VV // HIM’s Ville Valo On Making A Melancholy Racket, Solo Albums & The Safety Of Music

Whether you’re familiar with the prolific gothic rock stylings of Finnish icons HIM or not, the name Ville Valo instantly invokes swirling trails of poetic imagery and delicious sonic darkness; a fact that is only set to solidify further with the long-awaited impending solo album from Valo, aka the release of Neon Noir under the moniker VV in January 2023.

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Having already collaborated with an array of artists and bands throughout his career, Valo’s virtuosic vocal range, charisma and serpentine musical stylings have constantly seen him gain favour with fans and critics, while also routinely presenting an almost Lovecraftian amalgamation of Black Sabbath, Johnny Cash and Depeche Mode.

With the dissolution of HIM, aka one of the most successful Finnish bands of all time, on the final day of 2017, the lack of drama surrounding the disbanding posed a bittersweet conclusion for the “love metal” pioneers. And while it was a case of simply not aligning creatively that led to the HIM’s untimely break up and, ultimately, Valo’s own solo journey, many fans have patiently waited and wondered just what exactly would be next for the beloved and undeniably freakishly talented group of Finish metal legends. For Valo himself, emerging from the pandemic and heading into 2023, it was in fact an organic series of events that seamlessly led to his latest glossy nocturnal sonic adventure dubbed Neon Noir, as the man himself recently shared with Hysteriamag.com.

“Well, you know, I’m working for pharmaceutical companies these days, so that’s the reason” Valo laughs of the origin story behind releasing music as VV and crafting Neon Noir. “But I think the whole deal was: my life was HIM, and HIM was my life. It was a big deal for us to make the call when we decided to disband. And I didn’t have an inkling or any idea about what was gonna happen afterwards because I didn’t physically and mentally know how I was gonna feel right after it was actually done. I didn’t know if it was gonna feel like losing a limb or I start wearing spandex out, or whatever,” Valo pauses, grinning.

“Nevertheless, the day after the last gig on the HIM farewell tour, I felt a great sense of relief, and I felt that we’d done the right thing. And I discussed it later on with the lads, and they felt the same, that it was a good time to end it because we were drifting apart a bit, and we’d lost the spark a bit. Not the spark of playing together, but maybe the spark of creating something new together. It felt like everyone wanted to do their own thing, more or less.”

It would be on New Year’s Eve in 2017 that HIM played their last show together, with Valo soon deciding that he needed a breather all together, before going on to sing on an album with fellow Finns Agents, performing sixties and seventies retro pop songs in Finnish, boasting distinct flavour of artists like The Shadows, Hank Marvin and other old school vibes. And for Valo, it was this new musical endeavour that proved to be a winning catalyst to reignite his creative passions.

“I think that was great for me,” says Valo of the 2019 album with Agents, “because I cleansed my palette completely. I did a complete 180 from the Sabbath-y vibes into a realm with sensibilities that were very different from what HIM were used to, or I was used to being in HIM, the sort of the wall of noise and the guitars. And the rock clubs, the smelly ones!”.

I like when music can be escapism, the world as it is, especially now and in the past few years, has been quite a rough place, and it’s being quite tasking for the mental state of everyone involved.
[ Ville Valo ]

From smelly rock clubs to playing jazz festivals in front of wholesome audiences eating picnics, Valo found himself playing quiet, sensitive, and beautiful melodious songs; something he genuinely enjoyed and continued with from 2018 to around the midway point of 2019. And it was here that Valo started to bit by bit turn his gaze to working on new material.

“I had no idea what was gonna happen,” reveals Valo of creating new material back in 2019 that would ultimately lead to his debut solo record. “I was a bit scared or intimidated to pick up the guitar again, and see where it was gonna take me. But it led me to the song Runaway From the Sun, and I started demoing it back home because I thought that I needed a demo to be able to find a band of other musicians to play with.”

“Then all of a sudden the demo started getting a bit more intricate,” Valo continues, “and they started sounding better and better. And then we started hearing these stories from Wuhan as well. So, because of what was going on, things mainly led to me deciding to do everything by myself, besides mixing and mastering. I recorded and produced and played all the instruments as well on Neon Noir.”

“I started it with three songs, it was Run Away from the Sun, Salute the Sanguine and Saturnine Saturnalia, which I released as an EP in 2020. And it came out the same week that the lockdown started in most of the world, it was weird timing. How unlucky or maybe lucky for me, it depends on your perspective!”

“The EP was released and I was able to test the waters to see how people reacted to the stuff, and to see if they were still interested in the melancholy racket I’m known for.”

Also allowing Valo to see if record companies would take an interest in his solo work, Valo soon realised that the lockdowns surrounding the EP’s release were not offering any light at the end of the tunnel in the near future; but it was this unexpected hurdle that ultimately pushed him deeper into embracing and emboldening his creative lifeline.

“It seemed quite desperate for a wee bit,” explains Valo of his experiences during the early months of the pandemic. “My only lifeline at that time was music. So, I kept working on the stuff and then it ended up being the 12 songs that are on Neon Noir. In 2020 and late 2021, I started thinking about touring, and because me and my manager didn’t have the chance to even speculate about touring, because everybody kept on postponing their tour … we both realised that when the doors were able to open up, it was gonna be the bands from three years ago and everyone colliding, it felt like it was a big mess on various levels.”

“As a rock artist, I feel that it’s very important to put an album out coinciding with a tour. It needs to go hand in hand, it’s one big set. And also to have a vinyl, because I think the vinyl is the tangible thing, that’s the proof I actually made the album. The ones and zeros on streaming platforms, it doesn’t feel real to me. It sounds good, but it feels like it might disappear at any moment, which it can.”

“It took a while to get everything planned, and working on the album took me a long time. I was working on one song at a time.”

Finishing one song and moving onto the next presented Valo with an extremely different modus operandi than what he’d ever experienced in the past, as Valo elaborates: “Normally you work a whole set of songs and you record all the drums for X amount of songs, and then the bass guitars and the guitars and whatnot. But this way, I was developing the way I recorded, you know, the way I learned how to record. But also when a single song is your focal point, that’s the only song that inhabits your world, your musical world. And there’s nothing else. It’s quite special. It’s quite intense.”

“I was writing, producing and recording at the same time, and it was in a very morphous sort of way, you know, it kept on moving and changing and intertwining, and it was something very new to me which, for me, makes the album feel very special. It has this sense of a sort of zen-like quality to it. And it feels confident even though it’s dark, it’s not aggressive, it’s not depressing. It’s like a big warm hug from a Windigo. Or something like that.”

Despite creating his first-ever solo full length album in the grip of a global pandemic and ongoing lockdowns, Valo’s lengthy tenure in the music industry and his unparalleled knack for immersive musical realms saw him not only snapshot a bizarre moment in human history via Neon Noir, but also readily embrace the darkness alongside measured catharsis; and this balance was definitely no mere accident.

“There’s no better reward than to hear those words coming out of your mouth,” Valo says when told that the album is simultaneously dark, cathartic and beautifully uplifting. “It’s always nice to know at least some of it translates. Because, you know: it’s not my journey. When you listen to music, it’s your journey. And that’s the cool thing about music, the album is sort of a vehicle, it’s like 12 tickles, and it’s all dependent on which parts, which acupuncture points does it tickle you at just the right spots? It’s great if it pokes something and hopefully pokes something that is familiar, but also maybe something that is quite dreamlike, even feverish and nightmarish at times. You’re not quite sure where you are. It’s like how Twin Peaks sort of gives mixed messages, signalling to the listener. I think that’s important in music. And also to give an alternative to all of the other crap out there.”

Offering a hypnotic and bewitching alternative to much of the music dominating streaming platforms and TikTok around the world, Valo’s equal hope for his new creative output is to also provide a port in the storm for listeners in a very confusing and turgid reality.

“I like when music can be escapism,” says Valo. “The world as it is, especially now and in the past few years, has been quite a rough place, and it’s being quite tasking for the mental state of everyone involved. I do appreciate music that has, let’s say, a political stance like Rage Against The Machine back in the day. But a lot of times I don’t like my music to lead me to the everyday stuff, to the grey everyday of the war and the pandemic and all of that. Instead, I want it to give a sort of a safe place.”

“Music has always been the filter between me and the world, or the safety blanket. And it keeps on doing so. I think during the pandemic, it showed once again how important it is to…I wouldn’t call it wellbeing, but it’s an existential thing, you know? I’ve been doing it for such a long time that it feels like it’s not a crutch, but it’s such a big part of who I am. And I feel gratitude and I feel humbled that music was kind enough to bestow me with these songs.”

“It’s not a given. It’s a lot of work, and the inspiration – it’s not on tap.”

With a run of solo shows also now on the cards in 2023 to accompany his brand new solo album, Valo will at long last be able to be witnessed back in his natural habitat; prowling, crooning, and combusting onstage with his signature brooding intensity. And there’s some great news on the horizon for fans of both Valo’s enigmatic stage presence and HIM fans in general for these shows taking place next year.

“I’m not sure what you can do as a rock band that’s new and different besides turning into a Rammstein with the explosions and the fireworks and whatnot,” laughs Valo. “But what I am excited about is that the setlist basically, as boring and as basic as this sounds, it’s going to incorporate a lot of old HIM tracks, stuff like When Love And Death Embrace and Buried Alive by Love, The Funeral of Hearts, Join Me in Death, Rip Out The Wings Of A Butterfly, and The Kiss of Dawn probably as well.”

“There’s gonna be a lot of songs the audiences did enjoy back in the day. I hope that they still translate somehow. And we’ll be zigzagging between the new stuff, which works really well. Because at the end of the day, the source is pretty much the same for the music and for the melodies and all that stuff. And that’s because those are my songs.”

“It’s funny at times how similar these new songs are to stuff that I wrote 30 years ago. I think that’s the beauty of it all. It’s like a zebra and its stripes, it’s the identity of ‘moi’, I guess, that I can’t change – and I don’t want to change. I can’t make a decision because it is what comes out of me naturally without being forced. “

“It’s been interesting though,” Valo continues, “the band is slightly different. We have two guitar players, so we’re able to pull off stuff from the older HIM tracks as well that were on the album versions that we weren’t able to play live completely, you know, the sweeter parts and the heavier parts coming together or into 20 melodies and stuff like that. And I love stuff like that! I love Smashing Pumpkins, I love bands with two guitars that really go for it. And with Neon Noir, I think the sound is a bit less metal and it’s a bit more rock, more alt-y rock, like a Queens of Stone Age-rock type thing. Obviously there’s a lot of Sabbath in there and there are a lot of chuggy guitars, that whole 80s rock thing, like the Sisters of Mercy in the early 90s and so forth. But I think the vibe of Neon Noir is more alternative rock.”

“Genres are tough these days, they can mean anything! But mentally or spiritually, this album’s in the realm of, let’s say, Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More, bands who did their own thing with a unique vibe, Bad Brains and all of those artists. That’s what I tried to do with Neon Noir, and that’s also what I’m trying to do with the live set.”

“And also, there’s no reason to do the HIM tracks or put together a band that would just be a carbon copy of HIM, that would be idiotic, that would be a silly thing to do. So, it was great to put together a band of local talent who have different sensibilities. It’s quite cool to be taught by them about the intricacies of Talking Heads, for example. I think that’s great, because I’m teaching them in return how to do pick slides. It’s a good combo!”

“I just got into Radiohead, or more specifically Radiohead’s OK Computer,” adds Valo of extra bonuses he’s had playing with and learning about his newly formed touring band. “I’d never been into it in the past, so now I’m getting reintroduced to the classics that went over my head back in the day. And one of my mates actually bought me, he’s a guitar player, he bought me Nirvana’s Nevermind because I was so cool I didn’t wanna listen to it because everybody loved it when it came out,” Valo pauses and laughs. “I wanted to listen to the ‘weird artist’ stuff back in the day.”

With Valo thoroughly enjoying rehearsing and playing music once again, the sky and the globe is potentially the limit for Ville Valo as he looks beyond the upcoming release of Neon Noir to other territories not currently fortunate enough to be lined up for his 2023 solo tour.

“We’re having fun,” says Valo of his joyful experiences currently rehearsing and planning for live shows. “We rehearse quite a bit. It sounds amazing, it sounds really good. It’s gonna be very familiar to the people who know what HIM were known for sound-wise – and I’m happy for it! I’m working on the stage set and stuff like that, and it’s a matter of travelling, you know?”

“Not all massive plastic dragons can be easily transported between continents,” continues Valo, laughing. “But we’re trying our very best to do so. And what we’re working on is the possibility of touring and to continue touring in autumn of 2023 and flying over yonder to your neck of the woods and, and possibly even further to go over to Auckland as well.”

“Australia’s always treated HIM with tenderness,” Valo muses of his previous visits down under. “I have very fond memories of Soundwave and all of that stuff. It’d be incredible, it would be like a dream come true to be able to make this a global tour. There’s still places that are not on the dates that we’ve announced so far. I’m hoping that we can include the whole of Scandinavia as well, Sweden, Denmark, and then hopefully Japan, South America, Canada – the world’s a big place and I’ve been lucky enough to visit a lot of places and have great highs and great lows all around. And I’d love it to continue if there’s a chance, because that’s what I’m here for too.”

“I want to spread the word regarding the new album and the legacy of HIM,” Valo concludes. “And with regards to Australia, I’m doing my best. Maybe I’ll just buy the tickets myself, fly over and, you know, busk on the street or something like that?!”.