Ville Valo: Cyber Noir Loveletting
When we tasted the kiss of dawn on New Years Day 2018, the world entered a post-HIM state of melancholia. The pioneers of Love Metal hung up their black suede boots after 26 years of gloom soaked love letters. Five years later, HIS INFERNAL MAJESTY makes a return, but not in the way many may have hoped for. “I tried to dress up for you. Make it a special occasion.” Ville Valo smiles against the dark backdrop of his home studio in Helsinki. Smoothing down his black blazer Ville makes perhaps a striking confession before we get started; “I’ve never been on uh… I keep mistaking Twitter for Tinder,” comes with a rippling laugh. “Beautiful relationships have come through meeting via that thing for my friends, but for me it still seems weird. I’m old school.”
Noting it’s a slightly odd conversation starter, we reassure Ville with Randy Blythe’s underwear story in a LAMB OF GOD feature a few months ago. Ville tells us he had met Randy some 18 years ago in Helsinki during an alcohol-fuelled night out. “With the festivals now coming, I hope I get to see him again,” he muses, “I’m glad he’s doing well after having been through the ringer somewhat.”
Ville returns to the festival circuit, and live arena, with VV – a solo project which was born during the pandemic. Though Neon Noir isn’t actually the first release under the VV umbrella. March 2020 brought a three track EP; Gothica Fennica Vol. 1 which featured Salute The Sanguine, Run Away From The Sun, and Saturnine Saturnalia all of which sit within the track listing of Ville’s debut solo album. With Neon Noir drawing not-so-subtle influence from HIM and recent live shows meandering between the two entities, why not resurrect HIS INFERNAL MAJESTY?
“No one wants to reform HIM,” Ville says nonchalantly. “We ended it at the right moment. A reunion is something I’d be very wary of touching with a stick.” What we thought would be a subject to quickly brush past is actually a point our company is very candid with stating “it ended because the spark was gone. I wasn’t sure which percentage of that spark was me, a collective, or somewhere in between.” There’s nothing worse than keeping something going when the flame has long diminished.
Yet from the ashes of HIM comes VV, a project not too dissimilar from its predecessor as Ville remains the helmsman, but the approach in terms of attitude is certainly different. “My realism is mixed with optimism for the first time in ages” has a hint of joy in its cadence. The five years since HIM’s demise came with some soul searching for the gothic heart-throb. Feeling as though he’d lost his sense of musical direction, Ville pulled a stint with THE AGENTS; a band which primarily played sixties and seventies style music. While THE AGENTS were a success in Finland, the project came to an end after a year and an album release. Though the experience proved to be educational for our companion. “It taught me about sensitivities in music,” Ville starts, “With HIM, I always hid behind a wall of guitars as it was a noisy band but with this, it was very sensual and sentimental pop music.”
If there is one word which can be used to describe Ville in terms of songwriting, it would be sentimental. A man with his heart very low down his frilled sleeves. With songs featuring lyrics such as “so sincere it hurts” [Salute The Sanguine] and “I’m falling for you along with these tears” [Vertigo Eyes], Neon Noir is no different. The notion may be off-putting to purists but VV has just enough of HIM to soothe that saccharine itch. Guitars may fall back in the mix in favour of a synth nowadays but this more sensual approach to tearing our hearts out for our beloved is simply an evolution rather than a replacement. “There are some things in there which feel like a humongous step for me but for the listener… not so much,” Ville chuckles. “I could be like ‘wow, that’s a different chord’ and celebrate other nuances but it’s difficult to say how far the apple has really fallen from the tree.”
What may feel familiar for us is something completely different from the man in black across from us. The Heartagram radiating blue and pink tones on the wall behind Ville now has the subtle touch of the initials VV in the lower midsection. A more positive outlook weaves through the synth-wave material. Moreover, a newfound appreciation for life and music permeate the project as Ville tells us; “I don’t mean this in a suicidal way but every song is, another excuse to to breathe and be on this planet. They give me a purpose, or a centre, or a focal point. In essence, I guess this is giving me a reason to live.”
As Neon Noir’s release sits somewhere within the rear-view mirror, the focus for Ville turns to touring. Where he had holed himself up in his studio and played all of the instrumentation himself, the maestro decided not to travel the route of a “Gothic ED SHEERAN” and recruited a band. Does that backup alleviate trepidation though? “It’s an interesting topic because when I was with HIM, I wasn’t very keen on touring because I found performing quite uncomfortable,” he confesses. “There’s a different energy going into it now and I’m really looking forward to it.” The upcoming tour will see Ville return to venues he’d played with HIM such as The Garage in Glasgow which he is keen to draw nostalgia from, but there are also new venues to haunt such as Kentish Town Forum in London. When it comes to old stomping grounds, he feels more excitement than anxiety; “I think it’s a cool transformational moment or point in wherever I am to walk into these places as a refreshed entity”.
Ville ponders a moment with our last question. Asking an artist to sum up a project is always an interesting notion as they will always see something we don’t. It’s also an insight into how their mind operates, as if we need any more from the self-confessed “Lizard Man”. “Blade Runner is the answer he comes to and is one we’re very inclined to agree with. Neon Noir’s cyber-punk atmosphere would well have soundtracked the 1982 film. Commenting they are both an amalgamation of different genres which shouldn’t work together on paper breeds the idea that both are very special projects.
We ruminate on the Blade Runner comparison long after our conversation with Ville. A bothersome likeness sitting on the tip of our thoughts until it finally comes. Roy Batty’s monologue about the C-beams glittering near the Tannhauser Gate reminds Deckard of what it means to be human. Memories which will be “lost in time, like tears in the rain”. Ville Valo reminds us of what it means to be human in a similar way, inviting us to do one very simple thing; “come celebrate the pain with me”.
Neon Noir is out now via Heartagram Records and UMG/Spinefarm Records.
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