| Sonic Seducer Mag 03/2003 translated by Vicky HIM - Heart of gold Life as a rockstar can be so great: You record some songs for the new album, afterwards jet to LA for mixing, there you meet some extreme cool actresses, after you fly to Norway for some canoeing and some time later you play in the snowy Finnish forest with the other guys from the band. So it's a great life, which the guys from HIM live, if there wasn't an unrespectful, little flu virus, who put at least singer Ville Valo to bed in February and keeps him from perform his, actually pretty pleasing, obligations. Only bass player Mig� Amour appears at the exclusive Germany presentation of the new HIM album "Love Metal", whereas the coughing and sniffing Ville can only intervene by phone. If a band in the rather gloomy regions if the European music scene exists which is a sure claimant for the German top ten, then it's HIM. After the number one success of "Join Me" and the pretty well selling singles "Pretending" and "Right Here In My Arms", the Finns are no longer only a band for Goth and Metal friends, but also a profoundly a theme for Bravo and the radio. The band is willingly handed over from one TV channel to the other. And with "Love Metal", that's how the new HIM work is called, the story of the Finn-rockers fill surely continue. The title was made after the proved formula: you take something hard here, something tender there, pound it and get a harmonious contrast. This principle drafts itself also through many lyrics of master Valo. And founds itself also in the arrangements of the new tracks. "This Love-Metal-thing follows us for years. First we laughed at it, because we just couldn't get rid of it. The people said: You make Love-Metal. And as we realized, that this term has become part of that, what we were doing, we consequentially just took it as the album title." Says Mig� and keeps on smiling. He likes such clich�s - why else would the bass player have given himself the pseudonym Mig� Amour. Also the new overlay of the HIM-symbol, this fusion of a heart and a pentagram, was adapted to the new title: A Heartagram made of gold. So, concerning the album title nothing has changed. But the one who will put "Love Metal" into his CD player in April, will first be hit by a strong headwind which will ruin his hairdo.: the opener "Buried Alive By Love", is the hardest and fastest, what HIM have recorded in their now eight years lasting career: a solid Metal track with a plausible melody. And a not very gentle shock to tender ears, which Ville comments narrowly: "we're becoming old and sad. This is our last chance to rock 'n' roll again." We didn't know that rockstars in Finland are taken to the almshouse shortly after their 27th birthday. Ville is not that old actually, even if he has caught this wicked flu virus: "It's nothing dangerous, just a flu. I have to take antibiotics for a couple of days and allow myself lots of calmness. I also have some fever and my nose is running. Shortly, I just feel bad. " (coughs) Its not the first time, that the actually hardened Finn gets pulled under. Already on the earlier tours through Europe HIM had to cancel some gigs. And this time Ville is wiser: he does everything not to put the big showcase at the "Grosse Freiheit" in Hamburg at risk. "The idea is, that we play the whole album from the beginning to the end for the fans, journalists and the people from the record company. And when the people want more, we will play also some old tracks. ", the singer says. Three hours after the Hamburg gig was announced at the HIM homepage without any advance warning, all the fan places were already booked out. Click, click, click, HIM-followers from Australia, Brazil and the USA have assured a ticket due to the internet. If they all will come is to wait and see. However, there is a long waiting list of people who can approach. Lots of fans will hear the new single "Funeral Of Hearts" for the first time in Hamburg, which will be released only one and a half weeks later, on March 17th. And which is again exactly that, what is expected from Ville's romantic side: a hymn. But one, which has much more power than "Pretending" or "In Joy And Sorrow" . But one, which invites to sing along already after a couple of beats. There already a video for this one, shot in January. Therefore Ville was allowed to step into a rowboat and canoe around on an icy lake in Norway - in Finland this scene couldn't be shot, because the temperatures there at that time reached minus 20 degrees Celsius. Nevertheless the band returned to their motherland, because there the shots in the snow were made, in which one can see for example Mig� riding on a horse with a guitar - as a Helsinki-Rock'n'Roll-Cowboy. Fire blazes around the drums and some savages freeze off their best parts wearing only a loincloth. The hard contrast between the opener "Buried Alive By Love" and" Funeral Of Hearts" seems also to be the guiding theme for the whole album. Whereas the broadly more powerful production pleased the sound. "Our album was produced again by Hiili, who also coached the first record "Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666". We have recorded the whole album at Finnvox in Helsinki, we have mixed two tracks in London and the rest in Los Angeles. And during this time we have shot the Video for "Buried Alive By Love" ". In some countries this song will be released as the first single and HIM also had a starguest at this shot in December: Juliette Lewis from "Natural Born Killers" , "From Dusk Till Dawn", "California" or "Cape Of Fear". So not the worst eye catcher for a music video. "We have shot it in a big theatre in Los Angeles and walked through the corridors and Juliette has joined in. In fact it became a very simple rock video, but I really enjoyed it. By the way it was directed by this skateboard-guy from "Jackass", Bam Margera.", Ville tells. The crazy stunt and fooling show on MTV is also liked by the guys from HIM, as Mig� adds: " We thought: Ah, finally we can hurt ourselves a bit. We thought that it all will be really crazy. But in the end everything looked like a classical rock video. We were very surprised, because if you see the Margera-family, you think of people who make races on lawn-movers and covertly piss on their fathers. But Bam isn't like this, he is a much more subtle character. And so we were positively surprised." Also Ville agrees with that: "In one month we have done two videos which are completely different, and we are very satisfied with both." Admittedly the time in Los Angeles for Mig� was everything but a relaxed vacation. The actually not very camera shy bass player has developed a real phobia against the observation cameras, which are hanging there on every corner for watching the traffic - and of course for guaranteeing the public security. But in fact they're stealing the feeling of privacy and private sphere from the citizen, like at "Big Brother". "These cameras really make me paranoid. They have recorded me constantly. It's horrible. However beautiful California is, I will never ever return to L.A, if I can avoid it." For the next time he doesn't have to care about this aspect. Because though HIM are very successful in many countries including South America, the "HIMpire" still couldn't reach the USA. Last year "Join Me" was released there, but only in the area of Boston. The song was well received, but there are still no plans about a national release. A big task is still waiting for the five men, and with the new album they have a hit iron in the fire for some conquest plans. Because "Love Metal" really seems to glow at some parts: In "Soul On Fire" suddenly guitar improvisations step to the foreground, like the good old Led Zeppelin, only harder. Or in the last track "The Path", when entwined psychedelic paths are taken, on which the guitar is looping and shifting, like on the Cosmic-Pope-Version of "Pretending", which is well known by the all fans, because thus was the original version of the song. But between this wild excursions there is of course some space on "Love Metal", to make girls' hearts first tremble and then melt: Especially with one song: "Sweet Pandemonium", which stats with a soft piano-intro, continues with acoustic guitars and is underlined by a fat bass by Mig�. It sounds somehow gothic, but it's not at all depressing - rather longing. "We have the advantage that we're from Finland, where melancholy is from. And so we succeed in making a heart-tearing album, like nobody else in the moment." , Ville self-confidentially announced through the telephone. The bigger piano parts could be this time build in, because with Emerson Burton a classically educated keyboarder entered the band. In comparison to him Zoltan Pluto, who left the band after "Razorblade Romance", was rather a man for the rough. Mig�: "Before Burton we never had a proper keyboarder. Uh, I shouldn't have said this. But you know what I mean: He's just a keyboarder who knows more about keyboards than all the other guys from the band." And who properly even knows more about music than the other bandmembers. The change of slow and fast, that's what dominates "Love Metal": " What we have tried this time, is a rise of dynamics. We have no clear ballad, there is no complete calm song on it. But also no clear rocksong, maybe apart from "Buried Alive By Love", because we really wanted to hold this as hard as possible. But also this song has dynamic differences in its parts, rivalling refrains. It was our idea, that we take such hard Black Sabbath guitars. We didn't want any shitty 3 minutes 30 seconds lasting rockshit. We wanted to hold it as melodically as possible, in the same time without losing depth. " It sounds complicated, but the product of these efforts is rather plausible. Lyrically there weren't many changes on the new work, or? "Others can judge this better as we ourselves. Because we have worked one and a half year on this album. In doing it one turns blind and deaf for such things, that you can't really hear what it's all about." , confesses the singer and songwriter Ville. But: "The lyrical side of this album is a bit more introverted, at least I sing not so much about relationships between girls and boys anymore. It's rather about to be grown up enough to respect what you have. It's not always like that, that people respect what they have had. If people own something they normally don't give a shit on it. And only when they lose it, they realize it's worth." One has heard it somewhere already, but in the HIM-universe this perception didn't appear so far. And also Mig� says, that he has noticed a change in the way how his buddy writes lyrics: "This time the lyrics are near to the ones of folk songs. They're rather telling stories, there are more symbols and more complex themes. After their enormous presence on gigs, festivals and promotion dates in 2001, the bandmembers tried to retire completely to get time and room for their creativity. Because before their work seemed to them like a marathon: "Our calendars were a little bit full as we started working on "Deep Shadows". It was like: ten days here, five days there, and nowhere really. This time we had a retiring system of work. We have prepared well to get the attitude: now we go to studio and do it. This was missing last time (Deep Shadows). Its astonishing that the result was still that good." Mig� says. And he tells about lots of very strange rituals, to which their old producer Hiili has forced them in the Finnvox-studios, which turned a second home for the band. "Hiili gave us different characters, which we should play. Sometimes we played like frogs, sometimes like tigers. This whole shit sounds as if we were kind of a psycho-band. But we just had to be pushed a bit. And he is a great pusher. I don't speak of drugs. I mean, he is a great pusher, who brings out the personality of a human. It lasted pretty long and we had to work pretty hard on it. But everything was nice and comfortable. He is a very good producer. He fits very well to our band." This time HIM have tried to let the guitars sound as hard as they sound live. "We have lately decided together with Hiili which tracks we're recording and which we better leave out. But the most important thing for us was that we spend a good time in studio, because this is rare these days. Therefore the bandmembers have dragged lots of things into the studio to make them feel like at home - what was only possible because the studios are so near to the flats of the musicians. "We went there in the morning and brought all out toys with us, all masks and different outfits. Well all the things that you need to make a living and breathing piece of music", says Mig�. What do you actually need more? Guitars, guitars, guitars. "In the last years we have collected lots of guitars. And for the first time we had more than seven guitars on studio. We had old guitars and ugly guitars und good-looking guitars and good guitars and bad guitars. And we've used them all. The guitar is of course again the basic instrument on the album. And we could take them all to studio. And we had enough time to get along with it" tells Mig�. The pretty closed and homely atmosphere seems to have exerted a positive effect on the self-assurance of the band, because in contrast to the sometimes pretty different and erratically changing preferences of the past time the current music had to noteworthy effect on "Love Metal": "It was rather that we got influenced by older experiences. Or of the people who we have met. Whoever we have met, I think that we have more concentrated on what is significant for HIM. At some time Mig� was backbitten to listen to Brian Eno. Eno is a music-legend which has started in the 70ies with Roxy Music and with the run of the decades always had something to do with sound innovations. To orientate at an idol that much, Mig� today calls "Brian-Eno-bullshit" and tells: "This time we were more careful and more steady in the decision to make it more to a HIM album. And we wanted to find out, whats good for HIM, not what's good for the ones out there. We will later talk about "the ones out there", because the fans, the journalists and the promoter take lots of time out of the lives of rockstarts - time, which they would have often rather spend with playing guitar or just have their piece. More of this in the next issue. |