Negative, Orkus 5/2006
By the rivers of Babylon
Within the scope of the tour of the Finnish Trinity HIM, The Rasmus and Negative, we did not miss to get the three gentlemen together on one table. In the following interview you can read what Jonne and Ville have in common and that they feel like distant relatives somehow.
Orkus: I have to tape-record this.
Ville Valo: Of course. Did I ever tell you the story about Prince, when he had the mask on? He had to do an interview with someone - I don’t remember who it was - and it wasn’t allowed to tape the conversation, they could only take notes. But Prince didn’t say anything, only his assistant talked. And Prince kept whispering to his ear all the time.
Jonne Aaron: (laughing) Yes, that’s weird.
O: But you’re not this way?
VV: (laughing) Not yet.
O: Maybe in 10 or 20 years?
VV: Hopefully.
JA: He’ll be this way soon.
VV: Just wait, you’ll be exactly the same one day!
O: What was the tour like up to now?
JA: It’s been great!
VV: Way too short. (Jonne agrees) We’ve had four gigs in a row, then a day and then again six gigs in a row. We had a small party in Cologne, but altogether, it was too short. I wouldn’t mind if we had played twice as much concerts. But it’s better sweet and short than too long and exhausting.
O: whose idea was it?
VV: Probably mine, I don’t really remember. I just wanted to try something different. The gigs we did last year were all club shows, The Rasmus and Negative did a club tour.
We played in venues like “Die Große Freiheit” in Hamburg - and now we wanted to do something else. Negative and Rasmus had the time to do it, and so one thing lead to another. It’s very nice and I’m sure we’ll remember it for a long time.
O: Do you feel like a family?
VV: More like distant relatives. (laughing)
JA: We get along well.
VV: Yes, that’s true. At least we haven’t cancelled a show so far. (grinning)
O: I heard you’re all ill.
VV: Yes, I had a bad cold. I got the rest in Cologne and in the following three days, I wasn’t myself anymore. But it’s getting better now.
O: How are you, Jonne?
JA: I don’t know… I’m somewhere in between, when you don’t know if the cold gets away or if it gets worse. But I drank a lot of orange juice, because of the vitamins. That’s good for me.
VV: Usually, I’m only seriously ill once in two years. But I catch a cold easily on tour and get a cough, mostly because everything is air-conditioned on tour. And apart from that I’m smoking, which isn’t that healthy…
O: Surely touring strains your voices a lot so that you’re getting sick easily, doesn’t it?
JA: Yes, because everything is so hectic and stressful and you never have enough time to take care of yourself and to get really better. That’s the problem.
VV: Strangely enough, you always fall ill on your days off. That’s when the nose starts running. (laughing)
O: How was the show yesterday? It was the first of your two gigs in Leipzig…
VV: It was fantastic. The hall is beautiful, I love these old buildings.
O: The plot for your new video, Killing Loneliness, is exactly the same as the one for Negative’s The Moment of Our Love-clip. Was it an accident or did you just like the idea about the undressing girl?
VV: I’ve been asked this some time ago already. It’s so cool that obviously each of us had the same idea. (Jonne agrees and laughs) The Rasmus had the idea about the butterflies as well, the one that we had before. It seems to be a part of our Finnish mentality, having the same ideas now that we’re on tour together (grinning). We’ll be more careful next time. We want to do a second video for that song anyways. We’ll see what it’ll be like.
O: What do you think, why are there so many Finnish Gothic- or Metal-bands in Europe? The cold Finnish winter can’t be the only explanation.
VV: It’s so cold in the winter that we have to keep ourselves warm by doing physical aggressive music. (laughing)
JA: Yes, exactly. (laughing)
VV: Sweden’s Metal-scene is bigger than the one in Finland, they have groups like In Flames or Entombed. During the last years, it developed slowly in Finland with bands like The Rasmus, though they are a pop-group. We just like melancholy music.
JA: There’s no space for the sun in Finland - Only in summer.
VV: That’s why we don’t play shows then, we eat ice-cream instead. (laughing)
O: But having only six hours of daylight can be quite depressing, can’t it?
V: That’s why we always tour during the winter. We’re like birds that go to the south in the winter. We’ve got something like a ticker inside us - whenever it gets too depressing, we have to leave. (grinning) We’re playing in countries such as Portugal and Spain.
O: Places where it’s warm.
VV: Not really warm, but at least warmer than in Finland.
O: Ville, you’ve got a few more years of experiences concerning the music-business than Jonne has. Is there any advice you could give him for the future? Any mistake you have done and you want to give him warning of?
VV: I think everyone has to do his own mistakes in order to learn from them. For example, one of the mistakes you have to do is writing a fucked up song. Whenever you start believing you can do everything, then it is the biggest mistake you can make. I’m sure Negative will have a long future ahead of them. This business needs a lot of stamina. It’s like running a marathon, you need lots of endurance.
O: Have you had any bad experiences with the label or intrusive fans in the course of your career up to now?
JA: Not really. I’m still grateful for being able to do what I love from the bottom of my heart. And I like rainy days as well. So, no, there’s really nothing.
O: Does the fuss about your person that’s just starting in Germany scare you sometimes?
JA: Even if this was the case someday it wouldn’t change anything. We formed the band in order to have fun, to play and to hang around. No, the fuss doesn’t really worry me. We’ve met a lot of people on this tour and it would be great if we started something like this ourselves.
O: With HIM as support?
VV: (grinning) Who knows, might be.
O: But it’s not so unusual that bands that play as a support for a very famous group, as Negative now do with HIM, are the main act few years later - because these bands get the chance to play in front of a bigger audience and to become known to more people.
VV: Let’s hope so.
JA: Unfortunately, you never know what will happen. And HIM have been in the business for quite a long time now and they already have a huge fan-base.
VV: You can take them away easily. (laughing)
JA: Yeah, maybe, but we have a lot of work to do until we can organize a tour like this ourselves. But you have to believe in something anyways, so we keep on dreaming of it.
O: During you career, have you always managed to stay true to yourselves and to do only what you wanted?
VV: It’s not about an ego-trip for us. We’re five persons in the band then there is our manager who is very close to us, fans, people from the press, producers that are close to, and that’s why we always have to compromise in a way. And that’s the best way in most cases. For when you have people around you whom you love and respect you do listen to these persons and don’t put yourself on a pedestal and think your omniscient.
JA: You shouldn’t be selfish.
O: I rather thought about the point if you regret anything you did?
VV: Too much work - which happens easily. In 2000 and 2001, suddenly everyone wanted us to do something and we still have difficulties in saying no, because every Interview and TY-Show is a chance. But we learned to say no because we just can’t be everywhere in the same time.
O: Back then, you seemed to be very unhappy about the situation. A year after Razorblade Romance was released, you seemed very annoyed and exhausted.
VV: That’s something that happens when you start burning the candle from both ends. Last year, I’ve been away from home for more than 9 month, but we had a reason. We produced the album and we enjoyed doing that. But if you spend the same time playing the third time in the same year in the same hall and for even a smaller crowd, and if you have to do stupid interviews as well where they ask you about the size of your shoes, than it’s not really the biggest reward you can get. But that’s what the business is like and you’re not supposed to be picky as soon as things start working. It’s hard, but we found out that our gigs are much better when there is a balance between days off and days we have to play. You feel much better about yourself then. - It’s very important to stick to this principle.
O: The concerts towards the end of 2000 weren’t your best ones, were they?
VV: Yes it’s true, there were some bad performances, but there were good ones as well. When Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights came out in 2001 it was a success here, but it was even more successful in Portugal and Greece. Love Metal was very successful in Europe, but even more in Great Britain. Now, during 5 months we sold Dark Light 270.000 times in the USA, which makes things exciting for us over there. Now we’re going to have a tour in Australia for the first time and we’ll play in venues with crowds of about 2.500 people, all of them are sold out already. So we always see new countries and meet new people and collect new experiences. You can never be perfect. It’s very important what Jonne just said before - the bad days are in as well. You need bad days to learn to appreciate the good ones. It’s like a rollercoaster ride - you have to go down to get up again. We love it this way.
O: You just seemed to have been very unhappy back then.
VV: There was just too much at the same time. My relationship had just broken up, I had no idea where to stay, I had to work so much, we had difficulties with the production and everything was a big disaster. But we learned from it and approach things differently now.
O: HIM will tour in Japan soon. You’ve already been there with Negative, Jonne. Could you give Ville a little hint what it is like there? What’s different about Japan?
JA: It was a real cultural shock for me when we went there for the first time. The fans there want to know everything about you and they’re absolutely fantastic. I loved that.
O: So your fans followed you around the whole time?
JA: Yes, it was quite hectic. But I liked it. The people are extremely polite and attentive, for example, they’d never tell you if you had a blain on your forehead or something like that (laughing). They’re really very… (asks Ville for the English word) friendly.
O: How would you describe yourselves stylistically? Would you describe yourselves as Rock- or Metal-bands or something else?
VV: We’re playing Love Metal.
O: That’s what HIM always did, or wanted to do at least.
VV: And it still works. We’re still a mixture of Type O Negative and Neil Young.
O: But your debut was heavier and more focussed on guitars than e.g. Deep Shadows & Brilliant Highlights.
VV: I think Love Metal was rougher than Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666. For me, Led Zeppelin are still heavier than Slayer. Rough guitars don’t make a song heavy it’s the mood and the melodies. Heart of Gold by Neil Young is way heavier than everything Cradle of Filth ever did.
JA: We call our style “emotional Rock’n’Roll” (Ville laughs). But you always develop and you’ll probably never find yourself and keep searching for the perfect song all the time. It’s like a rollercoaster ride for us. Beautiful melodies rapes by rough guitars - that’s our style.
O: Do you follow the latest developments in Finland, are you interested in what’s on top there at the moment, or are there any Finnish groups you like yourselves?
VV: There’s a new Doom Metal-Band that is quite good, Swallow The Sun. (their album Ghosts of Loss is published via Fireboy Records, note from the author)
JA: Are you talking about Gothic-bands or others as well?
O: Doesn’t matter, everything from Finland.
JA: Sentenced, but they quit unfortunately.
O: Maybe it’s better to stop as long as you’re good…
JA: You should always listen to your heart and if you are not passionate about what you do it just doesn’t make sense anymore.
O: Would this be a considerable decision? Stopping to create music when you recognize that you can’t go further or that you just don’t like doing it anymore?
VV: We’ll see. Maybe yes. But until now, there always was something new to see and to experience, new records, new producers, new studios, new songs, new vibes for the guitars. Sooner or later that day will come anyways.
O: The day you’ll stop making music.
VV: As I said, everything’s possible. You can’t control it. Maybe later we’re doing like Boney M. and make a club-tour with three different HIMs in order to earn our money. (laughing)
Original interview by Babett Jahn,
Published in Orkus April 2006
[note: i've got the file saved as "Orkus 5/06, though in the translation it reads April. I'm not sure which issue it was.]
Within the scope of the tour of the Finnish Trinity HIM, The Rasmus and Negative, we did not miss to get the three gentlemen together on one table. In the following interview you can read what Jonne and Ville have in common and that they feel like distant relatives somehow.
Orkus: I have to tape-record this.
Ville Valo: Of course. Did I ever tell you the story about Prince, when he had the mask on? He had to do an interview with someone - I don’t remember who it was - and it wasn’t allowed to tape the conversation, they could only take notes. But Prince didn’t say anything, only his assistant talked. And Prince kept whispering to his ear all the time.
Jonne Aaron: (laughing) Yes, that’s weird.
O: But you’re not this way?
VV: (laughing) Not yet.
O: Maybe in 10 or 20 years?
VV: Hopefully.
JA: He’ll be this way soon.
VV: Just wait, you’ll be exactly the same one day!
O: What was the tour like up to now?
JA: It’s been great!
VV: Way too short. (Jonne agrees) We’ve had four gigs in a row, then a day and then again six gigs in a row. We had a small party in Cologne, but altogether, it was too short. I wouldn’t mind if we had played twice as much concerts. But it’s better sweet and short than too long and exhausting.
O: whose idea was it?
VV: Probably mine, I don’t really remember. I just wanted to try something different. The gigs we did last year were all club shows, The Rasmus and Negative did a club tour.
We played in venues like “Die Große Freiheit” in Hamburg - and now we wanted to do something else. Negative and Rasmus had the time to do it, and so one thing lead to another. It’s very nice and I’m sure we’ll remember it for a long time.
O: Do you feel like a family?
VV: More like distant relatives. (laughing)
JA: We get along well.
VV: Yes, that’s true. At least we haven’t cancelled a show so far. (grinning)
O: I heard you’re all ill.
VV: Yes, I had a bad cold. I got the rest in Cologne and in the following three days, I wasn’t myself anymore. But it’s getting better now.
O: How are you, Jonne?
JA: I don’t know… I’m somewhere in between, when you don’t know if the cold gets away or if it gets worse. But I drank a lot of orange juice, because of the vitamins. That’s good for me.
VV: Usually, I’m only seriously ill once in two years. But I catch a cold easily on tour and get a cough, mostly because everything is air-conditioned on tour. And apart from that I’m smoking, which isn’t that healthy…
O: Surely touring strains your voices a lot so that you’re getting sick easily, doesn’t it?
JA: Yes, because everything is so hectic and stressful and you never have enough time to take care of yourself and to get really better. That’s the problem.
VV: Strangely enough, you always fall ill on your days off. That’s when the nose starts running. (laughing)
O: How was the show yesterday? It was the first of your two gigs in Leipzig…
VV: It was fantastic. The hall is beautiful, I love these old buildings.
O: The plot for your new video, Killing Loneliness, is exactly the same as the one for Negative’s The Moment of Our Love-clip. Was it an accident or did you just like the idea about the undressing girl?
VV: I’ve been asked this some time ago already. It’s so cool that obviously each of us had the same idea. (Jonne agrees and laughs) The Rasmus had the idea about the butterflies as well, the one that we had before. It seems to be a part of our Finnish mentality, having the same ideas now that we’re on tour together (grinning). We’ll be more careful next time. We want to do a second video for that song anyways. We’ll see what it’ll be like.
O: What do you think, why are there so many Finnish Gothic- or Metal-bands in Europe? The cold Finnish winter can’t be the only explanation.
VV: It’s so cold in the winter that we have to keep ourselves warm by doing physical aggressive music. (laughing)
JA: Yes, exactly. (laughing)
VV: Sweden’s Metal-scene is bigger than the one in Finland, they have groups like In Flames or Entombed. During the last years, it developed slowly in Finland with bands like The Rasmus, though they are a pop-group. We just like melancholy music.
JA: There’s no space for the sun in Finland - Only in summer.
VV: That’s why we don’t play shows then, we eat ice-cream instead. (laughing)
O: But having only six hours of daylight can be quite depressing, can’t it?
V: That’s why we always tour during the winter. We’re like birds that go to the south in the winter. We’ve got something like a ticker inside us - whenever it gets too depressing, we have to leave. (grinning) We’re playing in countries such as Portugal and Spain.
O: Places where it’s warm.
VV: Not really warm, but at least warmer than in Finland.
O: Ville, you’ve got a few more years of experiences concerning the music-business than Jonne has. Is there any advice you could give him for the future? Any mistake you have done and you want to give him warning of?
VV: I think everyone has to do his own mistakes in order to learn from them. For example, one of the mistakes you have to do is writing a fucked up song. Whenever you start believing you can do everything, then it is the biggest mistake you can make. I’m sure Negative will have a long future ahead of them. This business needs a lot of stamina. It’s like running a marathon, you need lots of endurance.
O: Have you had any bad experiences with the label or intrusive fans in the course of your career up to now?
JA: Not really. I’m still grateful for being able to do what I love from the bottom of my heart. And I like rainy days as well. So, no, there’s really nothing.
O: Does the fuss about your person that’s just starting in Germany scare you sometimes?
JA: Even if this was the case someday it wouldn’t change anything. We formed the band in order to have fun, to play and to hang around. No, the fuss doesn’t really worry me. We’ve met a lot of people on this tour and it would be great if we started something like this ourselves.
O: With HIM as support?
VV: (grinning) Who knows, might be.
O: But it’s not so unusual that bands that play as a support for a very famous group, as Negative now do with HIM, are the main act few years later - because these bands get the chance to play in front of a bigger audience and to become known to more people.
VV: Let’s hope so.
JA: Unfortunately, you never know what will happen. And HIM have been in the business for quite a long time now and they already have a huge fan-base.
VV: You can take them away easily. (laughing)
JA: Yeah, maybe, but we have a lot of work to do until we can organize a tour like this ourselves. But you have to believe in something anyways, so we keep on dreaming of it.
O: During you career, have you always managed to stay true to yourselves and to do only what you wanted?
VV: It’s not about an ego-trip for us. We’re five persons in the band then there is our manager who is very close to us, fans, people from the press, producers that are close to, and that’s why we always have to compromise in a way. And that’s the best way in most cases. For when you have people around you whom you love and respect you do listen to these persons and don’t put yourself on a pedestal and think your omniscient.
JA: You shouldn’t be selfish.
O: I rather thought about the point if you regret anything you did?
VV: Too much work - which happens easily. In 2000 and 2001, suddenly everyone wanted us to do something and we still have difficulties in saying no, because every Interview and TY-Show is a chance. But we learned to say no because we just can’t be everywhere in the same time.
O: Back then, you seemed to be very unhappy about the situation. A year after Razorblade Romance was released, you seemed very annoyed and exhausted.
VV: That’s something that happens when you start burning the candle from both ends. Last year, I’ve been away from home for more than 9 month, but we had a reason. We produced the album and we enjoyed doing that. But if you spend the same time playing the third time in the same year in the same hall and for even a smaller crowd, and if you have to do stupid interviews as well where they ask you about the size of your shoes, than it’s not really the biggest reward you can get. But that’s what the business is like and you’re not supposed to be picky as soon as things start working. It’s hard, but we found out that our gigs are much better when there is a balance between days off and days we have to play. You feel much better about yourself then. - It’s very important to stick to this principle.
O: The concerts towards the end of 2000 weren’t your best ones, were they?
VV: Yes it’s true, there were some bad performances, but there were good ones as well. When Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights came out in 2001 it was a success here, but it was even more successful in Portugal and Greece. Love Metal was very successful in Europe, but even more in Great Britain. Now, during 5 months we sold Dark Light 270.000 times in the USA, which makes things exciting for us over there. Now we’re going to have a tour in Australia for the first time and we’ll play in venues with crowds of about 2.500 people, all of them are sold out already. So we always see new countries and meet new people and collect new experiences. You can never be perfect. It’s very important what Jonne just said before - the bad days are in as well. You need bad days to learn to appreciate the good ones. It’s like a rollercoaster ride - you have to go down to get up again. We love it this way.
O: You just seemed to have been very unhappy back then.
VV: There was just too much at the same time. My relationship had just broken up, I had no idea where to stay, I had to work so much, we had difficulties with the production and everything was a big disaster. But we learned from it and approach things differently now.
O: HIM will tour in Japan soon. You’ve already been there with Negative, Jonne. Could you give Ville a little hint what it is like there? What’s different about Japan?
JA: It was a real cultural shock for me when we went there for the first time. The fans there want to know everything about you and they’re absolutely fantastic. I loved that.
O: So your fans followed you around the whole time?
JA: Yes, it was quite hectic. But I liked it. The people are extremely polite and attentive, for example, they’d never tell you if you had a blain on your forehead or something like that (laughing). They’re really very… (asks Ville for the English word) friendly.
O: How would you describe yourselves stylistically? Would you describe yourselves as Rock- or Metal-bands or something else?
VV: We’re playing Love Metal.
O: That’s what HIM always did, or wanted to do at least.
VV: And it still works. We’re still a mixture of Type O Negative and Neil Young.
O: But your debut was heavier and more focussed on guitars than e.g. Deep Shadows & Brilliant Highlights.
VV: I think Love Metal was rougher than Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666. For me, Led Zeppelin are still heavier than Slayer. Rough guitars don’t make a song heavy it’s the mood and the melodies. Heart of Gold by Neil Young is way heavier than everything Cradle of Filth ever did.
JA: We call our style “emotional Rock’n’Roll” (Ville laughs). But you always develop and you’ll probably never find yourself and keep searching for the perfect song all the time. It’s like a rollercoaster ride for us. Beautiful melodies rapes by rough guitars - that’s our style.
O: Do you follow the latest developments in Finland, are you interested in what’s on top there at the moment, or are there any Finnish groups you like yourselves?
VV: There’s a new Doom Metal-Band that is quite good, Swallow The Sun. (their album Ghosts of Loss is published via Fireboy Records, note from the author)
JA: Are you talking about Gothic-bands or others as well?
O: Doesn’t matter, everything from Finland.
JA: Sentenced, but they quit unfortunately.
O: Maybe it’s better to stop as long as you’re good…
JA: You should always listen to your heart and if you are not passionate about what you do it just doesn’t make sense anymore.
O: Would this be a considerable decision? Stopping to create music when you recognize that you can’t go further or that you just don’t like doing it anymore?
VV: We’ll see. Maybe yes. But until now, there always was something new to see and to experience, new records, new producers, new studios, new songs, new vibes for the guitars. Sooner or later that day will come anyways.
O: The day you’ll stop making music.
VV: As I said, everything’s possible. You can’t control it. Maybe later we’re doing like Boney M. and make a club-tour with three different HIMs in order to earn our money. (laughing)
Original interview by Babett Jahn,
Published in Orkus April 2006
[note: i've got the file saved as "Orkus 5/06, though in the translation it reads April. I'm not sure which issue it was.]