HIM – THE RASMUS – NEGATIVE
About Love and Shadows
Today in the backstage kitchen of the Palladium, there are all kinds of Finnish stuff. For the predictably successful concert-package HIM, The Rasmus and Negative, they put together which long was at home in high charts positions and girl’s fan-hearts. The three Finnish front-beaus Ville Valo, Lauri Ylönen and Jonne Aaron have arrived for the exclusive Sonic Seducer interview in the afternoon, and seem to feel surprisingly uncomfortable in the bright light of the headlights in front of the camera. Not like rockstars at all, Lauri and the fragile-seeming Jonne sip on their water and, as a start, remain silent. Only Ville appears feisty. An impression that is emphasized by the remains of his black eye from the palpability with the neighbours and the police, that has taken place shortly before the tour.
And while the first cigarettes are smoked, we begin to ponder on proposals of marriage, home country and evil drinking games.
Ville: Today is our first free evening, because tomorrow we have a day off. This night is going to be our night of alliance, the night in which we all become blood brothers (as soon as he two others wince) – well, brothers at least. We’re going into a gay-bar and drink Kölsch. Indeed, on a short tour like this lots of things can happen. But for HIM, this journey doesn’t end before October. In order to be able to play continuously professional and to make good shows, we just can’t be wasted every day, nobody endures that. And I wouldn’t recommend playing fucked up, otherwise people want to have their money back.
But that never happened, did it?
Ville (eyebrows raised): Of course something like that happened, even quite often, when we really messed up everything. But partying a little just isn’t worth risking everything. I mean, the reason for touring is that we want to make music - not drinking, doing drugs and hanging around with groupies.
HIM, The Rasmus and Negative – it’s a womanizer-set, something like Gothic-Chippendales.
Ville: Hm, is that so? We’re not womanizers, we want to give something to our fans, not take advantage of them. We want to give them the opportunity to listen to good Rock’n’Roll as well. That’s no womanizing for me.
Well, let’s say heartbreaker-set then…
Ville: That’s a little difference. Well, hopefully we don’t break any hearts, but repair them instead.
Jonne: Right. We want to give hope instead of breaking hearts, that’s boring.
Ville: Most of the Chippendales are gay anyways, we aren’t.
Were there any running gags before the shows, or bets about who’ll get the loudest applause, the most girls?
Ville: No, up to now, we’re simply happy that everything worked out so well. It takes a time for the crew to get all under control, until there’s a certain calmness and routine in the procedure and until one gets used to being on tour again. It’s like bicycling.
Lauri (trying to say something): Everyone wants to be number one, but –
Ville (cutting him off mercilessly): We’re all number one in different categories: The Rasmus make people move, we manage to touch their hearts, especially those of the people with the black lipstick, and Jonne makes everyone shake his balls.
Jonne: We came to seduce the other’s audience to our side.
Ville: Yes, you’re quite good in doing so. Concerning the girls: we don’t like to have girls in our backstage area. there are many reasons for that.
Lauri: It’s always the crew that gets the girls anyways. Until we’re finished, they’re all gone already.
In your lyrics, there are some special words that occur very often: “Love”, “Death”, “Darkness” and “Shadows”… If you dropped these words, what would you be singing about?
Ville (after thinking it over for a long time): About the same things, without using these words.
We have a drinking game about that: You turn on a record of HIM and every time there’s “Love”, “Death” or “Baby” mentioned, you have to drink something.
Ville: We’ve had something similar to that, in former times, when we watched “Conan”. Every time Arnold Schwarzenegger kills an enemy, we drank vodka.
I think I never got more than the first ten minutes. Really, it was something like a Conan-club, we always wore kilts and knifes.
Lauri: These are just things and subjects that are fascinating to us, that’s why we write about it.
Jonne (with a sigh): To me, lyrics are like writing a diary. Maybe I’m just that depressive - I often am, like we all are.
What is typical of a Finnish man?
Jonne (as the first one): In a way, all Finnish men have this protective shield around them, something like a shell. It’s hard to break that, but once you made it, there will be something special behind it, something enduring and honest.
Ville (who meanwhile tries to get into the conversation again): They have the worst spikes in the world.
Lauri: …and often problems to show their feeling. I think that’s the reason for drinking so much.
Ville: Yes, that’s it, and the reason for making music.
Are Finnish women shyer than German ones?
Ville: No, exactly the opposite, they are very straightforward and harsh, especially in the north: They blow you away – they really rock and actually make me blush! Once I met a couple from this region. We were drinking something when the girl started complaining about his boyfriend. She said she had stripped her clothes off and he had continued to watch football, and even when she sat down in front of the TV, masturbating, he continued drinking his beer. Hey, she told that without even knowing me and it was like the breakthrough of our conversation and I sat there thinking: Aha, yeah, uhm, nice to know…
A romantic moment: You propose marriage to your chosen one – how?
Ville: Honestly spoken, i don’t remember what it was like for me. But romance is everywhere, it’s around us. Even going to the toilet can be romantic, it’s a matter of seeing things. I think it’s not about candles or red roses that’s only the old fashioned view. If you see the world through pink glasses, you’re very close to the truth that I live.
Lauri It think I’d try the old fashioned way. But I never seriously thought about these things. It’s such an important, big decision, that I’ll think through it for a long time. But I’m sure it would be something I’d create as a private, honest moment.
Jonne: Hm, I’d say: a scull-bath.
(?! I have NO idea what he’s talking about!) Sir Christus invented that and it’s our version of a romantic evening. You’ll need lots of alcohol for that and usually no girls.
Ville, you once said Finland was a spiritually affected word rather than a politically affected one?
Ville: Neither the one nor the other, actually. That’s one of the reasons for mostly singing about relationships. The political stuff about Finland is very boring, as well as the religious. It’s only pride of the veterans of the winter war connects us, so we’re here to revenge them.
Lauri: I’m proud of Finnish music. And of the Finnish population, how sincere and honest they are. Finns are very upright and don’t make much words. There’s no thing like small-talk in Finland and we speak in short sentences. That makes conversation easier, because then the rubbish is dropped and so there are less misunderstandings.
Jonne: There are many similarities between Germans and Fins, maybe that’s why Finnish music is so popular here.
Ville: The Finnish people still searches its identity and while the older part of the popularity tries to find it in politics and memories of the war, we found music for us. Of course, music is a universal thing, but it’s our aim to bring the special Finnish thing in there, like a special spice.
It’s strange that this development somehow came overnight, suddenly there was this Finnish wave sweeping over…
Ville: Yeah, we had something like a secret pact. All Finnish bands only practised, practised, practised and we all agreed on not releasing records before 2000. That’s what lies behind it, I have to say that it worked out quite well.
Lauri (hoarsely): Strategy! But I don’t think that it’s only because of HIM’s success that there were so many bands that made it outside Finland. Even if the door is opened a little, you still have to be good yourself, strong, emotional and authentic to make it out there. It isn’t enough just to be from Finland.
Ville, what happened in your neighbourhood?
Ville: I can’t talk about it, that’s legally bound. It’s about violence and brutality, from the police’s side as well (note from the writer: So far, Ville said that he had tried to kick his neighbours’ door open, because he had started rumours about Ville and his girlfriend Jonna being addicted to heroin. There was a dispute with the police during which Ville got arrested and got a black eye. Now, Ville wants to have a house of his own)
Lauri: I got arrested when I was younger as well because of some graffiti, but nothing serious.
Jonne: They arrested me when I was 14 or 15 because i pissed against a wall of a church. Apart from that, I once threw a TV out of the window in a hotel. (note from the writer: …which his parents got to know in the newspaper)
Ville: Our guitar player tried that as well, but the window wasn’t broad enough. Then he tried to throw bottles of vodka from the mini bar after some old ladies, but he didn’t succeed either. That was shortly before he blacked out.
Lauri: These TV’s get all the bigger and heavier nowadays, especially these plasma-screens. We’re not some of those strong guys…
originally by: Yvonne Zymolka, Sonic Seducer
translation: ciardha of
http://www.negative.fi/forum/
