H.I.M. Frontman Talks About Inspiration For The Group's Next Album

H.I.M. frontman Ville Valo has told Finland's Helsingin Sanomat newspaper that he has been putting together some new songs for the next studio sessions and he hopes "to scrape the shit off the diamond" with the band's next album.

In search of inspiration for the lyrics, he says he has been reading the rough-hewn works of troubled Lappish author Timo K. Mukka, the Symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire, and Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time".

"The Hawking opened up on the empirical level. I've always rebelled against a linear concept of time. I believe in the Native Indian vision of cyclical time."

And what about Mukka or Baudelaire, both of whom were powerfully and sometimes perversely attracted to the words "love" and "death"?

"Well, it was always claimed that they’d influenced my writing, so I thought I'd better read them, and I did find some good material in there. If the Eskimos are supposed to have 27 different words for 'snow', then I'm trying to do the same with the word 'love'", muses Ville.

The relatively large tour of the U.S. that the band is currently undertaking does not seem to have fazed Valo in the least. Then again, the group has already amassed an enormous following in Germany and major successes in the Mediterranean countries and in Eastern Europe.

"Sure, it's great to be touring as a headliner with MONSTER MAGNET, since it was at one of their gigs that I first went to the Tavastia Club venue in Helsinki — as a punter and not as an artist", says Valo. "But even if after a couple of beers you can start imagining you're living out some kind of rockstar fantasy, I mean, let's face it, I still have to buy toilet paper and all that stuff."

H.I.M. try to make sure they remain on the most cordial of terms with all their warm-up acts.

"Hey, it could be the roles are reversed next time out. And my voice could go west tomorrow, or any one of us could get hit by a truck." Read more.