Mashed potatoes, minimalism and supporting Metallica: Life on the road with Ville Valo

Lifting the lid on the highs, lows, creature comforts and touring weirdness of a travelling band…

“My asthma medication and passport. I try to never carry anything besides a single backpack. It doesn’t matter how long the tour is, I find it very important just to minimise everything – a few pairs of underwear and socks. It’s minimalist, kind of stealthy, sort of ninja-like.”

“Probably when HIM went to China for some festivals. Literally 10 minutes before the first one, this storm blew the roof off the stage, and the whole thing was cancelled. So we went on to Shanghai for the next show, and the police started saying that they needed to read all the lyrics, and informed us of the songs we couldn’t play. While that was happening, it seemed that they let too many people inside the festival so they couldn’t control things. We ended up flying, like, 18 hours to play two songs.”

“A 16th-century castle in the middle of nowhere in Germany with HIM. I remember they had these weird plastic ravens set up, like scarecrows or something. I stole one of them – it’s still in my garden. We ended up playing in this weird ballroom that was really old and filled with all sorts of expensive, gilded stuff. And in the very beginning we also played a strip joint. It was a showcase for journalists, and I remember our keyboard player made blood-red mashed potatoes for them. I still hear people talking about it. I honestly don’t know what the mashed potatoes had to do with anything, but it worked.”

“Remembering to eat. Back in the day I mostly drank, but didn’t eat too much, so even if you’re vegan, that’s not too healthy. Also, try to get a kip occasionally, as we all know what it does when you’re sleep deprived. Basically, you just need to make sure you’re praying to the gods of rock’n’roll every day when the clock strikes midnight, or something.”

“CBGB in New York, as everyone knows. And the weirdest ones are in China. At the festivals we did, they didn’t come with toilet paper, so you always had to carry toilet paper with you. And there were weird robotic things going on in other toilets. They had those automatic sprinkling systems taking care of the needs of your butt, which was hard to work around having a long jacket on right before you go onstage. It was… complex.”

“The ones in America. You’ll drive 200 miles and be in the middle of nowhere, and all of a sudden you come to an enormous gas station, or some diner where you can get the biggest burger. Everything’s always ‘the biggest’. They have their own identity and their own little cool thing. I think it’s a great way of getting introduced to America.”

“Very minimalist, no fancy stuff whatsoever. We played there with Metallica in 2007, and I remember feeling like we really didn’t fit. When we were going onstage, Lars [Ulrich, Metallica drummer] shouted to us something like, ‘Give those people fuck!’ I remember that, and I remember shaking and the sweaty brow and all that, which felt rock’n’roll, but the dressing rooms were not very interesting.”

“When you lose yourself completely and you’re just part of the experience. I still struggle to get that meditative quality. I get so stressed about little things. I start thinking about cables, or if my zipper is up.”

“Everything! It’s like when you meet your girlfriend’s parents for the first time – you’re nervous, and you start talking about shit you really shouldn’t. I just start jabbering on about something that’s unrelated to music, talking about my underwear and stuff. I try to be funny and deep and entertaining at the same time. Believe me, it doesn’t work. So the best thing is to just shut up forever.”

VV play Download Festival on June 9. This article originally appeared in the summer issue of the magazine.

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