Friday, 30 January, 2004 14:09
HIM interview |
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| Ville
Valo |
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Finland's
most successful rock band to date stopped off in Portsmouth on their
short but sweet tour of the UK - BBC Southampton's Indy Almroth-wright
caught up with frontman, Ville backstage. |
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How
did HIM get together?
It's a long, long story. We formed officially in 1994, so this is
our tenth anniversary. We're old school mates, so we're like family
members to a certain extent which makes it a lot easier on tour because
there are no ego clashes as we've known each other so long.
How have the gigs been going down?
This is our third tour here. Back in 2000 we did the first one playing
to 18-32 people and the next time around it was 200-300. Now there's
clearly something wrong, there must be some sort of virus going round
because suddenly we've become as successful as we are!
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| Mige |
Do
you enjoy touring?
When it's good it's fantastic, but when it's not as good it's horrible.
When people get ill on the tour bus, all of a sudden there's 12 people
with diarrhoea and flu going round. But this one's been good and easy
because we haven't been playing so many gigs, but it's nice to tour
when it's a bit warmer!
What do you do to keep your voice in tip top shape?
Just sleep as much as possible, that's the best thing to do because
I smoke a hell of a lot of cigarettes and drink too much as well,
it easily happens on tour. It's hard to sleep on those bunks so you
need some help. Sleep's the most important thing so I sleep at least
10 hours a day.
What do you get up to on the tour bus?
Our guitar player sleeps, our bass player and keyboard player play
chess but now they're playing some role-play game on their laptop
computers. The crew and me drink beer and watch The Office. I don't
watch telly at all but one of our technicians brought the first series
on DVD and it's been lovely actually - I've been laughing my arse
off. We're going to get series two now. I like to support the old
rock n' roll tradition and have some fun.
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| Ville |
What's
the most rock n' roll thing that's happened to the band?
Meeting Iggy Pop in Germany. We won a music award and he was presenting
the award. We met him later on backstage. He's always been an idol
to me - he was great. He was a total gentleman and told us lots of
stories about Finland because he's been there a couple of times. It's
always great to meet your idol especially when they don't disappoint
you.
What's the best thing about Finland?
I like the fact that the country's pretty small. I live in the capital,
Helsinki and if you count all the suburbs within it there are only
a million people. The centre's really tiny so you don't have to take
taxis or trams to get anywhere.
How do you cope with all your adoring female fans?
Well, I don't really. I don't think about things like that. It's cool
that people are interested in what we do but that's about it. It's
funny, we're honoured and we keep on blushing every time we see all
those people screaming at us.
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| Linde |
Do
you get bras and knickers thrown at you?
Yeah there's some of that, but we've been trying to tell them that
it would be more pleasant if they threw cigarettes or cans of Stella.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
We'll be releasing a compilation album in March which should be out
in April here. It's all the singles we've released and two new tracks,
and we'll be touring until the beginning of June.
Then we'll be doing as many festivals as possible, we'll hopefully
be playing at Download here, and then we'll be in the studio in October
to record the next album.
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BBC Southampton Website
Broadcasting House,
Havelock Road,
Southampton
SO14 7PU
(+44) 023 80 374370/1/2
southampton@bbc.co.uk
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