Former HIM frontman Ville Valo is currently celebrating the 30th anniversary of the iconic Finnish gothic metal band. Speaking in the new Metal Hammer issue, the singer and songwriter looked back at the group’s early days, revealing the unexpected emotional and musical inspirations that shaped their signature “love metal” sound.
The roots of the band’s dark, emotional songwriting actually trace back to a personal childhood tragedy.
“All the melancholy and darkness of HIM could be traced to my dog, Sami,” Ville Valo explained. “He was my furry brother. He passed when I was six, and it was my first real brush with melancholy.”
HIM originally formed when Ville Valo, bassist Mikko ‘Mige’ Paananen, and guitarist Mikko ‘Linde’ Lindström decided to start a morbid music project during their school years. While their heavy foundation was laid after discovering the legendary debut album Black Sabbath by heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath, the group found their unique artistic direction through a much less obvious source: American singer-songwriter Chris Isaak.
“Chris Isaak helped us find our own musical identity,” Ville Valo noted, citing the singer’s dark Americana style. HIM would go on to famously cover his classic track, “Wicked Game“.
“I’d heard ‘Wicked Game‘ on the [1990 David Lynch movie] ‘Wild At Heart‘ soundtrack,” the frontman recalled, “so I went to the public library, took out the LP, and me and Linde sat down working out the riffs.”
As the band started making waves in the Finnish metal scene during the 1990s, they ran into a unique public relations problem. At the time, the notorious Norwegian black metal scene was dominating Scandinavian headlines with a wave of church burnings and murders. Despite HIM‘s romantic, emotional leanings, the mainstream media often confused their dark aesthetic with the extreme underground movement.
“I got some of my first TV interviews explaining to people that HIM was more to do with the infernal aspects of the heart than burning down a church,” he said.
Reflecting on his interactions with the extreme metal scene of the era, the singer noted the stark difference in attitudes.
“Black metal was the punk rock of the 90s – it was the big spiritual vomit over everything. I loved it, but a lot of those bands took themselves very, very seriously. I was in a pub once with a guy from a black metal band and he goes, ‘You’ve never experienced darkness until you’ve strangled your own cat and looked into its eyes as it’s dying.’ That’s a terrible thing to do to an innocent critter. We were just pu**ies – Satan worship lite,” he concluded.
Speaking with Metal Hammer in the same issue, the vocalist reflected on the band’s New Year’s Eve 2017 farewell concert at Tavastia in Helsinki and the current status of his relationship with his former bandmates. While he admitted he hasn’t “really been in touch with them much” recently, he confirmed that the group’s dissolution was entirely amicable and left no lasting bad blood.
“I would love to play with the lads again someday,” Ville stated. “But I miss those fellows. They are my brothers. But there’s also beauty in the fact we didn’t strangle each other at the end, or start travelling in separate limos. So there is that to be said. I felt it was the right way to bury the corpse. HIM was and is my life. It was very hard to let go of that.”
Addressing the core reason behind the 2017 split, the singer emphasized that interpersonal drama was never a factor in their decision to walk away.
“The bittersweet thing about it was that we were still good friends, we’d just grown apart,” he explained. “In regards to the farewell tour, it was nice to play when we had a finite date that it was going to end. By setting the end date first, you don’t have to have reserves. Every night felt like it was our last in a way.”
Following the end of HIM, the singer launched a solo career under the moniker VV. He released his debut solo album, Neon Noir, in 2023. That specific chapter was formally closed in May 2024 following a milestone headlining performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
