Seriously, this interview ROCKS! take some time to read it, plz ;)
Valo at Work
International rock star Ville Valo sits at a table in a restaurant, poses for the camera and gives wise answers to questions. It is his work. But from a rock star a lot more is asked: "The most important point in everything is good manners," Valo says.
The topic is Ville Valo, but this writing project starts in Ghana, close to its capital Accra. We are in 18-year-old Pamela Khawam's room.
Bed, desk, lamp and walls are covered with photos and posters, just as with any other teen girl. But on Pamela's walls, the subject of every poster is the same: Ville Valo.
Pamela loves Ville Valo. During high school she has even kept every show about Ville.
A Finnish guest tells Pamela that Ville lives in Helsinki just like any other person. Often he can be seen, for example, in a bar playing billiards. Without security men, entourage or too much attention. "What? It's not true! It can't be true!" Pamela exclaims.
Yes, it is true, and here we are, in Corona Bar. The 27-year-old man from Helsinki is getting ready for a billiard match, he's just been chosen the sexiest man in the world in the world's biggest rock magazine, Kerrang. From Rock Sound magazine he got the name, "Hunk of the Year."
The billiard cue is ready, but the game can wait because his mobile rings. "Ville Hermanni," the Hunk of the Year answers and continues: "Terppa, Terppa.What's up?" The phone call is short and Ville Valo starts the game. "When we recorded our third album, I played here like every evening. Nowadays not that often," Valo says.
He can play in peace. Only a few people come to ask for an autograph.
This kind of thing must be possible only in Finland. Ville Valo disagrees. "It's not true. You have to be at the same level as Michael Jackson before it registers. You have to have a castle, a pet monkey and cosmetic surgery on your face. In New York you can bump into Madonna or see Iggy Pop in a shop. If you know the right Alepa, you can also see me buying toilet paper."
For the record: The right Alepa is at the corner of Albertinkatu and Lönnrotinkatu.
Besides: "I don't know anything about being a star, it remains my ambition even now. I have always been more fond of good songs and good people," Valo says.
So Ville Valo claims he can live in Helsinki just like an ordinary 27-year-old guy. Can it be true? This is easy to test with a few questions.
Have you had your vacation already?
"My last official vacation was in 1991. So I have missed a couple of years. Maybe I will have a vacation next month."
How much weight can you benchpress?
"I have never tried that. I'm actually quite strong. I can lift our drummer Gas, who weighs something like 110 kg [243 lbs]."
How do you usually cook lenkkimakkara [link sausage]?
"I'd trust to that 'sausage hedgehog' that Gas always praises. So you take a big sausage, HK:n Sininen [HK Blue brand], and place it in a pan so it looks like a hedgehog. You put mustard and cheese on the bottom and stick it in the oven."
(IMG:http://www.verkkouutiset.fi/arkisto/Arkisto_1998/21.elokuu/gif/SININEN.JPG)
Have you ever done karaoke?
"Yeah, it's fun. My fave songs are Sininen uni, Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen, Paratiisi, Ikkunaprinsessa and Guns'n'Roses' Sweet Child Of Mine."
What would you do if you won the lottery?
"Well, I have sort of won already. But I'd put lots of money into savings and I'd buy a washing machine."
Wait a second. The ordinary test is stopped because that sounds very UNordinary.
You'd buy a washing machine? Don't you already have a washing machine?
"I wash my clothes in the bathtub at home," Valo answers and explains that usually while touring he needs to use shampoo to wash clothes.
Excuse me, but can you explain why you wash your clothes yourself?
"Laundries are amazingly expensive," Valo explains and says that even at the moment he has washed clothes in the bathtub waiting to be hung up to dry.
And home, it's the first one he's owned. He bought an old photography studio a while ago that's been converted into an apartment.
When his things were carried in, Valo realised that the cover of HIM's second album had been shot there.
For the first time, he has a sauna in his apartment. Warmth is good for this chain-smoking asthmatic's lungs.
But home and sauna have to wait because the billiard game is over, and we're going to move on to the Sea Horse restaurant.
Part II
It's amazing how fast you get used to everything. HIM's Join Me rose to Number One only four years ago. Since then, HIM have released three albums, which have sold over 2.3 million copies, and have played 300 gigs as far away as Mexico.
Five years ago you couldn't even dream about that.
"Five years ago I was Hunk of the Year in Ilta-Sanomat," Ville laughs. "Yeah, of course a lot has happened in a short time. You get used to everything."
From somewhere the idea that many Finnish bands tour Germany has taken hold and...
"Name them," Valo interrupts.
Well, HIM and Rasmus and Nightwish and, well, uhm...
"Yeah. Besides, if your record is Number One somewhere or other, who cares? Even the dentist from Nigeria who lives in Sweden has been Number One in the world," Valo notes. He must mean the rap artist Dr. Alban who had quite a few disco hits in the '90s.
"The most important thing is, can you really raise your profile? We are the only band that has made people interested in this country [Finland] and that has even stimulated people to move here to study Finnish. I don't take this as a credit to us, it doesn't pertain to what we do. But I think it's a pretty cool thing."
Now HIM is indeed raising its profile. Their very first tour in the USA starts April 15th in New York and continues for about three weeks. Their second album, Razorblade Romance, was released in the US at the beginning of the year and has already sold 100,000 copies.
Valo has a rare one-week break to live a normal life in Finland between touring stints, etc. He sits at a table in the Sea Horse restaurant. He doesn't raise his voice, doesn't act like a diva or talk big. He is considerate. The word "kiitos" [thank you] can be heard often, and when he goes to the bathroom, he says "Excuse me while I go to the men's room."
The drink he has chosen seems to be at least a bit out of the ordinary. Or maybe he just likes beer — with ice.
During the previous few weeks he was leading the touring life in England, where he was shaking his ass at sold-out venues. Success in rock's Holy Land didn't come easily.
"It's nice to realize the fruits of one's work. Nice that there has been work and effort," Valo explains and manages to sound just like any other 27-year-old Finnish man's GRANDDAD. The attitude is good.
"Exactly. Work ethic! Nose to the grindstone!" Valo gets excited. "Not everything proceeds in such a way that you spend a million euros, and after that success comes."
Real Finnish modesty goes in the minimizing direction when Valo describes the gig in Manchester: "It was nice."
There were 2000 spoiled people from Manchester listening to the gig, who surprisingly knew the lyrics to the songs Valo has written. And that is just "nice"!
"What's it supposed to be? I think it's betraying yourself and your people if you think it's more important to achieve success in Manchester than in Lappajärvi." This doesn't mean that playing in Manchester and Lappajärvi would be the same. In Manchester you can think, are the bloodstains backstage Iggy Pop's? In Lappajärvi you know that Pate Mustajärvi has left them, most likely.
Speaking of Pate Mustajärvi, let's continue our "test of normality."
Do you have a plussakortti? [A "pluscard" is a card you can get from some shops to use to earn redeemable points when you make purchases.]
"What is that? No, I don't have one. People always ask if I have it when I'm paying, but I don't know how you get it."
Do you get heartburn?
"Yeah. It happens quite often while you're touring, when you have to eat lots of different things."
When was the last time you helped somebody move?
"I guess 3-4 years ago. I spent a day helping a friend who moved to Kallio. My friends haven't moved much."
If a group of scientists were shut up inside a secret laboratory, and they were given the assignment of making a perfect rock star, after years of work they'd probably show a new prototype that would remind one a lot of Ville Valo.
He's just born to get onstage at an MTV Awards show and receive an award and say something impressive in amazing English.
Maybe that prototype the scientists made would have clothes at least a bit different because Ville Valo was only the second best dresser in Kerrang magazine.
"Uhm, that's pretty funny because my clothes cost 1/100 of what Gimmel's makeup costs." [Gimmel is a Finnish popstars band.]
There aren't insane scientists behind Valo. Not even stylists or calculating record company people. Valo says he's thinking about his look about as much as back in his school years, just before the class photo was taken: try to put on something nice, and check that there isn't anything dripping out of your nose.
Ville wasn't made by any scientists. He was made in the traditional way by Mr. and Mrs. Valo.
Dad used to drive a taxi for years before he opened the pornshop in Kallio. Dad was often away from home, where he played Finnish music. And Mom could put her son to sleep, for example, by singing Uriah Heep's "Woman in Black." Ville Valo sighs:"Great song. It's not that far away from what I do."
He started to play U2, Dire Straits, punk, jazz and of course a lot of music with heavy bass when he was only 8. He learned to love music when he was just a little kid. But his parents had something else to give their son. Something more important to a rock star than weird Finnish musical effects: "Learning manners," Ville Valo says.
Excuse me WHAT?
"The most important thing in any work is manners. If you hold the door for a lady, then some day you might hold the door for a lady who can really affect what you do."
You don't get to the top just with good manners. There must be something unique in the mix from which HIM's music, style and image come. Something that makes teen girls buy millions of the band's records and take the trouble to go and vote Ville Valo Hunk of the Year.
Valo just isn't very interested in analyzing it. He actually refuses.
"A very big but very unpleasant part of the new generation pop culture is that there is too much told about everything," he says. "But things shouldn't be like that. Puzzles and misconceptions are the main result of this. The more you tell, the less it interests people."
Not everything is known about HIM, but maybe we know the main thing: At the center of all the publicity there's a 27-year-old guy from Helsinki who loves Hiski Salomaa [a Finnish-American singer-songwriter from the first part of the 20th century] and Iron Maiden, who has long hair and an Agents shirt and who writes catchy heavy songs in which there is a large helping of Finnish melancholy and very unmacho lyrics.
"That's it," Ville Valo confirms. "I think it's pretty simple. You don't need to come up with complicated descriptions to understand it. You do what you love. Melancholy is Finnish people's special skill. We have it in our blood and no one can steal it. It's a lovely power source.
Speaking of melancholy: have you already started to save for retirement?
"I don't know how you do it. I do make some retirement payments, but I don't know how retirement things work. I don't have any friend who's retired. But I do have some money saved."
Do you use a safety razor or an electric shaver?
"I have such a sorry beard that a razor is enough. One that's been used a hundred times. I only have 75 hairs on my face."
When was the last time you watched Kotikatu [a Finnish TV serial]?
"Is that the one that's filmed somewhere near here? I haven't watched it even once. I don't watch TV."
Part III
Let's run through it one more time: Ville Valo is a unique combination of Finnish melancholy and international goth-romantic. He makes good music and looks good. Besides that, he possesses a very important characteristic of an international rock star: good sound bites.
He produced, for example, these kinds of statements during the evening at the Sea Horse:
"Motivation for conquest of the world is that Lappajärvi doesn't want us more than once in a year."
"A good gig is a bit like bad sex. You smile, but you would like to turn around and light a cigarette."
"During a good gig, five souls get together and explode into the air as thousands of heart-shaped balloons."
"Every restaurant is a postcard from heaven, but only a postcard."
"Performing is a bit like smoking pot, but you don't get a cough from it."
"I don't want to be Topi Sorsakoski or Ozzy Osbourne, I want to be both."
The lights flash and the Sea Horse closes its doors. Ville Valo exchanges pleasantries with the doorman and says it's a shame that doormen are forgotten in Finnish bar culture.
We move to another place. Soon the Leihuva Lahna beer restaurant's bartender greets us and puts lots of ice into a beer glass without being asked.
It's past midnight and Valo opens the fourth cigarette pack of the day.
Little by little, thoughts are getting drowsy. Deep shadows under eyes get deeper. The charming wolf smile is hardly to be seen.
"I don't want to think about the future, my head will get sick. Too many things. Too many new virus epidemics around the world," Valo says quietly.
Ahead are tours and interviews, more tours and interviews, and maybe then even more, bigger tours and more interviews. When you are famous, you have less and less time to play acoustic guitar and write new songs, even though that should be THE thing. And you have a lot less time to drink kilju [a kind of alcohol] from a Mehukatti can in Uspenski Cathedral's park, like you used to do at the beginning of everything.
"Four gigs in a row and one free day, four gigs and one free day. We travel 400 km, do a sound check for an hour, two hours of interviews and two hours of gig. After all that, you rarely go out to party. You don't have any choice if you want to stay in condition."
HIM haven't in a long time been just five wild young men and a rock dream. Now there are twelve people touring around the world who have kids, rent to pay, debts. Everyone needs to eat, drink and get a salary.
"It's certainly not the case that you go to a place for a while to have fun, and then you leave."
Ville Valo might be the sexiest man in the world, but in Finland he's a normal guy who says he will gladly meet with the reporter another time.
The William K beer bar has been quite full from the beginning of the evening. A group of older people, co-workers, comes to a neighboring table. Happy men and women who don't seem to recognize the international rock star and start to moan about smoking.
Ville Valo reacts in friendly fashion: "The other side is non-smoking, perhaps you could find a table over there? You can probably talk to the waitress so she'll let you know when there's a free table."
The discussion returns to Finnish melancholy and then goes on to Tapio Rautavaara.
Valo is sad about the fact that he hasn't had time to set up a Tapio Rautavaara society. "We have often been talking about it with friends. We would arrange performances, watch movies and listen to music. Then we'd go to the sauna and drink koskenkorva. But organizing something like that takes time."
Ville Valo sounds amazingly normal, with plenty of common sense. How is that possible?
"This profession is pretty schizophrenic, and behind every corner there are many bears waiting. There are so many ways to get yourself in big trouble mentally, physically and materially. It starts to get so excessive that you just have to start laughing at yourself and at what you do."
Luckily, times have changed so that rock musicians don't have to behave amazingly dumb or be self-destructive in order to be taken seriously. Valo claims that he hasn't met any colleague on tours who'd use hard drugs.
"The competition is so tough. There are so many bands that people can't afford to make themselves look too bad in public."
But of course when there are a lot of young guys touring, every type of thing happens.
"Chaotic, stupid situations arise all the time. But it's nothing worse than happens at company Christmas parties. It's not our exclusive right to be idiots. But HIM is the only band I know that don't fuck around."
Talking about women, when was the last time you got turned down?
"I wonder if I've ever gotten turned down? I've always been with one lady for a long time. I don't think I've ever tried pick-up lines in a bar."
Can you cook potatoes?
"No. I can't cook rice either. It's always overdone or underdone."
Which style of skiing do you like more, cross-country or downhill?
"Cross-country! I loved cross-country when I was younger. It's great to be outside in minus 20 degrees [-4 F], all alone with your own thoughts, and maybe think about Juha Mieto, and cross-country ski."
Even though it's Friday evening, there's still a meeting ahead in which they'll be talking about a new record company.
Ville Valo stands up and ties a woolen scarf around his neck that he got as a Christmas gift. The scarf was made by Ville's girlfriend aka "kullannuppu" [sweetheart].
The day after tomorrow he's on some stage in Lisbon. Preacher of Finnish melancholy who, with his band, makes thousands of Portuguese people go down on their knees to sing along about miserable love.
A burst of patriotism strikes and compels one to yell, "Show them!"
We've shown them already," Ville Valo answers, and flashes his wolf smile again. "We'll just go there to remind them of our existence."
Finis
