Life’s just got interesting for love metal’s dark knight.It isn’t heartbreak.As Alexander Milas finds out, Ville Valo’s standing at the crossroads of his life.Selling his soul: Mick Hutson.
It’s hardly a scene of roc’n’roll mayhem.A multiplying cluster of empty cigarette packs are nessly strewn near a stack of newly bought books and DVDs.Movies like “Forgo” and “A scanner Darkly” freely intermingle unopened rock biographies like “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and a well-thumbed copy of “Making waves: The autobiography” by David Hasselhoff.Anywhere else there’d be nothing to distinguish the room from countless other dwellings around the world.Considering it’s set inside the plush interior of London’s Soho Hotel on a Friday night- with the bustling night of one of the world’s cosmopolitan cities just a few metres below- and that’s acurrently occupied by one Ville Valo, H.I.M. frontman.It is a scene of bored despair.Right now, that’s just the way he likes it.It’s here that for the past three days he’s watched daytime life go by through the window, only to hit the city’s dingiest, most booze-soaked night spots at sundown with the intention of “getting annihilated”.It’s impossible not to wonder what His Infernal Majesty, currently sporting flowing locks and recently grown facia hair of Shakespearean proportions, is doin here, and in this state.Considering he’s just finished a year of worth of dogged touring on the back of 2005’s hopleslly romantic “Dark Light” album, not forgetting the modest purchase of a five floor defensive tower built in 1842 on the outskirts of his hometown Helsinki, it’s surprising to find him here.But study this mundane scene a little closer, and you’ll notice an item of distinct interest.. It’s a five-track demo of H.I.M. next record, and for the past couple of days Valo’s been in an intense series meetings with his label to decide exactly what the next step will be in H.I.M.’s ongoing evolution.But that isn’t right now, and what isn’t what Valo wants to talk about.If anything can be said about the Finnish frontman who’s ostensibly seen less than a million faces but no doubt genuinely appreciated them all, he’s terminally, reclusive, shy, and perpetual stages appearances aside-seems far happier to blend into the shadows of his adoptive city than bask in its easly found limelight.What’s really on his mind right now isn’t music fame or ever growing cult of celebrity.It’s that he comes here for peace because he gets little at home.He doesn’t blame the ghosts mind you, which he confesses he’s convinced live there as he clutches a second can of Stella from a dozen bought for the very occasion of this interview.
“I leave the lights on for them” he says with his usual wink, always leaving you to decide wether he’s completely serious or not. “I’m scared of a lot of things, but not ghosts”.
What does scare him tough isa seemingly endless stream of slightly over dedicated H.I.M. fans on the prowl in Helsinki, searching for the baritone singer’s abode.Some of them find it, and because text messagers are the key to the castle, Valo’s having his door bell removed.
“It’s a pain in the ass because people start knocking on the door at nine in the morning” he says. “There’s nothing really negative, but it’s my home. It’s the only place where I can have my peace, wear Spongebob Squarepants jimmies, and listen to 80’s disco.Sometimes I’ll look out and there will be someone waiting underneath a three outside for a really long time not doing anything.That’s kind of weird”.
But as settled as Ville Valo is beginning to sound, there’s very little to anchor him anywhere.You might have gleaned the fact that he’s been fronting a band that’s been globetrotting for the better part of a decade, or one third of his lifetime, that he doesn’t mind the treatment lifestyle.But as cliched as he’ll admit it sounds it really is the road where he finds a home.And it isn’t the confortable lifestyle of touring that he seeks.If anything is anonymity that from what you’d assume one of the mos recognizable man in music he craves more than anything.London is where he finds it.
Maybe there are bomb threats or whatever but I’ve considered miving here. He says, settling back in his seat.”I think a lot of people are running away from a lot of issues and I might be one of them.I love the English sense of humour, the pubs.And you don’t get rednecks here.I hate New York.It’s like London’s big bad brother.This is where I find kindred spirits.For a while my whole plan was just getting a storage room for all my gear and carrying about where I live.Getting money to be able to be like a hobo for a year.I still want to do it one day”.
As for those kindred spirits at the top of Valo’s first is ex Napalm Death/Cathedral frontman and Londonder Le Dorrian, who hasn’t just served as an inspiration ( “I’ve always got a copy of “forest of Equilibrum” with me” he says at the band’s 1991’s ,asterwork).Valo counts him among his best friends and it’s often that the two are spotted in random London haunts going about the business of drinking.
As for the doomy aspects of H.I.M.’s new album, Valo makes no mistery of where his inspiration comes from.
“The first time I met him I was shitting my pants because he’s a legend” says Valo..”We met maybe five years ago.We’ve got similar ways of looking at things.And I admire him lyrically and as a person.I mean he made me vegetarian”.
He winces and bends over to pry off a pair of black and white gangster style wingotip shoes he’s been taking on excruciating walks trough London for the past few days.They are positively ungainly but as Valo explains they were bought to wear to a recent party that took place on December 6, Finnis Indepndence day.It isn’t an occasion he normally celebrates, but this particularly party was hosted by none other than Finnish President Tarja Halonen.He’d already turned down a few invitations to meet her on account of being away on tour.
“She was great” he says. “Really cool and I had these great vibes from people but I kep getting pised off because they served beer in less than a pint glass and it’s warm so I kept having to go back.It was the most boring party I’ve ever been to”.
Were you proud?
“well, he says pausing to drink deep from his beery chalice. “My parents were….OK, it’s the biggest honour you can have.”
You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that Ville Valo isn’t entirely convinced as he downs the rest of his Stela and cracks open another, expertly arming the fag hanginf from his lips away from the spray.
The story of H.I.M.’s next album really begins with the last one.Recorded at LA’s Paramour Studios, “Dark Light” was both ultimate refinement of the band’s intent to take America.While endless touring there pushed the release to gold status, a coup by anyone’s reckoning, Valo’s only appeared regret is that probably H.I.M. spent too much time there, that the “world’s a fucking big place” and that you can’to it all.
“We didn’t tour Eastern Europe, we didn’t do anything in Finland, we skipped places because of demand” he says.”Look, you only have 300-something days a year and at the end of the day we’ve got our own shit to do.Mige(Amour) has got to charge diapers and I’ve got to write songs and sleep in the bathtub.I’m super proud of everything.I’m in the beautiful position to still be talking about my music.I’ve never had an aspiration to be anything else.I neve tought that this world would bring me wether I’d traveling around the world or having at home.It’s all natural. There ‘s nothing to compare the existence with”
But what really happened during the last record wasn’t bigge and better touring- what he describes as “ selling the gospel” – or record sales. To Valo, the real significance of “Dark Light” was that, perhaps for the first time , he’d truly found his musical voice. It was the most time H.I.M. had ever spent writing on album, so Valo chose to search for inspiration on the Sunset Strip instead of the confies of a studio. The resulting album was what Valo describes now “ the most rewarding thing ever ”.
“It was like a diary of my time there and it was a great thing to do,” he says. “A lot of people want to write about what they’ve done but not me. I was writing about what I thought about because of what I was doing”.
But ask Valo whether the last year of his life has been happy one and looks surprised, perplexed even. He struggles to recall anything he’s done.
‘You know, I was talking with a couple of friends about this and being a musician isn’t even close to another job,” he says. “People work five days a week but we might do six gigs, or no gigs. Your whole life doesn’t go by in years. It goes by in albums.”
As for the next one, it’s due to be completed on the 26th of may at Los Angeles’ Paramount C studios, perhaps better known for its rap and hip-hop artist than its goth-inspired songsmiths. Under the guidance of “Dark Light” producer Tim Palmer. Tentatively titled “Venus Doom” , it’s infused with all the romantic sisillusion of the name implies.
“The whole album is going to be about heaving sex with the Devil,” says Valo. It’s about something diabolical and profound. It’s a bed of nails. You either try to sleep standind or you lie down. It’s the most personal album I’ve eved made.”
And with that he’s cajoled into getting up and putting the demo disk into the stereo. The most immediate and striking impression it gives it the aggression of the guitars. Guitar solos that wouldn’d offend Zakk Wylde and crunching distortion yield only to crooning lyrics like : “My heart is a graveyard baby and to evil will make love” and the more cryptic , “ At first kiss the seeds of hatred are sown”.
As smooths as the delivery is there’s an anger and indignation there that hasn’t been heared before. As to the source of it Valo won’t elaborate, but there’s a thread to these firet inklinks of a record and it’s dyed an an angry red. Is Valo getting jaded? He has just turned 30 after all, or in Ville-world, exactly three years older than his idol Jim Morrison was when he died.
“But I’m three years younger that Jessus,” he says with a laugh . “I’m waiting to be crucified.
The reviews are ready to come.
“Indeed, indeed,” he says , still grinning. ‘It’s my personal way to Golgotha”
But the notion that “Venus Doom” will really be H.I.M.’s first foray into a new, disillusioned world is swiftly shot down by the frontman. As he sees it, it’s just a new chapter in an old book written not by him but everyone who’s ever suffered a broken heart. Still is’s impossible to void the question whether by saying the same things over and over again- and even the most casualperusal of H.I.M.’s back- catalogue reveals that these themes are nothing new- you lose some sincerity after a while. Valo appreciates the analysis. Then rips it up.
“Think about the hundreds of millions of people saying their prayers every night,” he says. “You can repeat certain things unti they become a mantra, and ‘I loveyou’ is the mantra in the world. People grow. Maybe it’s their beer gut or in the way they look at things, but changes in your life gives you new angles on old things and they let you see things you didn’t see before. I love being able to pour my heart out. And I need to.”
But it doesn’t sound like you’re very in love with the idea of being in love at the moment.
“I’m getting older but no more jaded,” he says with the puff of smoke, finishing. “that’s bullshit. And the sex really does get better.”
But “at first kiss the seeds of hatred are sown”? ‘My heart is a graveyard”? That is certainly cynical by anyone’s standard.
‘But I think that’s so true, and so complete a sentence,” he says. “‘ My heart is a graveyard baby/ And to evil will make love on passion’s killing floor / In my arms you won’t sleep safely/ and of lust we are reborn on passion’s killing floor ‘ “, he corrects. “It’s funny and deep at the same time. That’s the way I like it,” he says, shrugging apologetically. “All the songs are really about sex anyway.”
“It’s a mental struggle, an emotional struggle,” he says. “I’m talking about ideals here. At the end of the day you completely trust the person you’re the most vulnerable you’ve ever been since being in the womb. It’s about the security that you give up, and what you lose rather than gain being with someone. Shit will hit the fan, just hopefully not on the first night ”.
But however convinced Valo is that he isn’t a broken record on the love front, he’s the first to admit that he has other interests and not even H.I.M. will necessarily be his only pursuit for the rest of his life. Just a few nights prior, on a drunken bender with some other London based friends. He laid the groundwork of “ Crack Smoking Ninja Pirates On Speed”, which he explins is his retirement plan. Basically, waiting until he’s 70 and no longer has any responsabilities, he’ll buy a pirate ship and support a crack habit through the maritime plunder of small Scandinavian sports. But press him on the matter, and he becomes far more serious bout the endeavour. The joke isn’t actually that far from the truth.
‘I’ve actually always wanted to be a hunter, a cowboy.” He says, though not of the animal killing – kind he’s quick to point out. “I’ve always been into the idea of serching out the truth behind the Bermuda triangle. In the western World you’re in a very egocentric position, very self-centred, and it’s easy to deny things you can’t explain. A lot of people deny things just because they can’t explain them”
Valo’s fascination with the occult- specifically Aleister Crowley - 19the century secret societies, and all paranormal and the downright odd, no dubts fuels his fascination with such things, and his plans for investigating such things are very real. Just a year ago he was working on a documentary on the said Bermuda Triangle with a friend, and ex- H.I.M. member who played synthetise on their first demo.
“Traveling the world and eating monkey brains” is, as Valo says, ‘ really fucking great idea”, but then, “I’m living a life now where I can’t really do anything like that anymore”.
Your life is all about life’s mysteries …
“Yeah,” he says, smilling. “The Bermuda Triangle isn’t that far away from love is it? It’s like the universal experience of hundreds of millions of people. Love actually resembles the Bermuda Triangle when you think about it,” he stops there, his eyes light up, and can’t help himself. “Especially if she has a really big bush”.
But are you happy?
“Umm..” the laughter and the smile is immediately wiped from his face. “I’m going in the right direction. The end is always around the corner.”
The new Darkness.
The lowd town on “Venus Doom” and its completed tracks.
“Love in cold blood”
Doomy, Cathedral-worshipping guitars and a heavy crunch kick off primal dirge.This is the heaviest H.I.M. have ever sounded, until a gorgeously catchy chorus channels them into more familiar terriyory-sounding territory.
“The kiss of down”
Valo describes it as their Metallica moment and he isn’t kidding.It’s mean dirty, and has some of the heaviest sounds to ever come out of the Finnish quintet,This is Valo at his most primal.
“Dead lovers’ lane”
Infectious as fuck and probably the most “Dark Light” sounding song of the demo, and though unproduced a singulary lonely piano undercuts the richly layered wall of guitar and bass sounds.Dark? “It’s always dark” says Valo.
“Passion’s killing floor”
Originally chosen to be the album’s title track and replete with all the hallmarks of H.I.M.’s highly embellished sound, it opens with Ville crooning “My heart’s a graveyard” and “ at first kiss the seeds of hatred are sown”.Valo denies he’s speaking autobiographically here.As he sees it, he’s speaking for anyone who’s ever kissed anyone.
