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UNDER THE HEARTAGRAM MARK
FEBRUARY 7, HEARTAGRAM DAY SHOW: SPECIAL GUEST VILLE VALO
THE INTERVIEW
This year's HEARTAGRAM DAY has been very special. While fans from all around the world celebrated the day that, every first Saturday of February, is dedicated to HIM, Ville Valo has given its presence, live from Helsinki, to the lucky who were able to tune in on Euro-Rock Radio.
The show, broadcasted on the Internet, began at 6 pm Italian hour. From the first few minutes a growing number of listeners kept on tuning in, reaching a peak of 1410, while more than 300 emails were received by the radio.
The show was opened by CelticAngel who warmed-up the atmosphere with Venus Doom, followed by other 6 songs.
At 6:33 the "very special guest," warmly greeted all the fans, who, in anxious waiting, were glued to their computers.
After some nice wisecrack and information about his health (he had a fever), Ville broke the good news of the birth, in January, of the first child in Gas’ family, the drummer of the band, to whom we send our most heartfelt congratulations.
Ville, although not in perfect physical shape, soon appeared, as usual, full of verve and sense of humour, willingly responding to the different questions, the first of which was about the evolution of the new album.
Ville said he worked on 5 songs and, in about 1-2 months, they are going to demo them in Finland. The songs are going to be shorter than the ones of Venus Doom (not more than 5 minutes).
The rehearsals and the choice of instruments have already begun and is progressing well. They are not going to record the album in Finland, but it is likely that it will be done in the U.S., where Ville has announced that he wants to head over soon to contact some label people and look for possible producers.
The new job style will be not very different from what HIM have done in the past, it will be, compared to "that sort of gloomy/doomy territory" on which they walked for Venus Doom, "more direct, more straightforward", it will be less Sabbath style and more "80s tinged crooner rock with balls of steel "as drolly he called it.
It’s possible that the band will play some summer festivals, either in Europe and U.S., but nothing has been decided yet, it seems certain that the performances will not be too many, 'cause he doesn't want anything to get out the way of making the best album they can.
Speaking of the last Helldone and why it has been longer than usual, Ville said that it was a collective decision to "do something new and make it more exciting for the band."
HIM would like to make a big festival with several guests, like Turbonegro, one of Ville's favourite bands, but it was not possible, for both economic and contingents reasons , related to the particular time of the year when the Helldone is held, usually when bands are resting. Around next Helldone Ville says that right now he does not think there will be other shows, because of the organizational problems and 10 years of experience, which would make everyone in the band feel "extremely old."
Questioned about possible further acting in movies, (after the experience of Madagascar 2), Ville said he did it willingly and that he had no difficulty playing the role of Moto Moto, as there are strong similarities with that character; in the future he could play a random vampire in a film on which a friend of him has been working on for the past 15 years so...we still must wait.
Other questions focused on the new tattoo, subject always quoted, and he confirmed that he's got several, latterly, in various parts of his body, whose meaning is often known only by his close friends. With a bit of "Italian pride" we are delighted that, once again, Ville reminded of the "sommo poeta".
They also discussed at great length the issue of social networks, because, often, there are people who like to claim themselves "they are Ville Valo" on MySpace and Facebook; once again, the real Ville Valo has reiterated that he has never been one of those and that he have a personal page on MySpace, but not under his real name, inviting fans, after having provided several clues, to look for it.
Talking about "The Mercy Fvcks", a side project of Ville, he said he's been working on it for the past 3 years and is defined as "a kind of band that never performed" and the only member, besides Ville is "Brandon Novak" defined as a "skateboarder/ex-junkie/pool player."
After some questions and some "spicy" answers' Ville reaffirmed his "no-rockstar mood" and, with much humour made fun of the U.S. star system, telling that he's saving money and in the future he will go around with "shades and cool bodyguards ".
Being an avid reader Ville advised his fans to read a book, we are sure, will have a good increase in sales: "Death, Desire and the Doll. The life and art of Hans Bellmer "by Peter Webb, the biography of the painter, sculptor and German photographer Hans Bellmer (Katowice, 13 March 1902 - Paris, 23 February 1975).
Catherinelheathcliff-Katja
THE REMARK:
What can be added to what is above mentioned?
Certainly it was a nice feeling to hear, if only by radio, the voice of our favourite band's frontman. Likewise it was interesting to know something more about him on the band and their future projects.
Knowing they are working on the new album and, expecially, the word "summer festival" has awakened in all of us the hope to see them again as soon as possible .
Unfortunately , from the mouth of His Majesty, leaked the word "America". And is a bit a blow to the heart for us fans of the good old Europe, who welcomed them with open arms when they moved their first steps on the music scene.
We do not want to take offence to our friends overseas but we know that, in the matter of this stuff, we all become a bit "jealous".
But America is the land of great opportunities and also HIM, like everyone else, do not intend to discredit this common idea.
Because we all know that when there is to take the beloved Europe is always a step behind those who are overseas. Perhaps this is not the right place where to make such considerations but that is what is leaked, probably, in the heart of those who, like me, feels a little "teased" by all this kind of "gold rush" towards distant countries. No matter whether the questions asked by us Europeans are not taken into account and, on the other hand, they ask Ville, who kindly and with a hint of irony does not get out of answering, small things, things so trivial and, perhaps, somewhat silly to ask to someone who works as an artist, not as the court jester. It quite seems to be a life matter what he thought when he saw some "toys and stuff " thrown on stage , of dubious taste in my opinion. It's a little like when, in many, many interviews, he was asked how he feels now that he stopped drinking. Probably he answered so many times that, if they would ask me the same question, I could answer for him. It does not matter if HIM are considered American, it doesn't matter ... Or maybe not, it matters and how! But, basically, journalism is not my job and, most likely, I ignore what the audience really wants to know. Licit curiosities perhaps but that, increasingly, try to pull down the barrier that exists, and must remain, between professional and private life of an artist. And although our complaints, if we can call them so, may seem right and well founded, cannot compete against those promising the earth and then, on the contrary, turns out to be only a heap of ash well packaged. This is a voice that, almost certainly, will get lost with all the thousands of others who want and would like to show their reasons towards something, or someone who probably will not ever listen. But basically, today I should be cheerful and I should not have this bitterness in the heart, because today is the Heartagram Day, a celebration for all HIM fans. Of course ... HIM ... who are five guys. Unfortunately many of the so-called fans pay attention to only one. Without taking anything away from Ville Valo who is the frontman and not the band itself, if someone had missed this detail. So, if I am here today listening to the words and the notes that fill up my heart with beautiful feelings, I owe it to all five, to Migè, Linde, Burton, Gas and Ville, who together have been able to create something wonderful that is able to give a sort of sense to this world that seems to have less and less.
Di Kitiara _77- Laura. Translated by Catherinelheathcliff-Katja.
WHO ARE YOU TO LECTURE ME?
Something like that Commodus said to Lucilla during a debate between them two after the introduction of the new Emperor to the senate of Rome.
Marcus Aurelius was just dead, and Germania was added to the empire with a long row of battles won by the army of Rome.
Who are they to lecture me? The Emperor is above everyone.
Who are you to lecture me? Is His Infernal Majesty, from up his 32 years, so much above everyone to be invited to give a lecture about creativity at the Helsinki university with the famous philosopher Pekka Himanen?
Yes, he is, above all if the lecture is about creativity, because everyone, even who doesn’t love him or HIM, must admit he’s one of the most creative artists of this century’s musical landscape.
He’s not just a singer and a songwriter, but even a painter, a poet…and now a “professor” if I may speak in those words.
Nothing to do with his past; no questions and answers about dark days, rehab, being arrested or even worse things happened to him.
Just the creativity he’s got inside of himself, shown to the lucky audience who had the opportunity to listen to him and his stingy and polite sense of humor. With no sense of humor he wouldn’t be him, it’s something like a barrier, a shield for him, when he’s in danger or when it’s difficult to get out of a situation he uses his good sense of humor, never unpolite or dirty, and makes everyone laugh…and he’s safe, for that moment.
The title of the lecture was “A creative life”.
There are so many ways to create, and seeing Ville is a good friend of the great philosopher Pekka Himanen, this last one decided to give him the possibility, now that he’s sober since long time and in extremely good shape, to show and explain those many ways to create that Ville uses for his work.
Pekka 
Himanen is a philosopher and a professor in Oxford and in the University of Art and Design in Helsinki; once Ville asked him when he could go and listen to one of his lectures, so then the philosopher had the idea to give a lecture about something that could involve Ville too, and then all this came out last January after a long call on the phone where they decided to have a dialogue lecture about something they have in common, speaking in mere words, ART and all its possible ways to be expressed.
The main theme of Valo’s moments has been the interpretation of the songs he writes.
Musicians, poets (that’s a musician without music),artists in general, put into paper (or paintings or everything they may use) the feelings they have inside of them in that moment.
Something they read, they have seen during a walk, even their own experiences as a loss, a birthday, a relationship and things like those.
The listeners, such as the viewers, usually have a different point of view, from which they listen or watch the “artwork” the artists give them, and above all it’s really difficult to re-create inside of them the same feelings of the artist who wrote, sang or painted it in that particular moment.
That’s why, sometimes, people use a song for weddings, but perhaps, as they could not know, that song has been written during a moment of sadness, or a moment of extreme joy which has no particular meaning with a wedding march.
The feelings inside of everyone of us could be so different that even during a concert it may be seen people laughing in the same time other people are crying for the same song.
People get the Stendhal syndrome for the Monna Lisa at Louvre museum, while some other watch it and just say “It’s so small…”.
Then, as we can understand from the lecture, even if the piece of art , in case of Valo the song, is “given” to everyone, in fact it just is something that the artist is hardly unable to keep inside and has to put it out, above all for himself.
It’s like Michelangelo watching the David and saying “why don’t you speak! I made you and you have to speak to me!”.
Reading the article about the lecture, the people in the auditorium had much fun; Pekka Himanen introduced Ville playing a piece of a famous song from HIM , “Join me”, with the piano, and that of course made him blush as always , then they started the lecture.
Simply dressed, the usual beanie on, there’s no need of flash lights or to be rockstars when you have to “get your feelings naked” in front of students and people who just want to understand why you are having such a success or who just want to understand what kind of people you are and learn from you something they still don’t have find into themselves.
Besides those magnificent green eyes, of course.
Professor Valo, this time you’ve passed the exams, good job dude!
Nailedtoacross-Monni
IN THE NIGHTSIDE OF EDEN
At the borders of the dark world
It’s an indubitable reality that an authentic artist should be able to put in ront is critic spirit to every kind of artwork he comes in contact with, may this be a best seller or a little unknown novel, and it’s with this song that Mr.Valo shows us to be ale to analyze and inspire his wonderful music to text with a huge cultural facing such as the holy Bible and the Divine Comedy.
Both the artworks are in fact examined in depth in some of their most beautiful and basic meanings, in relation with no doubt with the sin, and this particular case, to the deepest sin ever, as even Dante affirms in the Divine Comedy: greediness, an insatiable and incurable desire of power, summa omnia of every sin, from gluttony to avidity, so deep and totally destroying that it even can’t find a precise place in Dante’s Inferno.
And it is right the greediness that will lead Adam and Eve, ancestors of the human kind and protagonists of the song, to the total ruin of themselves and their sons, judged with no remedy to a war that couldn’t seem to have an end in the realm of senses, that dark land in which God will exile them until the total extinction of mankind. But what is the famous drop that fills the delicate vase of the creator, the one that forces his to exile his children to a life of deprivation? The betrayal, willingly taken to its end by Adam and Eve after the temptation of the snake, that made them not just beings lurking for knowledge but concrete rebels seeking for power, eager of that huge God’s power but poor of his generosity and benevolence, something that is proper of the divine things.
It’s for that why the two give in to the temptation of the snake, not betrayed and then justified but completely aware of the risks of their sins, and steal then the knowledge they so much long for, the fire that inflates the sacred heart of God: they watch themselves as semi-gods, they get knowledge of their existence, of their being limited from that same power that transformed them and in the end of their condemnation to serve that desire, the insatiable will that led them to the ruin until the end of times, damned in their same blood and evil for necessity.
Adam and Eve then find themselves away from the doors of the Eden, exiled and condemned to serve a cause they don’t believe in and to fight a was that will lead them to nothing but eternal sufferance, to an insatiable gluttony, a never ending eagerness that it can’t be translated into nothing else than cupidity.
In this condition of dependence the circle number four is the only place that can receive them, to let them pass the eternity of the presumption and dream of extreme power they gave in to.
Divided we stand in the light of a frozen sun
Cursing the gods we have become
We steal the fire from a sacred heart
And bleed the wine unholy
We fall in love with the serpent's song
And fear nothing
In the nightside of Eden
We're born again dead
Forever we are
Forever we've been
Forever we'll be crucified to a dream
In the nightside of Eden
Deranged, we're tearing away the petals of desire
Learning the mathematics of evil by heart
We deceive ourselves to start a war
Within the realm of senses
And descend to the circle number four
Where we are nothing
In the nightside of Eden
We're born again dead
Forever we are
Forever we've been
Forever we'll be crucified to a dream
In the nightside of Eden
Shikaia 590 ( translated by Nailedtoacross)
Planned and developed by Mrs Lindstrom with the help of Nailedtoacross, Legolas di Mirkwood,
Shikaia590 Editor in chief: Mrs Lindstrom, Graphic Project: Dan[616]
