LOVE IS THE DRUG
Helsinki–based quintet HIM have already wooed fans overseas with their darkly romantic brand of goth rock.
By Dan Epstein | Photography by Karin Catt
“Ville Valo was in this cab once,” boasts Revolver’s taxi driver, as he whisks us from Vantaa airport into downtown Helsinki. Here in Finland’s picturesque capital, everyone seems to know Valo, the charismatic lead singer of Finnish goth-rock quintet HIM—or, at the very least, they know someone who’s met him. Local newspapers like Helsinki This Week list his favorite watering holes, and local teenage girls loiter daily around Toys for Adults—a sex novelties shop owned by Valo’s dad—hoping to catch a glimpse of their idol. After decades of Swedish bands hogging the Scandinavian limelight, the Finns are clearly stoked to have a genuine rock star to call their own. Two nights from now, Valo and HIM will headline Finland’s Ruisrock music festival, and more than 30,000 fans will be there to greet them.
In Europe and England, where they’ve already enjoyed four chart-topping albums and numerous sold-out tours, HIM are definitely the hottest Finnish export since sliced reindeer. But in America, they’re still very much a cult band, even if their small but fervent society of followers includes such prominent members as Bam Margera—who has repeatedly championed HIM through his MTV show Viva La Bam—Killswitch Engage’s Howard Jones, and Brandan Schiepatti and Marta from Bleeding Through, all of whom proudly sport tattoos of the band’s ubiquitous “heartagram” logo (see sidebar p. 66).
With the exception of 2000’s Razorblade Romance (which Universal released in the U.S. in 2003), none of HIM’s hauntingly addictive albums—including 1997’s Greatest Love Songs, Vol. 666, 2002’s Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights, 2003’s Love Metal, and the 2004 greatest-hits package And Love Said No…—have ever been released in America, a situation hardly conducive to Stateside success. But thanks to a recent deal with Warner Bros., the band’s excellent new album, Dark Light, is slated for worldwide release in late September, which means that HIM’s American fanbase will soon be multiplying exponentially.
Certainly, Valo and HIM have the key ingredients for a successful crossover. Valo’s bandmates (guitarist Linde, bassist Mige, drummer Gas, and keyboardist Burton) are highly proficient musicians who play together with the telepathic precision of old school chums, which most of them actually are. And the tall, blue-eyed Valo has unquestionably been blessed with the looks, voice, and personal magnetism of a born rock god, even if he’s far more likely to greet you with a friendly “Hey, bro!” and a cold beer than pull a Scott Weiland-style star trip. Like Marilyn Manson, whom he greatly admires, Valo gives articulate interviews and reinvents his image from album to album. But while Valo says that Manson “never got his shit together musically, at least from my perspective,” the singer takes great pride in his own songwriting and is perfectly willing to trash any composition that doesn’t measure up to his exacting standards.