HIM – The blues of long Finnish nights

[Mark]

HIM – The blues of long Finnish nights
Von Melanie Haack

HIM are back – with full forces and harder than the last time! It’s more than one and a half year ago that they realeased “Deep Shadows & Brilliant Highlights – now the fourth album is waiting to conquer the hearts of many people.

Long Finnish winter nights, snow-covered cities and the sea – could there be a better inspiration for dark, hard and melancholy songs? Surely not! Why else are so many bands belonging to somewhere in the metal or gothic scene coming from Finland? Now their most successful export is back: His Infernal Majesty are ready to make our ears bleed and our hearts melancholy. “Love Metal” is the album title (out in April 14th) and that is what it’s all about. There is beauty, sadness and hope in the songs – they are hard and tender.
One week ago the guys were in Hamburg to play the official record release gig in front of about 700 ticket winners and press people – and it was excellent, the response from the audience was great! It was the first time HIM played the whole album live on stage. Then After Show Party at Scandia Bar. Finns can drink a lot – that’s nothing new and that’s what everybody thinks about those Scandinavian dudes. HIM are Finns – and they don’t build an exception. Frontman Ville Valos motto for that evening: “Drinking until Bam passes out. Bam – that’s Bam Margera, one of those crazy guys from the MTV serial Jackass. He produced the video for “Buried Alive By Love”. 10 or 20 Beer: How much does Ville need till nothing is possible anymore? “I drink 20 and go to sleep – I never pass out.” So Ville’s answer.
Two days later we had the possibility to talk about the new album, Jackass and some other things.

Let’s start with the gig on Saturday. It was the first time you played the songs live. Most of the people in there didn’t know them except the single “Funeral of hearts”. How nervous have you been?
Of course, I was fucking nervous but I think that it went really good because people were listening to what we were doing. I was really happy about it. That’s a great thing. We all have been nervous... for the first time performing the entire album from the beginning to the end. It has also been a while since we’ve been on stage. We had a fucking good time.

Did you miss the live gigs?
Yes, a bit but I am not a great fan of performing. We got to do you know... they make me to do. (grinning)

Bam Margera produced the video for “Buried Alive by Love”, he’s also in Hamburg and will stay here in Germany with you. Seems like a friendship has developped.
We are friends since a couple of years. It happened by an accident in the way that... you know he’s a skateboarder and he’s doing all those skateboarding demonstrations and one day he came to Finland and bought our album “Razorblade Romance” because he saw my face on every fucking magazine. It was the time of “Join me”. He fell in love with the album and came to an gig in Amsterdam with his girlfriend. We didn’t meet then but when we played in London he came backstage. I didn’t know him because Jackass had just started on the MTV program in America. We met there, drank a beer... He’s travelling a lot because of Jackass and the skateboarding thing. So he was also in Helsinki several times and we became friends.

I love Jackass. It’s just totally crazy what they do. When will be your first part in it?
Hopefully never. It’s funny but... Let’s see what’s gonna happen. You never know. Jackass – everybody in this crew is so friendly. Johnny Knoxville is a great dude. Steve-O is excellent. They are all really nice and that is actually pretty surprising because I thought they were full of themselves. They’re really gentlemen – with bad habits.

The video to “Funeral Of Hearts” is already out. For me the best HIM-Video. What was the time like when you were making the video? Just stressful or could you enjoy the landscape?
It was good because the director Stefan Lindfors, a Finnish designer, is excellent. This man can hold a 20-minutes-monolog and it’s never boring. We had a great time talking about all the things. It’s definitely his work and not our work. It was great in a way that I have never got the oppurtunity to go to the northern part of Finland. It was great to be in Lappland for the first time. To be in Norway was also excellent. I was paddling in small rower boat on an ice sea... It really was an experience but it was fucking cold there – like -40 degrees.

Okay, let’s come to the new album: It begins with maybe the hardest and fastest song HIM have ever made and then there is a big contrast to “Funeral of Hearts”.
Yeah, that was the idea! There should be a drama. I consider a band to be band. We make albums not singles. There is always a reason for a song to be there in that partical order. I think “Funeral Of Hearts” is the best track I’ve ever written because it’s a classic song. It’s a couple of chorus in it, you can play it on an accoustic guitar, a piano or whatever. It just works. The chorus could be a hymn.

Is there a certain meaning behind it why these songs are at the beginning? Seems like you wanna show the listeners between which boundaries the other songs are.
No. It’s more the fact that the first song is so fucking hard that after this we gotta calm down a bit, make it a bit slower. People are going to the record shops, are listening to our album and then they hear some kind of rough stuff at the beginning and then there is this classic HIM thing next.

The whole album is very dynamic. Better: Seems like every song has dynamic elements, there are not just hard or just slow songs.
You stole my words. It was the idea not to have what we have for example on “Razorblade Romance”. There we have an easy-going track and then a hard one. I personally wanted the whole album to be a bit more musical, a bit more dynamic in exactly the way you said that every track would have both of the extremes: the love and the metal. That’s the reason for the album title.

When starting to work on “Love Metal” did you have an idea in which direction the album should go or has it developed while working on the songs?
We had a certain idea when we started. It always changed while doing the album because there were so many people involved in it. HIM are already five persons, the producer, the album mixer... I’m really happy how it turned out to be because I think that’s the best album this year, definitely!

When are the best ideas coming into your mind?
After having sex. Definitely. That’s the best time for me. It’s probably terrible but after having sex I’m always singing. I am not doing Pavarotti stuff but I’m lying in bed and things start to work. I’ve got huge bizeps at once...

You know there are songs you like or even love and there are songs you love which go very deep and you get a certain feeling in your stomach, for me such a song is “Fortress Of Tears” because of the mood and the intensity of feelings in your voice.
Oh, you love that one. I love the lyrics of “Fortress Of Tears”. They are the most simple on the whole album but I love the idea of fortress. You can build a fortress out of tears. You know fortress is something like a save heaven, a harbour or a sanctuary. But when it’s made out of tears it’s something else. I love the lyrics because “Fortress Of Tears” as a name is beautiful. There’s blood, sweat and tears in a relationship. I am willing to admit it. There is not just sunshine all the time... unfortunately.
My favourite songs are “Sweet Pandemonium” and the last song “The Path”.

“The Path” some kind of epic.
Yeah. It was the idea that we always had some kind of different tracks at the end of the album. It’s very Cat Stevens and that’s what I like about the song. It’s very folky. I love the chorus, the lyrics. I’m really proud of it.
I walk through the garden of...
It’s very classic.

Why did you decide to work together with the producer from your first album?
Hiili is a good friend. When you meet new people, new producers you never know what you gonna get. It’s like going to McDonalds, giving the dude 20 Euros and not being sure what you’ll eat then. We wanted to avoid that situation. Hiili is really good in what he does. The more experimental part was the mixing we did with Tim Pulmer with whom we hadn’t done anything before. He’s a great British gentleman living in Los Angeles. He was the first guy ever doing mixes completely understanding what we’re about. It was weird because we didn’t have a discussion about it. Of course, we talked about some little details bot not more. We didn’t have to be there – we were in the studio like 20 minutes a day. I hope that Tim liked it, too. I really want to work with him again.

Which affect did Emerson Burton have on the new album? I am asking because he is classically educated.
He is classically trained so he shows up at a couple of tracks especially “The Sacrament”. I just said: play it as a classical musician would play it. And that’s what he did. He’s a great musician... I mean he’s educated and he really knows the theoretical side and then the musical side of it all which is nice. He’s on the same level as we are. It’s funny because Burton played the first the gig for us back in 1994 but he was in another band so we couldn’t get him in HIM. When Juska split Mige called him up and said: “We need you now.” It’s like a circle.

There’ll be a tour in autumn, right?
Yeah, the idea is there. First we’ll do as many festival gigs as we can in summer until the end of August so that we gonna have the September off because we gotta take it easy. Otherwise we gonna suck on tour. We gonna start on the 1st of October from Finland doing a couple of gigs there and then none of the rest is booked so far. We’re working on it.

Is it right that you’ll play in smaller locations than you did during the last tour?
We definitely want doing the tour in places like “Große Freiheit”. If it happens that the album does really well and there are plenty of people then we’ll play two nights rather than playing at one big place because you lose the intimacy. That just sucks, I hate it. Last tour when we were in Hamburg we were at the Sporthalle. It was okay. It’s nice to perform at big places but you lose something. It’s not about good or bad things, it’s different. We are not very animated guys on stage. We are playing music and maybe somebody is shaking his ass... More intimate places – that’s the whole idea throughout Germany and throughout everywhere. No big places anymore.

Love is a big subject in your songs. What does this word personally mean to you? What comes to your mind when you hear this word?
My girlfriend. She’s my sweetheart.
Respect towards other poeople. Respect towards yourself and be able to understand. You are just one ant... you know what I mean. Even that we all are individuals there is something that holds us together. The lack of love is the reason for all wars.
It’s about being able to understand yourself, at least a bit sometimes. But that’s fucking hard. It usually takes a lifetime.

And in the end you often don’t succeed.

The journey is always more intersting than the time when you actually get it. When you’re a kid travelling around with your parents, flying somewhere it’s always cool but when you get there it’s...

Let’s come to the US market: Are you already signed by Universal?
Yeah, there is a deal with Universal. They gonna put something out but it’s not sure when and what. We were talking about “Razorblade Romance”. Let’ see what’s gonna happen. I don’t know. There’s already a band called HIM in America – we had some problems with them. We still hope that we can share the same name.

What do you like about Finland?
For me it’s hard to say because I’m born there, my familiy is there. I love Helsinki – it’s like Scandinavian Los Angeles in the way that there are easy-going people. The sea is the most beautiful place to go to. Hold your girlfriend’s hand, walk on top of a hill and watching the ocean. That’s excellent. Especially in the summertime it’s great in Helsinki. People are coming out. It’s the same thing with Finns as with bears. Bears have their winter sleep and it’s the same with Finnish people. They are not so active during the winter but when the sun comes out everybody is everywhere. It’s funny. You always see men in their 40s, wearing shorts, no shirts, drinking beer and watching ladies.

People have dreams, hopes, wishes... would you tell me one of yours?
I hope that there will be no war. That’s what I wish but god doesn’t hear my prayers.
I hope that we can go on with the band and have a good time, be able to write songs and that there are lovely people who are in love the music we do so that we can perform to them. I am really happy now so I don’t want anything more basically. It would be just lovely to keep on doing what we do.