When you listen to the music of HIM singer Ville Valo, you may think the music is intense and emotionally moving – but you may not think of the material as “extreme music;” his music doesn’t reflect the speed or aggression like that of a Carcass for example. But for a guy who makes such relatively chill material – who creates such mellow and melancholic atmospheres – he sure friggin’ loves extreme music.
In a conversation with Metal Hammer, HIM singer Ville Valo speaks to his various tastes when it comes to heavy music. What we found real intriguing is that, at one point, Valo goes into the kinds of extreme music he is really into. For a goth rocker who you don’t find incorporating much thrashing or blast beats into his material, Valo really digs grindcore, death metal, and goregrind.
When it comes to bands he enjoys, one he gushes over big time is that of goregrind masters Carcass. In talking to Metal Hammer, Valo not only speaks to how much he enjoys the band, but he even talks about playing in a grindcore band with Carcass singer Jeff Walker and getting hammered with band guitarist Bill Steer.
“I grew up with bands like Napalm Death. One of the first bands I sung in was a grunty thing – we covered early Carcass songs. I really love Carcass, that’s exactly the kind of thing I look for in extreme music. It was really nice, I ended up singing with Jeff Walker and Lee Dorrian on a grindcore project which had Gas Lipstick from HIM called To Separate the Flesh from the Bones. It was amazing doing grindcore, singing on the same mic with those guys.
“We got wasted and Bill Steer was there too. We worked together on [Jeff Walker Und Die Fluffers] too, which was something Jeff did later on. I played bass with Die Fluffers. But yeah, To Separate the Flesh from the Bones, I love that sort of stuff – I grew up with it – early Deicide, Left Hand Path by Entombed type stuff.”
You can check out a song from Valo and Walker’s extreme metal project To Separate the Flesh from the Bones below:
Who would have thought the guy from HIM was so into extreme music? Would you be down for Valo to make more grindcore?
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Words by: Michael Pementel