international acknowledgement of Finnish music, and the fact that Finnish are really hard-headed. So when somebody’s having a piece of success it doesn’t mean that in the Seattle kind of way there would be 25 million other bands exactly the same. Every body wants to do it their way. We have a bit of Frank Sinatra in us! (laughs)”
“We have great Black Metal bands and really left-of-centre electronic acts. Because the variety of the bands is so massive, it makes people find it hard to get the whole Finnish thing as a scene. It’s sprinkled all over the place.”
“I haven’t been listening to much lately, because of recording always 120 decibels you kind of want to give your ears a break. We’re five mates and we have a really, really difficult time trying to agree on any kind of musical stuff, except Black Metal! We usually just listen to (says a six-syllable band I can in no way decipher due to a lack of ability to speak Norwegian) and all that Norwegian stuff.”
The topic of where the band finds inspiration leads to Valo’s outlook on how modern technology has positively affected the life of a band in a myriad of ways.
“Because with our band everybody’s in to totally different things we can basically only agree on Black Metal, Black Sabbath, and maybe Iggy Pop, and YouTube! It plays its part at times.”
“The good thing about modern technology is we do have our iPods and iPhones these days, so everybody can just go in their own bunks and listen to whatever they want to. As opposed to back in the day when we started touring in the 90’s when we had those Case Logic CD satchels with us, one boom box. So we had to fight who was going to play what, and all the CDs were scratched in three days!”
“With new bands the important thing is when you go in to dressing rooms these days it’s not about sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, it’s about iPads (laughs). I’m fairly glad Steve Jobs, God bless his soul, did what he did and made touring life a little less frustrating.”
Before the interview draws to a close, Valo departs with sage like advice for anyone coming to Soundwave this year, or any other.
“Put your condoms and ear plugs in different pockets so you don’t mix them up!”
Todd Gingell