| Dark City Mag, Russia, 11-12/2002 translated by Vicky; pics will follow soon! It�s interesting to know what actually happened to that TV, on which the future Finnish superstar Ville Valo saw Gene Simmons for the first time? Ville claims, that he brought that TV-talisman, which changed his whole life, to the loft. He doesn�t dare to throw it away, he says. But actually the destiny of this stone aged TV doesn�t interest us in this case. The better question is: Why did this beardless little boy think, that he could become a great KISS musician? Also this question stays without a concrete answer, therefore we should let this to the Psychiatrists, who apathetically watched during all this time how he puts some teenagers into frenzy, and lets some others loose their interest in taking music lessons and persuades them that these amazing sounds are not really right to hear even in the room, which the French call with the beautiful word �sortir� (WC). Little Ville was walking in the Sex Shop� However, one can swear on Ville for amateurishness, but the hot Finnish boy can really outplay the old Simmons in love themes. Thanks to the dear daddy, the owner of the biggest sex shop of Helsinki, who was educating Ville to love his work and forced him spend the best years of his youth between gum dolls, dildos, impressive textbooks about practical sex and jewellery for masochists. In six years the young and brutal heartbreaker and his band mates have done pretty much for the public and their own wealth. And the main thing: they didn�t give a their fans a minute of relaxing, making them beg their parents for the next HIM disks. After the release of the next album the guys soon released a single and in the same time promise a next �soap� album. [note from translator: what???] So, in the beginning of this year under the control of T.T Oksala and Kevin Shirley right to the orthodox Christmas the single �Heartache Every Moment/Close To The Flame� was released [note: no! it was released 14.1, the orth. Christmas is on 7.1, and I guess they haven�t been really thinking about it!], right before it a little present �In Joy And Sorrow� [note: right before? IJAS was released on 8.10!], and two month before that a whole album �Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights�. And so it goes until the year 1998, when little Ville sang the foreign hit �Wicked Game� for the first time. [note: wrong again :p ! WG was already on their EP in 1995 �okay, the author might have forgotten this, but she at least should have known that GLS666 was released in 1997 !] . From this time on the songs about love, tears and unfaithfulness of the opposite sex, because of which one has to break its little hands and smut a masculine tear on its shaved, redden cheeks nearly everyday on stage, together with poppy gothic rock turned to the main purpose of the life of young female collectors. [note: aha�thank you, you have finally explained HIM music to me ;)] Was there a boy? If I was a surgeon, I could tell you scientifically what transsexuality is. But, sorry I didn�t study this subject [note: you didn�t study other things aswell�e.g.: the HIM biography�] so I just say it in three words: change of sex [note: wow�you�re so intelligent] . Exactly that told the guys themselves. The were forced to explanations to the fans, after their hit �Join Me� was played by an US radio station not under the name HIM but HER. Who that �her� was, wasn�t said for sure. [note: yes�HER is a name.] But, a new thought was born �Ville Valo � a girl� [note: yes�because HIM stood only for Ville, and now HER stands for Vilma, or what?] But the ones who don�t speak English might have understood it differently. [note: �her� read in Russian means penis. People, learn English please!] This strange metamorphosis with Ville�s sex happened immediately when the band touched American shores. But strangely the Americans didn�t welcome the love-rockers and send them back home. Sorry, we have enough of our own HIMs. [note: I can�t remember when HIM where �send home� by the Americans. They just had one show there�] The strange behaviour from the side of the inhospitable Yankees soon found its explanation: Some guys from Chicago had also the idea to form a band some years ago. But different from their Finnish brother and legally registered their, as came out later, precious name. �What else could we do?� Valo justifies, �We had no choice. With the same name we would have no chance. And this dumbass Doug Sharin took it all too serious.� Sharin�s, far not friendly emotions could be understood. The discovery is really unpleasant, [note: yes�and sooooo pleasant for our HIMs] and in addition to that the Chicago HIMs have still not reached the popularity of the Finnish one. �Just imagine, we were visiting London, and there everything including the Big Ben was full of posters, which announced a band with our name!�, the American side argues, �I found out, that some dumbasses from Finland perform under the same name and that they are very popular in Europe, especially in Germany. But their HIM stands for �His Infernal Majesty�. But it doesn�t change anything, because we had the name first and we�re not gonna change anything.� �It doesn�t matter�, the na�ve Ville becalms himself, �A real talent will find its way anyway� [note: if Ville has really said this and meant it seriously than I am Tarja Turunen!] �The name HER even fits better, because basically this band it totally dedicated to girls. So the new name even came right, it has the taste of female emancipation in rock.� But isn�t Ville afraid that the change of the name can also easily change their position in the popular rock business? [note: hello?? They changed the name only in the US!] HIM is already now a symbol for success and its known that every name has a certain destiny [note: I learned something new again!]. �I can say only one thing: I always wished to reach such a success, from moment I found this band on. At that time my nickname � His infernal Majesty - was kinda joke and who could think that things would turn like this! In These days we were blamed not in plagiarism, but just in Satanism. Why ever, people think that all the Scandinavians are true Satanists. But basically we stayed the same and the change of the name won�t bother us that much.� Of course, a lot of the female fans of the great Valo ask: �Who is she, this �her�? � We won�t torment for long and give the word to Ville himself: �Unfortunately a concrete person does not exist�, he is cunning, �I absolutely don�t have the time for women. I want serious relationships, and at the moment I am a slave of my status. And actually, all the guys from the band are my platonic lovers, ha ha!� For information: in the antique times �platonic love� was not only a love in distance, but also the physical love of homosexuals. [note: wow�great�thanks for the so useful info�*lol*] What does HER prepare for us in future? An answer without any doubts: a new album! �We have already recorded some demos. It is possible that the music will be more lyrical, dramatic and romantic. But this is just an idea. At the moment we are sitting in studio and collecting songs for the album, like a puzzle or something.� Now we are sure only about the name �Love Metal�. Of course we do have some concrete ideas for the CD. Me, for example, I am trying to put all ideas of modern music together in our band, from the 70s on. We recorded our first album with the influences of the 90s, the second one was dedicated to the glamorous 80s, and returned to the revolutionary 70s with the third.� Does it mean, that we�re gonna to hear songs � la 60s? �Don�t even think of it,� Ville shakes his head, �I just want to make a more rhythmic album, such things always hustle to active doings. Such music, in my opinion, always hustles to improvisation, and that�s great! And even more, if you�re doing rock music, you have nothing left but improvisations. You always have to perform in a different way than the day before. And therefore you have to feel the movement of music. And its not important, if you call this music commercial or underground. We are supporters of Rock �n� Roll, but who says, that this music has to be played with fucked up trousers and dirty dicks? This is not Rock �n� Roll, this is a dumb. And I want to live in more sterile conditions, sing beautiful songs to beautiful women and try not to remember about all that shit, the so called True Metalists like to sing about. In this case I am from another sandbox [note: I don�t know whether I can say so in English�] . And we found our realization in Gothic Rock , which we all like very much. Actually, the success is pretty natural. The female like Ville, slightly reminding sometimes of Jim Morrison and sometimes of the young David Bowie of the �Ziggy Stardust� times, always in black, always with melancholic, languishing eyes, incomprehensibly babbling about love�s terrorizations on the school yard, will stay a sexsymbol for underage ladies for a long time. And hardly anything can disturb him to write his tear jerking songs again and again in the silence of the night under the light of the moon. [note: another �perfect� description of Ville�] But on the next album he wants more. By calling it �Love Metal� he has all chances to create a new music style and call himself its founder. �We are still seen as a Gothic band. In many aspects its right, and in other not. We are sound softer and more tender than the other bands. We are a bit different. Also we don�t have very complicated themes. It�s all about love and about lovers. And there is nothing bad about it. In my opinion, love is the greatest friendship which exists on earth. And, when you look at the people who are near you and see, which joy and faith you�re giving to them by your songs, then you�re ready to sing about it at the North pole and in South Africa! Without any difference! Love is one of the main parts of the music philosophy, because it�s close to everybody. As we have just started, we already knew about what we�re going to sing. For example the lyrics of �Join Me In Death� are very symbolic and it doesn�t mean, that we are about to move everybody to suicide. No Shakespeare�s tragedies. You just describe what is going on in your soul at the moment, because life always gives you a theme to think about. So our music can be really called love-rock. A bit melancholic, dramatic, with a gloomy undertone. And this is exactly it what girls like the most. And the ones who look at our music critical, they should look. You know, when a human is young or old, but very lonely he looks at friendship and love like on a fiction, but when people gather together they automatically start to show interest in each other. Just because this world is like this. [note: puuuh�Ville should have studied philosophy or something�] Elvis Presley always seemed to me as such a light messenger. Presley, who had such beautiful and good songs. It�s a shame that I was born too late and wasn�t able to visit his concert. But actually the first gig I visited was with Elvis Presley, who was great imitated by one of my parent�s friends. It was cool! Back these days I liked it more than Heavy Metal. The same friend of my parents had a son, who was a hardcore fan of Iron Maiden. That was my first teenage nightmare and from these days on I don�t like such bands that much. I listen to my parent�s records of the Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, a bit of reggae, John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley. And, of course, Kiss, who have changed my whole life. Personally for me all the HIM records are dedicated to this band. And the forth one will not be an exception. And in all it is going to be traditional for us in many cases. We will record the album in same Finnvox studio in Helsinki and it will be produced by the same Hiili who worked with us on Greatest Lovesongs Vol.666. Mig� and Linde have already recorded practically all their parts and very soon I go at work. Some of the tracks are already mixed with the help of Tim Palmer in London and soon they will be heard in Los Angeles, and in spring of the next year the album will be in stores. Don�t wait for big surprises. We�re still the same HIM, just under another tag.� Written by Nastja �Poison Girl� Bachmetjewa [note: who should have read the HIM biography before calling herself �Poison girl�. Anyway the descriptions of HIMs music and Ville were quite amusing] Translation and notes by little_soul_on_fire aka pieni_sielu_tulessa aka Viikki |