These survival stories are easy to love for us Finns.

There’s a band that has worked hard and had success, but nothing has come easily. At times, it has been the king of the hill, and then it has had its ass kicked. It has gotten sidetracked, but now everything has been atoned for in rehab.

Never has the band given up.

And it won’t. The singer of HIM Ville Valo, 33, has arrived in Punavuori and seems to be in an exceptionally good mood. Most of all, he sounds motivated, even though his band is preparing for the release of what is already their seventh album.

The big goal is still ahead of them, fifteen years after the band was formed.

“It’s not so much about whether people hate us or love us,” he says. “The most important thing is that the word of our existence keeps on spreading. The bigger the better, of course.”

Valo pauses for a moment.

“But the limit to whoring is not a line drawn on water. A song has to come from the heart and end up on tape in a way that I can be satisfied with it. When the album is done, it becomes a product, and I hope it will help some listener to get through another day but also make money for the record company.”

A slow rise towards the top of the rock world has become a trademark for HIM.

Today, it has been exactly ten years since HIM released their first internationally successful album Razorblade Romance. In the decade that has followed, HIM has been the most talked about Finnish band: after Germany the band took over Great Britain and the rest of Europe. 

Just when the party seemed to be over, the band rose to the challenge by making the strongest album of their career Dark Light and going gold in the US – that’s the only gold record Valo hasn’t given to his parents.

“I’m absolutely certain that we wouldn’t be together anymore if one of those records had been a world-wide success when we were twenty years old,” Valo says with hindsight gratitude.

“It would have messed with people’s heads and increased the pressure. It was good that we have been taking baby steps and got to experience the downside of rock ‘n’ roll life already in Europe. When we went to the States, we were at least a bit wiser.”

“If the records had sold even more, we would have even stupider and more expensive lifestyles,” Valo laughs.

Of course, Valo has experienced his own share of the dark side of rock 'n' roll life. 

“I have seen that whole arch and ended up in rehab in Malibu. All that is left now is death”, he says ironically.

Now he has only a cup of coffee and a soda in front of him. The anti-smoking laws make sure that even his trademark cigarettes stay in his pocket.

In practice, the new sober lifestyle means that Valo has even more time for his band. Even on the way to where we held the interview, he has casually given the impression that he doesn’t share his home with anyone at the moment. So all that is left is his career.

Do you feel that you have had to sacrifice everything else for your band?

“I have no need for a life outside the band,” Valo says.

“I have sacrificed myself for rock 'n' roll already a long time ago, and I like being a test animal in this big rock 'n' roll laboratory. I have never had anything else. It’s enough for me that I can make music and pay my phone bill.”

“But what have I sacrificed doing this? My health and my sanity maybe, but that’s a small price for all that I’ve experienced.”

Statements like these strengthen his image as a mythical rock singer – this is something that Valo does really well – but I believe they contain a kernel of truth.

When the conversation turns to new Finnish bands, Valo shows another glimpse of the absolute side of his character. “The problem is that they do something great but then leave things unfinished at the very last moment. And what people notice first are the mistakes.”

After a quick encounter, Valo easily leaves an impression as a polite, gregarious, and well-mannered gentleman. It’s easy to imagine that at the rehearsal place or in a tour bus another side of him is revealed: an unyielding perfectionist. 

“The other part of my job description has been breaking up the band like every three days,” he says looking back to the harder moments of the band. “Although now it has happened less often, but maybe I can express myself in an even scarier way when I’m sober.”

With the new album, HIM is once again the challenger because the previous album Venus Doom was heavier, more experimental and rambling, and it didn’t include a much needed hit single.

Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice, out in February , is on the other hand more melodic and accessible, which is not a surprise. The band has often followed their hit albums with challenges and vice versa. If after the last album Valo listed as references names of extreme metal bands, now the names that come up include Duran Duran, Giorgio Moroder, Depeche Mode, and A-Ha.

Don’t be afraid: the album won’t be straight-forward 80’s pop, instead it’s once again a question of nuances. Never in their career has the band given up on its basic sound – Valo’s sparkling vocals and melodic keyboards on top of a heavy drum beat and guitars. In the end, HIM once again sounds like HIM. 

“You can take that as an attack or as a compliment”, Valo admits. “I find it a positive thing that the band has an identity and I have this peculiar accent and baritone. That’s our blessing or our curse.”

FACTS

The most successful Finnish rock band

• HIM’s albums have sold over five million copies worldwide which makes it the most successful Finnish rock band of all times. The most successful of the albums is Razorblade Romance which has sold about 1.2 million copies.

• The band was formed in 1995 as His Infernal Majesty. Singer Ville Valo, guitarist Mikko “Linde” Lindström, and bassist Mikko “Mige” Paananen have been in the band since the beginning. The current drummer Mika Karppinen joined the band in 1999 and the keyboard player Janne Puurtinen in 2001.

• The band has released six albums: Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666 (1997), Razorblade Romance (1999), Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights (2001), Love Metal (2003), Dark Light (2005), and Venus Doom (2007).

• New album Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice will be released on February 10, 2010. 

More information & another picture is posted here at the source of translation: http://sineresi.livejournal.com/46953.html

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