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Ville used the first time live on the 29th of December 2014 for his appearance as drummer for the the Daniel Lioneye & The Rollers gig at the Helldone (Tavastia Klubi, Helsinki). 
Live Shot
Just right after the set was delivered to Ville
The maker of the Kumu Custom Drums, Pekka handmakes all these kits out of thin finnish birch. He even makes his own shells. The sound you hear from this kit comes from one USB Blue Yeti on the stereo setting, and I mix in 50% volume from his gopro camera.
Edited by Baudelaire In Braille - 1/1/2015, 22:37 -
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Daniel Lioneye & the Rollers Live @ Helldone 2014. Ville Valo was playing drums for the band again after 5 concerts in July-August 2001, 13 years ago! This is the first time ever at the Helldone where Ville plays in 3 different bands: his solo project Rambo Rimbaud, @Daniel Lioneye and the Rollers and of course… HIM!
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An Interview with HIM: Archival Revival
—by Bryan Reesman, December 3, 2014
Most rock bands today are experiencing downsized sales, which has transformed touring into an essential revenue generator. Dark rockers HIM are no strangers to globetrotting, although their recent tour for last year's hard rocking Tears On Tape album has been pretty epic, spanning a year and a half across Europe, North and South America, Australia, and for the first time ever, China. It all wraps up with eight dates in the U.S. this month and then the Helldone Festival in Helsinki on New Year's Eve.
There is still some retail life left for the Finnish group. The band's current Love Metal Archives Tour celebrates the forthcoming CD and vinyl box set reissues of the group's first four albums—Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666, their international breakthrough Razorblade Romance, Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights, and the seminal Love Metal—that includes extra live tracks, outtakes, and acoustic versions. Beyond their eight studio albums, they have unleashed a treasure trove of B-sides, remixes, and live tracks over the last 15 years, making them one of the most collectible modern rock bands and one that hardcore fans still buy religiously.
Prior to their forthcoming U.S. tour, HIM frontman Ville Valo called the Aquarian from Finland to discuss the tour, archival reissues, and musical philosophy. Valo is always down-to-earth, charming, and funny. He never takes himself too seriously, even when delivering his melancholic lyrics onstage.
You guys are touring like mad lately. Didn't you go to China this year?
We've actually been twice. The craziest thing happened when we went there for the first time—I think it was April this year. We were booked for two festivals. We flew in, and it was kind of culture shock. It's an interesting place and very few people could put together a sentence in English. I'm not saying we are good, but definitely in that country the communication was super, super tough, to be understood and so forth. We went to the first festival [in Shanghai] and all of a sudden people said that we can't play. Or we can only play three songs or don't play at all. We just flew 10 hours, and we're supposed to be playing a one-hour set, so what the hell is going on? Nobody told us what was going on. We couldn't understand anything, and then with a bit of bargaining we were able to play like six songs, then they threw us off the stage.
Later on we heard that they had supposedly oversold the festival, and they had some hassle with people trying to get out from the festival and into the festival. Nobody got hurt, but the situation was supposedly pretty serious. We said to ourselves we have one more gig, so we flew over to Beijing, then 20 minutes before the gig a massive sandstorm hit the festival that tore up the main stages including the roof. We were like, what the hell? We had traveled all in all five days, and we were able to play five songs. We were laughing about it. It was like 8,000 miles and one song per day. It was crazy. We so felt bad about it also because it seemed that there were people who enjoyed our band, enjoyed the music, and knew who we were, so we thought we could make it up and play over there again. We did a festival in September, and I was hoping we would be playing club shows to avoid the sandstorms. We played one club show that went perfectly, then another festival which went down A-OK as well. I can't complain. It's been quite an adventurous year, especially when it comes to HIM and China.
You still have some very devoted fans after all these years. Many of them throw things on stage for you, whether it's T-shirts, letters, or poetry.
The poetry is great. That's my main basis for the lyrics for the next album. I have a good selection thanks to everybody who's educated me while on tour. I think a band cannot choose their fans, and you can't choose whether you have fans or you're going to be entertaining or lovable to anybody. You try to do what makes you feel good inside and what makes you forget about the shit in the world, the everyday stuff. It is escapism to a certain extent, yet at the same time it's escapism towards your own truth about the world, so to speak. To somehow do something that resonates with people across the globe is amazing, and it feels strong yet at the same time a fragile connection that you don't want to think about too much because you're afraid you're going to break it. It feels like that T'Pau song from the '80s, "China In Your Hand." It's pretty but it's so fragile. You're glad that you have the experience, but you don't want to overdo it or try to figure out what's behind it, what makes the magic happen. I do enjoy [David] Copperfield, but I'm sure that he would be way more boring if we know exactly how he does his shit. Or Criss Angel.
There's only so much you want to know about somebody anyway, right?
Tell me about it! At the end of the day, people are boring. I don't like to think that Leonardo da Vinci farts smelled wonderful, you know? Everybody has their hidden sides and their boring aspects and their shithead aspects. Nobody's just nice and beautiful and wonderful and intelligent 24/7. When it comes to the rock 'n' roll world, Dave Grohl is probably the closest, but I'm sure that he could be a bastard as well if he really puts his heart and soul and mind into it.
In preparing these album reissues, did you go through a lot of live tracks?
Yes and no. I don't think there's a lot. For the first album, it was troublesome trying to find any interesting stuff. Originally, the label was asking for a few tracks that had been released over in Europe already a while back as part of the compilation we had over here. I said if we have the opportunity, the possibility, and the time, I'd rather scour through my archives and hard drives to find stuff that hasn't been released before full stop because I think it makes it more interesting. I don't [know] if you have heard, but on albums like Love Metal, the demos are great. We did them with the same producer, and they came out really good. They're rocking and super heavy and super grungy.
I was trying to get eight tracks for a bonus disc that would be something that hadn't been released before for each and every album. For the first album it was tough to find any because at that time people didn't record demos so much on Pro Tools. I was trying to find shitty old cassettes, and I wasn't able to find that much stuff unfortunately, so the bonus tracks are live tracks from radio that haven't been released before. You can't have it all.
So the other albums include a lot of demos and live tracks?
I think most of them are outtakes. We've never been one of those bands that would record 37 different songs and pick the best 12 for an album and then release a few as B-sides and just leave the rest somewhere. It's usually quite the opposite. We always write a bit less then we have to add some. We've always had that thing where we hone into details on less amount of songs because it takes its own time. You have to live with the songs. At least for us it's not a fast process. That made it hard to try to find anything super new, but there are few things, including a couple of new acoustic versions I did. I recorded them over Easter. One of them is "The Heartless," and the other one is probably "The Sacrament." I did them in my kitchen during Easter just with a laptop, Pro Tools, a couple of preamps, amplifiers, and effects boxes. It was nice to do something new as well. But it's still about those songs, so in that sense there are not going to be a lot of super surprising things. We didn't go into the studio and rerecord anything or make a reggae version of the whole first album.
I did Brian Eno-y, atmospheric stuff with the vocals. I wanted to keep it really plain because especially with a song like "The Heartless," which is one of the oldest songs. I wrote it back in '91 or '92, and we haven't played it live in a long, long time. It was nice to go back and play them with an acoustic guitar so many years later. It's interesting how through music you can feel exactly the way you felt when you were a bit younger. You can feel exactly all the emotions.
You can do the same when you're a fan. For me, I started to relive through some Soundgarden stuff for some reason. I had listened to any of their stuff in ages, then I started listening to Superunknown, which wasn't my favorite album but brought tears into my eyes, so many memories good and bad. Good music is a milestone and deserves a chapter in everybody's sonic diary. It's interesting how a couple of chords and a couple of lyrics can all of a sudden transform the world around you and the world inside you.
Was it interesting to go back to fully revisit the albums? Or do you listen to them enough already?
Terrible (chuckles). It was funny listening to the B-side stuff because it was more creative. There was a lot of stuff that I hadn't heard in many, many years. I felt like a sonic Indiana Jones because I had to look through all the nooks and crannies for any special stuff. But the actual albums I've heard so many times, and songs like "Your Sweet Six Six Six"—to be honest, it was killing me. I play those live. To go back to the first album, all I hear are the mistakes. I also had to listen to them with an analytical mind, so to speak, because I had to listen to the masters [to make sure] they were technically correct, if they had too much top end or whatnot, so it wasn't just enjoyable in that sense. And because there was some hassle at the vinyl pressing plant, I don't have the test pressings. I actually haven't heard the final cuts, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I'm ready to get violent if they don't sound right. I'm sure they will be good.
I heard that Bam Margera, who directed HIM videos during the Love Metal era and championed HIM heavily when you first came to America, posted a drunken video rant online, a sort of video letter to you that was later taken down.
Yeah, I heard about it. I don't know what it was. It was some drunken "why can't we be friends?" type of thing. The last time I saw Bam we played a festival in England during the summer, and he was great. [Skater Brandon] Novak was there. It was nice sitting down because we hadn't had the time. Bam was in Iceland for a long time, and he was working on his own stuff. We had been touring and never had our paths cross along the way, so in the past five years we've only seen each other maybe three or four times. We used to be like brothers and hang out all the time. Obviously it's odd, but once again that's how life treats you. I'm not disappointed or feeling bad about it. It was good seeing him again. Maybe he's going to be around for the tour and we'll be able to say hi and hang.
You're planning on working on new music early next year after you take a break from this tour. I've been wondering what your next album might be like, and I think it would be cool to do something radically different. HIM obviously has an established sound that people really love, but at the same time you personally have worked with everyone from Finnish folk musicians to pop singers to black metal bands. I'm wondering what other kind of influences you could bring in. Would you worry about straying too far from the sound you've established?
No, I think that all rock bands want to create their Back In Black, something that's perfect and says it in so very few chords and few elements and says everything there is to say about rock music or whatever. The perfect album about everything that you're trying to put together. We're looking for the perfect song produced in the perfect way for ourselves, so our identity as individuals and as a group would come through. I think we're still searching. Love Metal was pretty close, and there are some cool things about each and every album. It would be nice to do an album that would be even more rough around the edges, more live, more punky. The guys in the band are really good players.
Remember Jane's Addiction—the first album was half studio, half live. A lot of bands used to do that in the '70s. Neil Young was doing that. You get a really cool vibe during a gig and record all the gigs on tour, then you go back and figure out what's the special evening where the songs are really working. Then you might record some backing vocals on top of it. It's like a Frankenstein monster—it's not a live thing, it's not a studio thing, it's somewhere in between. When it really works you get the best of both worlds—you get ear candy and the finesse from the studio record, yet at the same time you get the rough around the edges, punky, snot running down your face kind of a thing that you can't get in the studio. Something like that would be miraculous. I don't know how people would react to it, but at the end of the day it's always like playing Russian roulette.
HIM will be playing at Webster Hall in New York City on Dec. 9 and the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ on Dec. 11. For more information, go to heartagram.com. -
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HIM Trapped In Autumn *Unofficial* - CONTAINS STROBING from Rockstar on Vimeo.
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Ville and Bam aren't anymore friends like the old days. And it's nowadays 5 or 6 years that they don't go out together, except for some very fast meetings at the concerts. Bam needs Ville and he says that in a video: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152...&type=2&theater -
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Ville has always been a big friend of Kat Von D, but what many people probably don't know, is that in the past, Ville and Katherin Von Drachenberg shared a love story together. In order to know that, you need to read an excerpt from her book "Go big or Go Home", and then you'll realize why in the SW album the song "Katherine Wheel" is written with the "K" and not as it should be with the "C" (Saint Catherine). Because the real "Saint Scream" for Ville has always been Kat Von D.
Kat Von D «Go Big Or Go Home»
2013
Ville Hermanni Valo
I only knew his music, and I loved it on first listen. It was dark and it was beautiful. It was metal and it was poetry. It was love loaded into a gun, and I wondered about the man behind the songs.
Two years later, our paths crossed, and like the majority of the connections I’ve made in life, tattooing brought us together. Through our first tattoo sessions, we began to get to know each other. For the next few years, I just thought of him as my friend from overseas, and that was all.
Then, after knowing him for six years, something changed. It could have been the wine, the music, or the moon. Most likely it was just perfect timing. Just one kiss, and he changed my world.
We were both sad back then, and lost. I was depressed, having finally ended a marriage that had been doomed from the beginning. I was also dealing with the pressures of filming a television show, which was totally new to me - and drinking my way blindly through it all. His story mirrored mine, and he had been feeling just as low.
We had been waiting for something to happen, for someone or something to come along and save us from ourselves. And when it suddenly seemed that that someone was each other, it took us both by surprise. We shared darkness, and doing that bought light back into our somber worlds: for once, we didn’t feel alone.
He’s the reason why I wanted to write music to begin with - and learn to sing. I remember the exact moment I made up my mind about making music. It was something I felt I needed to do, not for any reason other than a way to respond to him. It didn’t matter if the songs I’d write never saw the light of day, as long as he was able to listen to my music, my message to him.
He had told me to look for a package at my door step, prefacing the delivery of the contents, his new album, saying, “These are all of the things that are easier sung than said.”
I knew what he meant, but never imagined that each song would be filled with direct messages to me. I put the album on, and the music rushed out of the speakers and filled my house. His voice rang all around, making it’s way to the core of my heart with every word he sang. As cryptic as those lyrics may have been for anyone else, I knew exactly what each word meant and recognized every event and place he referred to.
The songs were so beautiful, I just wished so badly that he could have said everything out loud just once to me. How should I respond to something like this? Where do I even start?
The first time I saw him after I got sober, he was in town working on music. We sat in my office at the shop until the late hours of the night, talking and catching up about everything - music, home, art and work. Did we talk about love? No. We constantly danced around our past instead. What happened to us? I couldn’t find the courage to ask because I was scared of the answer I already knew.
We decided to draw, with pencils and paper in front of us, we sat at opposite ends of the table. He pulled my three-minute timer from one of the nearby shelves, and placed it at the center of the table. He suggested we draw each other, and I was game. With a flip of the hourglass, the grains of sand moved from one vessel to the other, and we began.
Sketching these timed portraits forced us to stare at each other, making it practically impossible to focus on the drawing itself. I had almost forgotten how beautiful his face was. He has a combination of eyes, lips, and a darkness to his looks that makes him look almost otherworldly. With him, I felt like I was at the center of an orderly, tranquil, magnificent universe. For those short three minutes, there were no questions about life or purpose. It was as if we never needed any more from each other than this.
Like all people, I’ve suffered from love sickness and tasted the pain of love. The theatrical director of my mind, the one who staged all these versions of him and my life with him, seemed to be unaffected by reason. I was finding myself constantly day dreaming of the past.
His eyes, his hands, his crooked smile - I’d ruminate over his features. Things he said. Things he did. Things he wrote. Things he drew. Things he sang. Over and over again, I’d sift through these images and memories as if they somehow contained the answer to my prayers. But I was living with a long-age memory of him; living so far away from the present moment.
If we had spoken about what we were or what we thought we were, back when we got sober, I wouldn’t have been so confused, wandering what if, and writing the rest of our story in my mind. What did I expect? For him to magically not hear about me being in a relationship? And to not be bothered by it?
If only he would have asked….. I would have….. If we could have only talked….. then things would be….. if we allowed ourselves to transform our fears of being open, vulnerable, then, I’d convince myself, we would be together.
I realized that none of that mattered now.
If I wanted to be free of this unrequited longing, I would have to make peace with the past and finally let it go. There was no way around it. But did I want to be free of it? - and him?
I listened to one of his songs the other day. Out of all the songs he wrote on that album, this one was the most direct. He sings my name in the chorus. By the time the song is over, I’ve felt a range of emotions - I’m sad but happy, frustrated but calm.
He sings about how I alone bring him to a place of stillness and peace within when we are together. What a victorious feeling - to enter into a place with him where no one else has been. To be able to bring goodness to and draw it out of someone. Those sweet thoughts were interrupted by an e-mail from him. Impeccable timing as always.
It’s just a short note, letting me now he’s somewhere out there, thinking of me. He ends the message by calling me “Star Face” - his pet name for me from long ago that no one else uses. At that moment, I loathe him for it. I loathe him because I love him.
Sometimes it feels like it would be so much easier to walk away from this if he’d just tell me that he hates me, that he wants nothing to do with me. But instead he calls me “Star Face.” There is no way he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not letting go, either.
‘Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.’
The silver plane hurtled over Newfoundland, over the Labrador sea. Someone told me I might see the northern lights as I fly east and north, but I wouldn’t have noticed as I was deep in writing the letter that I had already mentally composed long before I decided to make this trip to see him over New Year’s Day. I didn’t have to edit myself this time, I knew exactly what the letter would say.
I reread the note to myself before sealing the envelope. Then I drew out the first letter of his name in pencil on the front. What a beautiful letter it was, probably my favorite out of the entire alphabet. A letter I was so used to writing myself. With ease the swirls and curves of each arch seemed to flow from my heart, my mind’s eye, drawn in and through my arms to my hands, releasing themselves onto the pale ivory paper envelope. My plane landed soon after.
I had missed this country, I had missed him, too. I wondered how time had treated him ,for it had been a few years since I had last seen him. I wondered if I still had the ability to quiet his heart when he was feeling manic. He always said I had a way of doing that when I was near. And I wondered if he even needed me in that way anymore.
When we met up, he looked just as beautiful as the day we saw each other for the first time, almost ten years before. And as if no time had passed, we started right where we left off - hours flew by in the comfort of each other’s presence. Talking. Catching up.
He asked if I was getting sleepy, and my attempt at concealing the tiredness was transparent. I looked at the clock; maybe it was the jet lag or the clock hands pointing to midnight, but I knew it was time to say good-bye. Reluctantly, we both stood up and tried our best to part ways.
As good as it felt to be near him again, I gave him the letter I had written letting him know that I was letting the nation of us go. He took the sealed envelope, and then I watched him walk away for what I assumed would be the last time.
My heart didn’t belong locked up in a tower across the ocean from my home. It belonged in my chest, beating, living, feeling, sometimes hurting, but always loving. I deserved to be free, and understanding and needing that more than a dream, I was finally able to let him go. -
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HIM - The Diehard Bundle
THIS BUNDLE INCLUDES:
- THE FIRST 4 CLASSIC HIM RECORDS RE-MASTERED ON COLORED 4 x 2LP Gatefold VINYL
- THE FIRST 4 CLASSIC HIM RECORDS RE-MASTERED ON 2 CD SLIPCASES
- LIMITED 24 x 24 POSTER
- TITLES INCLUDE :
GREATEST LOVE SONGS VOL.666
RAXORBLADE ROMANCE
DEEP SHADOWS & BRILLIANT HIGHLIGHTS
LOVE METAL
- BOX SET
Features a collection of the four essential early HIM studio albums encompassing the group's trailblazing early catalog, on heavy weight 180gram virgin vinyl, as well as the band's debut 1996 EP '666 Ways To Love: Prologue" on 180gram heavy weight vinyl for the first time ever.
Includes an exclusive Heartagram Logo slipmat, and a USB drive with 37 bonus tracks, 80 tracks all together, all Re-Mastered.
Limited to 2000 units worldwide!
http://www.theomegaorder.com/HIM-The-Dieha...category=464077 -
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Ville Valo: the next album will contain music from the churches
Singer Ville Valo told Iltalehti, the band's plans for the rest of the year, the cd-making process, and living in the moment.
- Some of the festivals yet on this continent. The end of August we start again in China. Let's hope that the festival platform do not drip onto the weather is less challenging than the last, Valo says, referring to a show in which the authorities were forced to cancel the show because of a storm.
After China and Lithuania gigs there will be a break.
The band's next target is the traditional New Year's Eve gig, Helldone festival.
It is intended that there should be other interesting artists. This would be in the audience other than HIMpuloita, light designs.
Previous album, Tears on Tape, released last year. A hardworking touring interspersed worked for the next disc material. Valo reveals that the next album will be released December 6, 2016 at the latest.
Making the songs on tour is being difficult. At the same time, forced to live as if in the past, the future and the present moment. Kirundi is the NYT, which played stuff from the past. If at the same time making songs that are coming, it is existentially quite problematic, Valo says philosophically.
I do not kauheesti likes it. I think rundeilla is the best make it so that it enjoys what he sees and focuses on self-keikkohin. It absorbs through the information and renew ideas.
When Valo is a few a day off, he opens the bag and the guitar begins to strum something new.
Currently working on the songs are unchristian manner in the sacral, hymn-like. It is what I dig, I'm always liked. Now let's see, the more saadanko upcoming album songs. Semmosta fragile piece of music in the churches. The atmospheric stuff, Valo tells you the upcoming production.
The band is the thing without which the light would not want to live. New songs tapaillaan hotel rooms after shows and tours in the group of welds closely together.
More focus on the here and now. It is the best thing what we band of the last ten years occurred. Rock sort of thing is easy to fill the calendar for at least a year ahead. But when you never know where the oxygen is, or what is happening. Therefore, to keep the focus on what is and enjoy it. And not to live all the time in the future, the singer says.
Cool rocker and dark tones as an interpreter of Light by surprise, when asked what he enjoys.
I enjoyed it, from the other Finns so in the summer of this heat. Unusually fine to sweat all the time. For the first time ever in Europe has been rundeilla colder when you stay here. It's been really fun. August-September, when the trees begin to drop leaves,'s cool when you can hang out without it being cold.
In the dark autumn evenings Valo likes to make and listen to music.
And also enjoy the quiet, sit and watch the world that goes by. Watch the starry sky and calm down, shyly smiling star paints.
Finnish-English rough translation by HIMI. Official source in Finnish by Iltalehti: www.iltalehti.fi/popstars/2014080918556350_ps.shtml
Edited by Baudelaire In Braille - 20/7/2015, 09:21 -
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Unreleased Lullacry feat. Ville Valo song -
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Never used Tears On Tape artwork by Daniel P. Carter. Some of them, used for the reissue of the demo Total Fucking Darkness, by Cradle Of Filth. 
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HIM's The Foreboding Sense Of Impending Happiness contained in the next Bam's movie 'I Needed Time To Stay Useless' -
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Photos
Setlist
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Posts written by Baudelaire In Braille |
