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Ville Valo in "Gothic" (№78 - 2013)
Save the Evil in the World (interview by Ole Arnth, photography by Heiko Laschitzki) When HIM eighth studio album Tears on Tape gets released on April 29, Ville Valo and his band can look back on a turbulent history . A good opportunity for a stocktaking with the singer: a chat about the past, the present and the future of his infernal majesty. -Ville, the new album is called "Tears on Tape”. What’s the meaning behind this title? When you’re collecting ideas for a song, you don’t always use an intellectual approach. It’s more about feelings. When I engaged myself with the lyrics, I came to realise that it’s about tears my idols shed on tape, about the music I grew up with and about the milestones music can set. There are many references in that song, for example "Church Bell Tolls”, an allusion to Black Sabbath. At the same time it’s a relationship story. I like to write songs that have more than one meaning. Besides, from that I liked the title and showed it to the guys. It’s short and easy to remember – very HIM. It felt very natural, also as a title for the entire record. -And that’s why you likewise translated it to an entire sound concept? With those sounds, as if somebody put a cassette into a recorder and at the end stopped it, and the music between tracks and all? On one hand we thought it’d be quite funny. On the other hand we actually recorded those parts the old-fashioned way on cassette. In the studio, we really did use an old ghetto blaster. On the same time, we recorded the album digitally of course. But to me, tapes represent the times I grew up in, the music I listened to back then and so on. -So you’re a nostalgic? Of course! (laughs) Most music I listen to is totally old-fashioned. You know, the old Sistery of Mercy, Type O Negative and paradise Lost, that kind of stuff. That just reminds me of old times when I was younger. The first kiss, the first love, but also how it is important in life to develop. That’s also what I meant with the title. To me, music is a audio diary. I never kept a diary, but I listen to my life in single songs. -And today, your old idols have become your colleagues? Oh, come on, no! I mean, we were touring with Paradise Lost, the Sisters of Mercy and Anathema. We took our first steps to England a support for The Mission. I wouldn’t call them "colleagues”, more like pals. The same holds for Field Of The Nephilim. We met backstage, said hello and had a chat, but I’m still a huge fan! -Do you still use audio-tapes, vinlys or video cassettes? I actually still have a video recorder, but I don’t use it that often anymore. Like I said, I mixed and recorded the intro and outro of the album at home on audio cassette. "Into the Night” for example starts very cassette-ish. Like a tank that starts rolling. We used a Grundig recorder from the 60s for that. I think at the studio, you should be like a kid in the sweets shop. It’s nice to experiment, but you have to be careful to keep the result worth hearing. But that’s exactly why we wanted to work once more with Hiili Hiilesmaa and Tim Palmer this time. I mean, they’re both slightly mental. They’re quite good at the different genres and understand the craziness of our band. We’ve known each other for a long time and don’t have to get to know us first. With them, going in the studio feels more like coming home. -You’re last sign of live had been "XX – Two Decades of Love Metal”. Why 20 years? That means, in the beginning you have been 16? It’s really hard to nail down the real starting point of the band. Migé and I already had a band called His Infernal Majesty back in the early nineties. There are still some demos from that time nobody else had listened to, yet. That was around ’91 or ’92. So 20 years is close enough. Plus I like the roman digit XX. Funnily enough, Rage Against The Machine only just released a 20-year-edition of their debut album that’s called the same, and there’s the band The XX that released at the same time as well as The 69 Eyes with "X”. And then there’ XXX in the USA as the sign for endangerment of minors, but that’s not upon us for another ten years (laughs). -Do you think the world would be a better place if people loved each other more and had better sex? If there’d only be love? Nah. Maybe it would work with the sex. (laughs) I think more like: "Save all the evil in the world”. Because ultimately there’s much to learn from it. I think heaven on earth would be extremely agonising and dull if you can’t shed the occasional tears. So you also have to celebrate the tears. How else should you appreciate the good things in life? -Where do you see yourself in 20 years? Well, that’s quite a long time. I’m 36 right now. Give the band another ten years. Just rationally thinking: There are scarcely and bands with members older than 50. There are only a few Rolling Stones and AC/DCs. Another important point is where the record business is headed to. When people in future will buy less records than today, it’ll also become harder for the bands. Then everyone’s just touring and no one has money left to see the older bands’ shows. It’s a kind of double attack. For sure there a some good things found in mp3 and faster information, but it’s also a question of quality. About if people prefer listening mono on YouTube or stereo as always. All we can do is watch and do what we do. That really upsets me. We can only hope that the album sells well and many people want to see us live. -And where’s Ville Valo in 20 years? Like I said, that’s a long time. Maybe I’ll sit in a rocking chair and tell stories to my children, you know (with brittle voice) "Listen up, back then…” Something like that maybe. I mean, bands not so much think in years but rather in album cycles. One album cycle is about three years. We don’t see the time passed as 20 years , to us it’s much more one third of it. Another rhythm. If you look at it that way, I don’t see myself as grown up. I make music as long as it feels right. -Apart from your own music, you also covered other songs from time to time. What’s the attraction in covering for you? You know, we always did quite different songs. "Solitary Man” for example I first knew from Jonny Cash. Or stuff from the Ramones, that at first seem really poppy and punkish, but in the core they are sad songs. Ultimately, the melancholic nature of a song makes it interesting. In a way, it makes you part of the song. When you play it, it brings you closer to it. -So what do you think about HIM coverversions, like "Humppasonni” ("Join Me”) from Eläkeläiset? I think they’re very funny. Yes, they are really funny. I also like this old Finnish schlager touch and the lyrics are quite funny. But really, it doesn’t matter who covers it. If somebody feels like that, it’s okay. There is always more than one possibility to approach a song. It was similar with "Wicked Game” from Chris Isaak. A friend of mine worked with him in the US, and one day I got a note from him that looked like an autograph. It said: "You play a wicked "Wicked Game”.” That totally made my day! Or rebel Yell, where we changed the lyrics in one verse from "A thousand times for you to "666 times”. Later on, Billy Idol himself borrowed that line. That’s really cool! In the end, it’s all about respect. Fuck everything else. -Why did you start making music in the first place? Oh, you know, I was a kind of loner. To me, music was a way to communicate. When you’re making music, you can make friends. You have a "scene” to hang out with. But I think it wasn’t that clear to me. I started making music at school with seven years or so. So I really don’t remember that clearly. I had to turn 18 or 20 to want to become a musician. It just happens by luck or coincidence. Could you imagine doing something entirely different than music? I thought about that already, but: Not really, no. Maybe being god or something, but ultimately, we’ve spent more than half of our lives in this band. You can’t just undo that. For instance, I wouldn’t want to watch myself back at school. -So what did you parents want you to become? Oh, my parents always supported me. They gave me my first instruments when I was a kid. When I was eight, I started playing bass. When I was 17 and we started with the band, by daddy helped me with the rent. Yes, they’ve always supported me. Thank god for that! (laughs) -That’s not to be taken for granted, is it? Yeah, that’s cool. They did the same thing with my younger brother. He’s also involved with music vocationally. They just understood that there’s a passion for something you don’t want to subdue. A, in my opinion, groundbreaking record was "Razorblade Romance” --- Yes, that was back in 1999, when "Join Me” was released. Especially in Germany, it was a huge success. Yes. And all of the sudden, there were a bunch of new bands from Finland, but also bands with hard guitars (for the guys) and attractive singers (for the ladies). (laughs) -How did you experience that time? It’s true, shortly after us, Nightwish became popular, they just took a little longer. But before us, there had been Stratovarious and Waltari, Children of Bodom and Amorphis. From that bunch, we just had the most luck, with chasts success and so on. But apart from that, musically we don’t have that much in common with The Rasmus or also Nightwish. Because we appeared, people got interested in "Finnish rock bands”. Suddenly, it became a stereotype, just like "Swedish pop bands”. -Would you say that HIM opened the way for other Finnish bands? No, no. To me, that had more likely been Hanoi Rocks. Back then, we were all far to busy to realise that something bigger was going on. I mean, we were in the studio all the time, The Rasmus were in the studio, at the same time Nightwish happened. It was more like one big family. Later, we also toured with The Ramus and Negative. We shared a manager with The Rasmus. It was a bunch of friends enjoying the fruit of their labour. -When you release an album today, critics mainly seem to go on about how "mainstream” you have become. Do you guys mind what the critics say? First of all, it’s a good thing that we get reviews in the first place. You want to be noticed. (laughs) But ultimately, you don’t make music for the critics, because people’s taste changes constantly. Instead, you hope that you’re lucky with it and get the opportunity to go touring. -What do you want to achieve in your audience? That’s hard to say. I mean, we can’t control people. So I can’t say what they should do. We can only control ourselves, so I’d say: We’d like to be the first band to accomplish world peace. (laughs) Nah, honestly. We just can keep on going, really, no matter what, and hope that people grow up with us. Apart from your music there was a time when a lot of fans were worried about your health… And so they are still. It’s really crazy how much people care. Around 2006 I really was in a bad constitution. That was long ago. Today, hopefully, I’m a bit wiser. I mean, you can’t just stop it all. Sometimes it’s harder, sometimes it’s easier. When you’re making music, you have to kick ofer the traces from time to time. Your life just hans't that routine as the one of a guy working in an office. -And, how are you today? I’m fine! I mean, we all are super stressed in the band, because the album just got finished. But’s the same every time. I mean, we also had to deal with some problems, our drummer has issues with his hands and so on. So we had a longer break, we didn’t know of we could make a new record and stuff like that. The last three years really have been a challenge. -So your drummer is fine again, too? Yes, thank god! He was in a lot of pain with his hands, that was also an emotional distress for him. After all, he plays drums ever since he was five years old. And all of the sudden, you can’t do it anymore. Super stressful. So we stood there as spectators. We had to look what was to do. That took another eight months. But at the end of the day I see it as a challenge. It gave us another eight months to work on the songs. When he was better again, we were all very relieved that the show could finally go on. -How do you handle the challenges of the past years now? Well, I think it’s that William Blake thing: "You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough." I Mean, I play in a band; we have the opportunity to tour around the world; we meet lots of people; everything is free. You can hang out, go crazy, anything. For example when we were in New York for the first time: there were people who liked what we do. That was awesome. Everybody got drunk till they puked, just to test out their limits. It just had to overturn eventually. Some people learned from it, others didn’t. I could pull off that lifestyle for a long time until it caught up with me. -But you realised that point when it became all to much and acted accordingly? I could decide what was more important: being totally wasted or making music. In the end of the day, music is the most important thing to everybody in the band. There are always those things on the borders. For some people it’s easier, but for me it was harder. I’ve been sober for four years, I haven’t smoked for four years. I’m smoking again, but I try to smoke less. That’s hard, given all that stress. I drink beer, but far from as extreme as I used to. I try to find the balance to still be able to enjoy music and play gigs. You have to go crazy from time to time. I think that that’s important in the life of every single person. When you live super restricted, your life doesn’t necessarily have to turn dull, but I guess that’s also a personality matter. -Will you tour Germany with the new album? We’ll first play some festival gigs, then the real tour starts. We’ll be touring when the album gets released, so the showcases will be some sort of record release party. That’s the plan. But yeah, we’ll definitely return. -Can you already reveal what we can to expect of the tour? We’re still working on the setlist. We’ll see how people react to the record, what they like and what feels good for us. For the first time since forever with the band, I’ll be playing the acoustic guitar again. Songs like "When Love and Death Embrace” get some sort of "Johnny Cash” vibe from it. Such little things, you know. But the light show for example isn’t discussed, yet. After all, we don’t even know all the venues we’ll be playing and what we can get from them. -Will there be a cassette edition? The name somehow seems to call for it. I hope so, yes. But the record company’s got a different opinion. After all, there’s not such a big market for it. Like I said, musically, the album is more like a heads off and a thank you to the people that influenced us in the past. The title might be Tears on Tape, but it will be released on CD.
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