Originally posted on Illinois Entertainer
This interview made my gothy heart flutter. I got the chance to speak with Ville Valo for a second time! But this time it was over Zoom, so I would be sitting down with the man face-to-face. Cue anxiety. Just like the first time we spoke, Ville was nothing but nice. It was an absolute pleasure speaking with him about the new album and life after HIM. I was even invited out to his Chicago solo show, which was fantastic. You can read all about that at Illinois Entertainer.
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The last time Ville Valo performed at Chicago’s House of Blues he was reaching the end of a lengthy chapter in his life. HIM, the band he fronted for 25 years, was calling it quits. It was the last time they’d be on that stage together; a stage Valo wasn’t sure he’d ever return to. Six years later, he’s preparing to return to the House of Blues to start the next chapter of his life. Valo is back with his debut solo album Neon Noir and ready to break melancholy hearts once again. Though he’s out on his own, it doesn’t mean he’s completely left HIM behind.
Before his big return to the House of Blues stage, Valo sat down with Illinois Entertainer to talk about the end of HIM, embarking on this new journey alone, and how HIM will always be a part of his life.
Illinois Entertainer: We last sat down to chat back in 2013 for the release of Tears on Tape. Obviously, a lot has changed since then with the disbanding of HIM and now your debut solo album.
Ville Valo: Yeah, a lot of things have changed along the way. It’s been ten years since then. I’ve been positively surprised that people still remember HIM and the old me as well. It’s not something you can take for granted, you know. There’s a lot of new things people want to do. People want to listen to different sorts of stuff. I’m quite shocked about the whole thing. We played the first shows in Helsinki just a few weeks ago, and they went really well. That was [one of] the biggest factors of stress because you can’t really tell how it’s gonna be. It doesn’t really matter if you rehearse or how many times you want to change the song order in the setlist. It becomes real after you’ve done it. So, I’m really happy the set went down great. The audience seemed to love it. I was zigzagging between the old and new. It’s not like new songs and then a bunch of HIM songs. It’s 50/50, back-to-back. It’s weird times. Weird and exciting times all in all.
IE: What’s it been like performing those songs without the other HIM guys?
VV: I’ve only done it a few times. It felt really weird. [Tavastia] where we performed was the club where HIM played their last gig. So, I’m hopping on that same stage and singing some of the same songs with a fresh bunch. Then again there were actually a lot of familiar faces in the audience. [Mikko Paananen] Mige the bass player of HIM was in the audience. He was throwing the horns and really going for it. I think it was weird for a lot of my mates because they thought that it was HIM. They knew it wasn’t, but it was hard for them to separate or realize it was a new thing. It’s quite endearing. It’s not a negative at all. A lot of weird emotions and the fact that I haven’t done any harder-hitting stuff in English since HIM disbanded. It was kind of like riding a bike, but I think I rode my bikes before electrical ones were invented (laughs).
IE: That’s so cool of Mige to show his support. Have you been in touch with the other HIM guys?
VV: Mige is the only guy I’ve been in touch with. We were friends before HIM. We met in school when we were about eight years old. We’ve been talking to each other, and he was sort of a guru producer for the album as well. Every three or four months he’d come over to my place to check that I hadn’t completely lost it. We’d listen to some music and talk about life in general as you do with good friends. But the rest of the guys, no. I think we saw each other enough, so we needed a bit of a breather. It was an intense 25 years. [Guitarist Mikko Lindström] Linde is playing in a band of Samm Yaffa’s, a guy that played with Hanoi Rocks – they do this sort of punky thing. And [keyboardist Janne Puurtinen] Burton is playing with them too. [Jukka “Kosmo” Kröger], the last drummer who played with HIM for about three years, has several projects. He’s a great drummer. And [Mika Karppinen] Gas who played with HIM the longest, I haven’t spoken to him in like ten years. He left the band in a sort of fashion where it was a bit of a shock. All of a sudden, he wanted to leave, and we didn’t know what to do about it.
It’s funny, you never get good at breaking up, and I think you shouldn’t. But what you can try to do is be honest and try not to play games. That’s what you usually end up doing when you’re young because you don’t know how to deal with it all and you make stupid mistakes. Hopefully, you learn from them and get a bit wiser. Wise enough to make new mistakes. But no, I haven’t been in touch with the guys at all, which is quite surprising. I emailed Linde a couple of times. Then I’ve been in touch with Mige. And I get to see Antto [Melasniemi] quite a bit; he was the original keyboard player. I’ve also traveled with him a bit on the later tours, so he’s one of my close friends. He’s the guy who played the stuff on Greatest Lovesongs Vol 666. He’s an OG, as they say. Now I’m starting to wax nostalgic. Thinking about phone calls I made with someone 17 years ago!
IE: That’s the trappings of nostalgia! It’s easy to fall down that rabbit hole.
VV: That’s a rabbit hole you should keep to yourself. It’s not for public consumption, that’s for sure (laughs)! But being on a precipice of something new is a transition. It feels like one leg is in the casket of HIM and the other one is going somewhere else. It’s an interesting place to be. I’m glad it’s a transition as opposed to trying to burn all the bridges like a lot of people do after a band splits up. They tend to denounce everything they’ve done in the past and try to reinvent themselves. I think David Bowie was the only person who could do that with integrity. Stick to your guns, and I think it makes all the sense in the world.
Read the full interview and live recap here.
Musical Fiction 