HIM - INTERVIEW WEB EXCLUSIVE

Big Cheese talks to this month’s coverstar, Ville Valo of Finnish love metallers HIM, about his sobriety, his remaining vices and how well HIM fans treat him! To read more from this revealing interview with Ville, pick up the new issue 120 of Big Cheese by CLICKING HERE. Is it 2½ years now you’ve been sober? Is it hard on tour? “Something like that, yeah. I haven’t really been counting the days. It was around day 17 when I went into rehab. Overall, I don’t like going out or eating out. We get to travel so much with the band that there’s a lot of wining and dining on tour so when I’m at home I just want to be at home if possible.” “I still dislike the idea of drink, well of me drinking. I don’t mind other people drinking around me at all, it’s everyone’s choice. I still get nauseous just thinking about downing a shot of Jack Daniel’s or whatever.” How do you combat the downtime boredom between playing shows now then? “We haven’t been touring for a while, we’ve just been working on the album, so I can’t tell. I fight the boredom with reading more or less. In America a lot of the buses out there have a satellite internet connection which means you can kill time by staying in contact with your friends and write emails or whatever. It’s boring and geeky stuff but it kills the time. When you play gigs in America it’s a long drive between cities so you just eat something and try and get some sleep on the bus. It’s a simple way of living. It’s like living in a pod. You come out of the pod, are reanimated for the gig and then go back in again. We wish that somebody would invent that kind of a pod. It could make you sleep, put some glue in there or whatever that would go straight to your heads. (laughs)” Do you still smoke a fair bit? “I’m smoking shit tonnes of fags. I’ve been trying to cut down a bit but it’s easier said than done. It’s not good for the voice or asthma but considering how far I’ve gone to drop all the other fun parts of life I was thinking that I might as well have one vice… as well as caffeine. You can have some.” “For the first time I’m thinking about quitting smoking because you can’t smoke anywhere. You can’t smoke in any fucking pub, which is crazy, or in any fucking restaurants anywhere in the world. It’s a weird trend. The trend started in California and people in Europe don’t understand because it’s so fucking warm in California that they have patios and you can smoke on each and every fucking patio. All of a sudden they’re trying to take that over to Scandinavia where it’s way colder and it doesn’t work in the same way. When you’re in a bar and you want a smoke you need to take your fur coat with you. It’s an incredible hassle and it’s ridiculous.” “I think cigarettes are made out to be some kind of scapegoat and I don’t think they’re that bad. It’s everybody’s own decision. I think if they’re going to ban something it should be alcohol. Alcohol causes a lot more health problems, there’s a lot more taxpayers’ money poured into that. Drunk drivers kill families and pregnant ladies. It’s weird when they legalize cannabis in some areas or say you’re allowed to carry a certain amount in your pocket. When you walk into a club in New York people are smoking pot but you get thrown out if you light up a cigarette. That’s totally crazy.” Have you had some crazy things happen on the road – fans given you strange presents or fans with huge tattoos? “I’ve seen a few tattoos of my mug on somebody’s arm and that’s super weird. Someone made me a quilt and I’ve been sleeping with it ever since. It’s more cool stuff than freaky things. I said in an interview that I liked Elvis and then somebody started sending me all the Elvis DVDs. People send me books and collections of selected poems. It’s been really cool – every tour is like Christmas on wheels. It’s kind of funny. We really do appreciate all that. There’s not really any spooky ones. It’s nice to have privacy and for people to give up space for us to write some new music for them to listen to.” What level of privacy do you have? Can you walk around the streets of Helsinki still or do you get mobbed? “I don’t walk the streets too much anyway so I don’t know. I think people in Finland are pretty introverted. It’s pretty easy here. If you go into a rock bar on a Friday night there will be somebody that recognises you but I just stay home and I like to mind my own business.” Ian Chaddock TO READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW, ORDER THE NEW ISSUE (NO. 120) OF BIG CHEESE BY CLICKING HERE AND CHECK OUT THE HIM COVER FEATURE!!!

 

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