Interview with HIM's Ville and Mige

Metalfan: Metal in general is associated with dark, somber things and the like. I know you come from Finland, I know the culture is...
Ville: Darker...

Metalfan: Less of  the daylight, more of the moonlight, so to speak. Still, you managed to come up with this „love metal”, which I consider a disruption in the genre.
Ville&Mige (laughs, protests): Oh, oh, oh...

Metalfan: Is it a disruption?
Mige: Disruptors... that’s what we are... disruptors...
Ville: You know, our drummer comes originally from Sweden and from my mother’s side my family comes from Hungary, so that could be the reason we’re doing this stuff. We’re bastards, we’re not former Finnish people.

Metalfan. Great... But (grinning) still, lots of people, including ourselves in the beginning, until we’ve listened to you properly (giggle), said: „Fuck, man, this is not a metal band!” Because we are so cliche with this metal... (grin)
Ville: Oh, yeah...

Metalfan: They said: „They are just a goth band!” Can you counter-argument this or you don’t give a fuck?
Ville: To a certain extent, we don’t give a fuck. We started playing music and we started this whole band beacause of Black Sabbath, and you can’t go more metal than that, if we’re talking about the origin where metal came from. But, on the other hand, we like a lot (and I love) Elvis Presley. He was rock’n’roll, but he also had this sentimental side, he had great balance and stuff like that. So we wanted to mix those styles together,that’s the reason, you know...

Metalfan: I love him too, but doesn’t make us necro... phagic?... or...?
Ville&Mige (laughs): Not phagic!!! ...uhh..phylic

Metalfan (grin): ...phylic/phyliac?
Ville: You know, most of the artists I love are dead, so...(laughs) ...let’s say, when I’m seeing a picture of Elvis Presley I’m not getting the boner. And necrophagic would be eating the dead people, so not yet... I’m not ready for that (laughs)

Metalfan: You were in the band almost from the beginning. You were there since the beginning, some of you joined later... how do you think it evolved? You cand describe it even in darwinistic ways: first fish, then...
Mige: I wouldn’t say exactly evolution...

Metalfan: Involution, whatever...
Mige: Perhaps is more like degeneration. I’d like to think that, because rock’n’roll music tends to be more about decay and death, so I think it’s not our job to say if it’s more of an evolution or practising.
Ville: We believe in Adam and Eve...
Mige: And I’m going back to trees, personally!
Ville: From a darwinistic prospective, I would say we are the missing link, nobody knows what they did and where the fuck they went, so I’d say this is exactly waht we are (laughs).

Metalfan: You sounded very uncommercial to me (grin). Now, as I speak to you, you sound MOST uncommercial...
Mige: I’m very surprised at that.
Ville: Why is that?

Metalfan: Maybe because you sell so much... (laughs)
Ville: Come on... Ohh! Come on, we’re Black Sabbath fans, that’s what we are. You know, a lot of modern rock bands say they are doing something new, inventing a new category, but all we’ve been saying all the time since we started was that we are a road-sign towards Black Sabbath. We want the kids to know about good music, not about techno-crap fucking Crazy Frog bullshit.

Metalfan: And this will help music to progress. But I’m amazed that such true and uncommon characters sold so, so much in the US with their latest album.
Ville: We’ve been doin’ pretty well, yes, but there’s a fellow called Bam Magera, from MTV, and he’s been helping us a lot, he’s a big fan of what we do, he’s been directing a couple of videos for us, and he’s been they guy who’s been talking about us on radio, and I think we’ve been having a good grass-roots following. And that was the first album that properly came out there, and, you know, we’re surprised ourselves. We’re really close to getting a Golden Album out there, it’s nearly half a million already, so... it’s really cool. But we’ve been waiting for 10 years to be able to go there, so...

Metalfan: So you’re striking it rich!
Ville: Woow!

Metalfan: Which is not an accuse at all...
Ville: You know, music is a funny thing, because, if you’re successful for one year, it could be that you’re not successful for the next 30 years, so you got to save your money, put it in the bank.

Metalfan: But, up to now, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve been successful for more than a couple of years.
Ville: Well, a couple of albums...

Metalfan: I expected you to say „more than a couple of years”. It’s more.
Ville: Well, I’m very happy with the fact that me and Mige started to play when we were kids, 7-8years old. And it took us maybe 15 years to be able to pay our bills with music, so we’re really happy that after all this time we can really live off our music and I have all the time to write and stuff like that.

Metalfan: I also happen to have friends from my childhood, so we grew up from 4 years to 30 years, which I am now.
Ville: So you’re 57! (laughs)

Metalfan: I’m 57... kilos (Ville laughs, obvioulsy doubting). So, I wonder, how do these „beans” that grew up from 5 to 30 years old still get along so well? What the fuck is the benefit with the friends from childhood? You always get along so well... until you die, I think.
Ville: Well, there’s no pretentions, cause everybody knows who you are, without, college studies or anything like that, isn’t it?
Mige: I think certain type of people just come to each other... it’s the odour, the feromons.

Metalfan: Even among men?!
Mige: Christ!!(Everybody laughs)

Metalfan: So, we’ve heard your next album will be more aggressive. First: is it right or wrong? If it is right, are you going to play a couple of songs from this album for us tonight?
Ville: We’ve been touring since last October, so we haven’t really had the time to rehearse any new songs, so now we’re playing a mixture of what we’ve done before. Well, the new stuff is going to be... yes... a little bit more violent, I’d say. But it’s also our idea to do an album closer, let’s say, to Led Zeppelin no.3; so we’d have totally acoustic numbers and then really rough stuff.  We’ve never done done; the dynamics on the album will be really really big, so it’s really rough, then it’s tiny and sweet.

Metalfan (to Mige): How do you think you’ll fit in this?
Mige: I think I’ll fit, I’m in dying need of anger management, I’d like to channel my anger to different places that I’ve never been so far...

Metalfan: I’m looking forward to getting away from you... (laughs)
Mige: No, no, no... I was talking about music now; I exagerated, so you don’t have to fear me in the next 5 years from now.
 
Metalfan: We have a cliche-question, and you won’t escape it (smiles). How do you see yourselves in 10 years from now? Sill playing rock’n’roll? Or you don’t see yourselves anywhere?
Ville: Yeah, nowhere, we’ll just vanish (smiles). We’ll be just a flashy during light, like Spinal Tap (grins). Hm... in 10 years... hopefully, still playing with the band. I don’t have any plans whatsoever, it’s good to go with the flow, there’s so many things we can change and we don’t know wether we’re going to be successful or not in 10 years. So, I’m still hoping my parents will be alive (smiles).

Metalfan: Thanks a lot.
Ville: Thank you.