Steve Baltin , CONTRIBUTOR
“The spark wasn’t there. We started working on new material. To my ears it didn’t sound excellent, it sounded too same old, same old,” H.I.M. frontman Ville Valo says simply as to why the Finnish rock group is calling it quits after a quarter century together.
We are at the iconic Sunset Marquis the morning after the band played the first of two sold-out nights at the Wiltern. The tour, dubbed in typical H.I.M. whimsy, “Bang & Whimper,” is way more bang than whimper. From the moment the lights went down and the opening “Buried Alive In Love” kicked in the crowd was in a frenzy.
When I tell Valo about the woman at the bar who over enjoyed herself and threw up all over the floor he smiles. “I didn’t know people like that still exist,” he says laughing. But then as he rightly puts it, “It’s like some sort of time travel machine thing.”
For 25 years the “Love Metal” legends, as they have been called for their very unique melding of the Cure-like romantic lyrics and superb pop/metal hooks and riffs, have built a huge cult following, many of whom have sworn by H.I.M. since the beginning. So as fans say goodbye, the emotion and energy at these final U.S. shows is taking even the band by surprise.
The U.S. leg of the tour ends tomorrow night, November 17, in New York. One can only imagine the fury of the crowd when the final notes of “When Love And Embrace,” which has been the closer throughout this tour, fill Hammerstein Ballroom.
In this exclusive, the only North American interview Valo conducted for the farewell tour, he talks about the future, why it was time to say goodbye and how he is looking forward to “skating on thin ice” as an artist.
Steve Baltin: The show last night at the Wiltern was insane. As soon as the lights went down people just lost it.
Ville Valo: Yeah, I don’t know what happened, it’s like some sort of time machine thing. It’s gonna happen again tonight. And it’s quite rare for a rock band to get that, I call it the building of worlds. Bands like Zeppelin, Type O Negative, Sisters Of Mercy, AC/DC, you’re sucked into their world, it has its own rules, its own geography and that’s quite exciting. So even on the tiniest microscopic level, if we’re somewhere around there it’s great. A lot of new bands don’t have that sort of thing.
Baltin: So you’ve spent almost 25 years building this village. Does it become daunting or sad to think of leaving that world behind? Or do you just feel ready?
Valo: I think all of the above to be honest with you. At the end of the day you have to trust your gut. That’s a tough thing to do when it’s five people who’ve known each other since they were kids and who’ve built the world or whatever you want to call it for the past quarter of a century. Even though your gut says now it’s time to jump off the train it’s not the easiest thing to actually accomplish. So it took about two years to really figure it out and make sure we’re actually on the same page and this needs to be done. Touring is still nice, touring is fun, we get along really well, but that was one of the other things I thought: it’s nice to do the series of last hurrahs on tour.
Baltin: Does the audience response inspire you to maybe reconsider?
Valo: That motivates me to write even better songs with my next project, whatever it might be. That’s how I think. Some of the songs traveled really well, we’re playing songs from late ‘90s and all the people, including new people, singing along to those lyrics I wrote when I was like 20 or 19, which is exciting. So I can’t see why not it can’t continue, differently probably, but that’s the exciting part. I do enjoy skating on thin ice. I think there has to be that element of not necessarily danger, but surprise and being on your toes. If things become too easy or comfortable you have to do something about it. And I think we are.
Baltin: I agree with you, but there is very much a mentality in rock and roll now to play it safe in the world they’ve built.
Valo: I know, but then at the end of the day that particular world isn’t going anywhere. We appreciate what we’ve done, we’re really happy that it’s traveled so well and it’s still resonating, which is quite weird. Obviously it’s weird for us on all possible levels. It’d be easier if there would be animosity. And originally we weren’t supposed to be doing the tour, but I thought we need to leave the whole thing on what I call “the lowest note.” We have to leave the rumble behind us.
Baltin: So jump ahead to January 1, 2018. That will be the night after the last H.I.M. show. Now that you’ve started the tour can you anticipate what that day will feel like?
Valo: No idea, we’ve still got 43 gigs to go before the tour ends. So we’ll see how worn out we’ll be before that. The last few gigs that’ll happen in Finland there’s gonna be a lot of family around and old friends from way back when and our parents and stuff. So it’s gonna be special because of that too and it’s gonna be, in that sense, more ritualistic as opposed to a gig. So I’m sure it’ll be weird, I’m sure it’ll be fantastic and so forth. But yes, it’ll be weird and odd and my technique of coping with the emptiness and the sense of abandonment will be to pick up a guitar cause that’s what I always do when I feel uncomfortable. So I’m just gonna be writing more songs. I have already written songs that some of them were supposed to be for the guys, but since next chapter for H.I.M. didn’t take off I’m gonna do something with them.
Baltin: Do you envision a solo album or you don’t know what it’ll be?
Valo: To be honest with you, I don’t know. The funny thing is that I worked on some songs and at the end of the day, even new songs, they sound quite a bit like H.I.M. So it’s not on a purpose that I become this solo entrepreneur playing folkie whatever stuff and make it really sparse and get rid of everything or make it super poppy or whatever. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in rock and roll, but the emperor needs new clothes.
Baltin: So you won’t be putting out a dance album?
Valo: F**k no. I don’t know how to do it anyway. I enjoy electronic music, I always have, but I like noisy guitars and I like the melancholy and when I start listing the things I like about music it sounds a lot like H.I.M.
Baltin: It will be interesting to see how this evolves because you have your style and voice.
Valo: It will be interesting, then it’s obviously tough. I’m not 20 anymore so all of a sudden to do something completely new is a challenge in itself and to see if people are interested at all for the whole thing. But I’d rather still take the risk and see the rest of the guys in the band do their own thing and takes risks as opposed to just becoming this semi-broken jukebox, like a tribute band of themselves, which I feel if we could’ve sold, if you could add a few zeroes at the end then it would make sense, like in the Rolling Stones way. But I thought we never made the perfect H.I.M. album, we never got that far.
Baltin: Since you still have that challenge and no animosity…
Valo: We still have those 43 gigs, so there will be animosity at the end (laughs). Once again, never say never. I honestly do like the guys so I wouldn’t mind doing something together. But now is not the time, so I don’t know what the future holds, no idea. I think some of the guys are going to be working on music-related stuff. but the individuals in the band are pretty different from each other. So it’s really tough to say if we’re physically in the same city within the next few years. But we’ll see. There’s a reason for this to end now and we don’t know how we’re reacting to it. This is like the petri dish in action, this is the chemical process or the test or whatever you want to call it happening right here and we’ll know by the end of the year how it’s gonna swing, more or less. And then probably it’ll take some time to recuperate as well.
Baltin: Are there songs that are taking on particular meaning as you sing them for what might be the last time with the guys?
Valo: This is the first tour, since I know we don’t have a recording future with H.I.M. I can see all the material we’re playing each and every night as the main body of work because there won’t be anymore. For the first time songs like “Join Me In Death,” I do hear the lyrics in a different way, I do sing the songs maybe a bit differently. I appreciate it not necessarily as an outsider, but I can see the forest through the trees a bit better. It’s different. At the end of the day that’s the function of this tour as well, is that we’re able to be the fans as well. Fans not necessarily of ourselves, but of the whole movement of what’s happened during those last 26 or so years. It’s the opportunity of a bunch of random blokes coming from a random country in the middle of nowhere more or less, being able to travel around the world and still be somehow relevant to quite a few people. So that’s quite amazing. It’s a celebration of that, of what we’ve done and what people have done for this to happen, and the music is the soundtrack to that.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevebaltin/2017/11/16/exclusive-interview-h-i-m-frontman-ville-valo-on-saying-goodbye-after-25-years-together/#70edc1312fbb 
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