H.I.M. Frontman: 'I Was Sleeping An Hour A Night For Eight Weeks'

Kerrang! magazine (web site) recently spoke to H.I.M. frontman Ville Valo about some of the dark rumors that have surrounded him of late. In February he spent a night in a Helsinki jail after allegedly threatening to kill his neighbor. Prior to that he was drugged and robbed in a Minneapolis bar, raising question marks — however unjustified — over the company he was keeping. His home life has been no less eventful. In October 2005 he sustained a punctured eardrum during an impassioned argument with his fiancée Jonna Nygren (note: A Finnish tabloid reported last week that Ville and Jonna have now broken off their engagement). A couple of excerpts from the Kerrang! interview follow:

Kerrang!: Tell me about the night you were drugged. How much of it do you remember?

Ville: "We had a night off and I went out drinking. This random dude said, 'Let's go to a bar,' so I followed him. It was an R&B kind of place. I remember they were playing 50 CENT. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a dirty little brothel. The guy had taken £200 from me."

Kerrang!: Thank God nothing worse happened.

Ville: "Well, I know I wasn't raped. But I was really shaken up for a couple of days. It was like the worst hangover of my life. Shaken and… disturbed. I don't know what drug this guy put in my drink. Do they have Rohypnol in America? It could have been a lot worse. At least I didn't wake up in a bath full of ice with my liver missing…"

Kerrang!: These allegations about you attacking someone in Finland. What was that about?

Ville: "[Long sigh] I'm still going through legal proceedings, so I have to be really careful what I say about this. It was like a bar fight. You know, when you're pissed off with somebody and you're being stupid and insecure and a fucking twat."

Kerrang!: How did it start?

Ville: "I heard through a really reliable source that a neighbor had been saying stuff about me and my fiancée, calling us junkies, worthless pieces of shit, stuff like that. I was really drunk and so tired from all the touring. Going back home and hearing that… out of drunken madness I went down, kicked the door in and punched that fellow in the face. And punched him again. There was a vase by the door and I threw it, smashed it into pieces.

"It was so ridiculous. He was saying we were doing lots of drugs and having noisy parties. I don't even have a stereo! There's also the possibility that I was just being a drunken bastard. All the gruesome details will come out eventually. It was wrong of me. I'm not a violent person but everybody's got a breaking point. I was stressed out and I didn't feel I could resolve that situation in a verbal way."

Kerrang!: People were shocked because it seemed so out of character.

Ville: "[Wearily] Things are not necessarily so good back at home when you're wiped out. When you're… done, on various levels, and suffering from writer's block. I was also suffering from insomnia, which I've never had before. I was sleeping an hour a night for eight weeks. But I don't want to make that mistake again. I'd rather slash people with words."