Why did the band HIM break up?

After 26 years of Love Metal, Ville Valo, Mikko "Mige" Paananen, Mikko "Linde" Lindström, Janne "Burton" Puurtinen and the new arrival Jukka "Kosmo" Kröger called it a day. According to Valo's statement on the website, the "official" reason for the break up is the following:

After quarter of a century of Love and Metal intertwined we sincerely feel HIM has run its unnatural course and adieus must be said in order to make way for sights, scents and sounds yet unexplored. We completed the pattern, solved the puzzle and turned the key. Thank you.

Financial Problems

Probably Ville wasn't satisfied with the current financial status of the HIM project. A band is an investment after all, they need to make profits in order to buy the toilet paper and have a roof on the top of their heads (like Ville said) and not long ago we stated that the band ran into some financial troubles. So probably the profits (I mean, no tour and albums = no cash in) weren't enough to pay the shareholders (members of the band) plus the management.

Side Projects

Ville, in the official statement said that they want to find sounds yet unexplored. Well, this seems much more an excuse since he had plenty of time this summer (and many other) to do that, but instead he trolled us another time with the Rambo Rimbaud farce. Anyway (even if the skills of any member is without any doubt remarkable) we don't think that outside of the HIM band there is any room for an equal or greater follow. They are all over 40 and maybe it's a little too late for something completely new. The band also has accustomed us during the years to many new and yet unexplored sounds (for example: SW was much more pop than rock or metal) so we don't really buy the official statement.

Just to give you an example of how massive the HIM fanbase is: the HIM band Facebook page has 1,734,573 followers while the Ville Valo Virallinen (Ville's personal facebook page) page has just a little over 33k. Daniel Lioneye (Linde's side project) has just 20k followers.

Just a very long vacation?

So in the end, Ville, the real brain and heart of the band, just wants to relax in his new house with his new girl and maybe even make some babies too, without being under pressure. When your are in a band of worldwide proportions like HIM you need to tour, write new songs and so on... And maybe he isn't really ready and made for being under pressure, he's never been like that. He's in his 40s and probably he realized he, as every human being at a certain age, is in the desperate need of stability, and before the comeback he needs to live a normal life and a normal family.

Ville has always been very demanding (and therefore slow in the last years) in terms of songwriting and creating the actual songs, so probably the album that should have been released this year (after being postponed in 2016) was still far from perfection. This might also be one of the reason.

The other members

HIM is not just Ville Valo. Every other member has his own life and family and must pay his own bills. So probably there has been some internal conflicts related to the slowness of the frontman, probably amplified by the early departure from Gas? We'll never know, but this is probably one of the most unlikely options, since there has always been a fraternal spirit in a band which is more than a family for them (and many of us). They would have canceled the farewell tour if there was some conflict inside the band, and this is not the case.

We should have expected a break up

This was in the air... But it's like when you're lost into someone so much that you lose every perception of the outside, of what's really going on.

Many people in the HIM fanbase are now mourning this break up. Nobody was expecting it because we always thought HIM were an unbreakable family. But shit happens, nothing lasts forever... We had many signs in the past 10 years but we didn't really care about all these reminders. Maybe it's too late, maybe not. But please let's express ourselves in the farewell tour, let's show them what kind of of fanbase we are. They deserve it.