Written by 2026 marks 30 years since the release of goth metal icons HIM‘s first EP. In the new issue of Metal Hammer, Ville Valo reflects on his band’s decades-long journey through the music industry, from Black Sabbath-obsessed awkward teens to becoming Finland’s most successful metal band at the turn of the new millennium.
To commemorate this journey, we asked Ville to talk us through every record HIM have released – including that 1996 EP, 666 Ways To Love: Prologue – and Neon Noir, the first release under his solo VV banner that undoubtedly spun off from his music with HIM.
666 Ways To Love: Prologue (1996)
“In the beginning, when I was trying to find my voice I’d sing to Type O, King Diamond and Jane’s Addiction. Trying out different things to find my musical identity, what I felt most comfortable with. None of the record labels or even clubs we sent our demos to really got it until we did the demo of Wicked Game. It was super exciting. We got a proper budget and managed to mix it in like a day in a proper studio.
Hiili [Hiilesmaa producer] was the Lee Scratch Perry of Finnish metal, and also the first person who really understood us and the mixture of darkness and light we wanted to present. He loved recording broken amps, pushing things to the limit and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We had the songs ready, but we got there and just started messing about.”
Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666 (1997)
“Most comedies and all happy music sucks. There’s no reason for it to exist – I think music is about purging, catharsis, these gargantuan emotions. This happy-go-lucky pop music I see as the McDonalds of music. You listen to it, but you won’t feel satiated and it only takes 15 minutes to make. It’s different to how I see life in general. Music is my way of expressing emotional turmoil and all things dark.
We were still experimenting on Greatest Love Songs 666. The record label was pretty happy because some local radio stations had already picked up Wicked Game, but they weren’t sure if there was interest in an album proper. That music didn’t sell by the bucketload then. We asked Hiili to work with us again because we knew we’d have more time to dig into those fuzzy guitars and whatnot. There was a sense of urgency and youthfulness to it.
I’m definitely not comparing HIM to Black Sabbath, but if you think of that first Sabbath album, it sounds very different because it was done as a live thing with a lot of material they knew well. They probably didn’t know much about the studio or expect a lot, but slowly but surely they become more confident.”
Razorblade Romance (2000)
“It was a confusing time going in to make Razorblade Romance. We’d lost a drummer [Juhana Rantala] and started trying out a second guitar player too. Around Razorblade, I’d picked up Songs Of Love And Devotion by Depeche Mode and just absolutely loved the production of it. This was around the same time Moonspell were doing Sin/Pecado, Paradise Lost were doing Host, so we wanted to try some of that too. We programmed some electronic drums and it just sounded like shit.
The saving grace was that we’d been invited out to play a big show in Germany, but we didn’t have a drummer. So we asked Gas [Lipstick – real name Mika Karppinen, drums], who’d just left his previous band, and we got along like a house on fire. The audience loved it and that was the beginning of us sounding more Billy Idol, 80s influenced.
We’d met The Bloodhound Gang on tour and Jimmy Pop fell in love with us. He had a label, so he helped get Razorblade Romance out in the US. But because there was a jazz band called Him in the States, we ended up releasing the album as ‘Her’. We ended up getting the rights back in the States afterwards, so they had shitloads of those CDs with ‘Her’ pressed on just sitting around. I think Bam took a load and turned them into wallpaper in one of his rooms.”
Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights (2001)
“With Dark Shadows And Brilliant Highlights there were too many cooks – producers, record label people to the point where it seemed like nobody knew who was doing what. But then, down the line we’d hear that the album was actually a favourite for many Americans because it was the record they heard first, and they find a lot of The Cure in there. That’s the magic of music – I don’t get to decide whether it’s a good album or not. I can only talk about the elements that affected the creation.
On Deep Shadows And Brilliant Highlights we played our biggest show to date, which was in a venue of like 8000 capacity. We were headlining somewhere in Germany, but the following week we came to the UK and played in pubs. I remember we went to number one, but later got the paperwork from our first tour and we’d earned maybe five quid once you factored in transport, crew, food and everything. We were treated well, but it definitely wasn’t a goldmine. I always felt, I’m not the star – the music of HIM is the star and I’m just tagging along.”
“The first time we had the opportunity to go to LA, we were mixing Love Metal and I think we shot the video to Buried Alive By Love with Bam there. As a musician, there were so many record companies based there so it made sense to go out. It was great being out there though, going and seeing all these places where like The Doors would hang out, the Sunset Strip… all these meccas of rock’n’roll. I was living out of hotels at that point so we did a lot of videos and whatever out there. I loved getting away from the miserable darkness of Finland in winter, recharging my batteries in the sun a bit.
We were staying in [infamous LA hotel inhabited by bands including Led Zeppelin, The Who and Motorhead] the Riot House and Linde actually tried to throw a TV out the window. He couldn’t get it to fit through ha ha. He ended up throwing some miniature vodka bottles out just to see them smash. We never trashed a hotel room, but we did fuck up the ceiling in a pool once. But you really understand quickly why it’s not the best place to spend your money when you find out how expensive it is to replace all that stuff. One moment of exhilaration, a nine-month bill.”
Dark Light (2005)
“I wrote some of Dark Light in a bar called 4100 that was next to our studio. We were staying in an old nunnery to start with, which was now being used to make all these videos and even movies. I remember recording videos there and all of a sudden there were all these beautiful women in the windows. It turned out Playboy were shooting a video there, so they were there displaying everything there is to display with this huge team of photographers and whatever.
I was pretty fucked up during Dark Light – particularly during some of those US tours. I remember staying in Los Angeles at the end of one of the tours, I can’t remember why, and ended up just writing half of what would eventually become Venus Doom there. It was a really messed up time; not a lost weekend, but lost couple of years. I guess it was all the stress and then trying to self-medicate, while also trying to smile on top of that.”
Venus Doom (2007)
“Venus Doom was our Vol. 4. After Dark Light, I found that we were listening to a lot of doomy music on the bus. I was really worn out and I’d just split from my girlfriend who I’d been with for a long time. I remember feeling worn out and miserable. As you know, there’s nothing better when you’re depressed than listening to ddoomoom. That’s how it all started. I got back to listening to My Dying Bride, and Gas is a huge fan of Candlemass.
After we recorded, we went to LA to mix it where I tried to detox myself, but ended up retoxing and having to go to rehab. I got better for a moment, then went out with Kerry King and everything got worse. So blame Slayer.
When I went to rehab, they forced me to do the serenity prayer with a bunch of people. I didn’t want to say, ‘God, grant me the serenity.’ So I told them I’d say, ‘Ozzy grant me the serenity…’ and it took a while but they actually liked it. Religion always rang hollow to me, but Ozzy always rang true.”
Screamworks: Love In Theory And Practice (2010)
“Because Venus Doom was quite sludgy in parts, we wanted to do something more direct. We met the producer, Matt Squire, who’d done things for Death Cab For Cutie, The Used and Skindred, which I really liked. He was our age and had grown up with 80s stuff, so I wanted more of that new wavey vibe on the album.
It was a bit of a chaotic time. I love the band Suede and there’s a great documentary about when the singer Brett Anderson stopped smoking crack and getting fucked up. They released an album called A New Morning afterwards and you can really hear that there’s something not right – because he’s sober for the first time ever in the studio, basically. I was like a Duracell bunny working on the album – and that didn’t turn out to be a good thing. I needed to find the balance.”
Tears On Tape (2013)
“I really like some of the songs on Tears On Tape. There’s Hearts At War, which feels like a real nod to Sabbath. There’s a lot of real metal riffs on that album – Judas Priest, 80s style riffs. I like to call it the meathead album ha ha.
But I think it was all getting a bit weird – the stars just weren’t aligned and ours was on the wane. I like the title-track and there’s some songs I really, really love from that album. But it just didn’t resonate.”
Neon Noir (2023)
“The solo thing was great because it helped me to see the forest for the trees, see what my sound and my part in the sound of HIM was. It’d be different now, because I know my whole life isn’t that, you know? The music lives on, whether HIM are together or not.”
HIM and Ville Valo are in the new issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door. If you subscribe to Metal Hammer today you can get our HIM edition as a free first issue, with your subscription officially starting from the following issue. Find out more here.
