HIM (band)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Country | Finland |
| Years active | 1991 – present |
| Genres | Debated |
| Labels | Sire Records |
| Members | Ville Valo Linde Migé Amour Emerson Burton Gas Lipstick |
- This article refers to the Finnish band. For the New York group, see HiM (band).
- For other uses, see HIM (disambiguation).
HIM is a band from Finland formed in 1991 by vocalist Ville Valo, guitarist Linde, and bassist Migé Amour. They have released five full length albums to date.
As of 2006, they are the first and only Finnish rock band to sell Gold in the United States. The band's name was originally His Infernal Majesty , but was changed to HIM. They were also known as HER and HIM and HER for a brief time while in the United States and Germany, respectively.
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[edit] History
HIM started out as a cover band of artists such as Type O Negative, KISS, Danzig, Black Sabbath and Depeche Mode. After many lineup changes and a hiatus from 1991 to 1995 caused by the members' military services, the band now consists of the three founding members plus keyboardist Janne Johannes "Burton" Puurtinen and drummer Mika Kristian "Gas" Karppinen.
[edit] European success
The band released their first full-length studio album, "Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666", on November 20, 1997. The album features covers of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" and Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". Four singles were released from the album, including the aforementioned Isaak cover, "Your Sweet Six Six Six", "When Love and Death Embrace" and lastly "It's All Tears (Drown in This Love)".
[edit] Razorblade Romance
After gaining popularity in Europe, particularly their homeland, HIM released their second album in 1999, titled "Razorblade Romance". This is when the band's popularity began to rise, their single "Join Me in Death" from the album reached #1 on the German music charts.
Following this German success they released two more Germany only singles from this album; "Right Here in My Arms" and "Gone With the Sin". Which reached #20 and #19 on the charts respectively. Around this time they were also becoming more well known in other parts of Europe, such as the United Kingdom. The album itself reached #1 in both Germany and their native Finland.
[edit] Daniel Lioneye and Deep Shadows
During 2001, before the group's third release, the members of HIM formed a new band, Daniel Lioneye, it was aimed to be a solo project of guitarist Linde, who took on the vocal spot and the stagename Daniel Lioneye for it.
The style of music played on the album falls between bluesy-hard rock, with sleaze rock themed such as sex and alchohol and rock 'n' roll. Migé Amour played bass, Ville Valo was on drums, with Hiili on keyboards, and Ike on sound effects. They released one album, "The King of Rock'n Roll", in September of 2001. Although it was not a commerical success, it retains a cult following.
After the Daniel Lioneye project, HIM released "Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights" on August 2001. This was the band's first album with new keyboarder Emerson Burton, the final addition to the current line-up. Once again the album shot to #1 in their Finnish homeland, making them the most dominant homegrown band in their country since Hanoi Rocks in the 1980s, it also reached #2 in Germany. Three singles were released from it "Pretending" (which reached #10 in Germany), "In Joy and Sorrow" and a double single featuring both "Heartache Every Moment" and "Close to the Flame".
[edit] Worldwide artists
On April 14, 2003, HIM released "Love Metal". This was the first album that did not feature singer/songwriter Ville Valo on the cover. Instead, it featured a gold heartagram, the band's well-known logo. The same could be said for the singles, which also featured sigils. "The Funeral of Hearts" was the first single and their first high appearence on the United Kingdom charts at #15, it also hit #3 in Germany. It was followed by "Buried Alive By Love" and "The Sacrament".
Around this time the group became more well-known in America and internationally when professional skateboarder and TV personality Bam Margera began using the band's heartagram logo and promoting them extensively on his MTV series "Viva La Bam". Margera produced their video for "Buried Alive By Love", which featured a guest appearence from Natural Born Killers actress Juliet Lewis. They played at Download Festival in 2003 on the second stage with The Hellacopters, the following year they would go on to headline the same stage.
[edit] HER
"Razorblade Romance" was re-released and put into stores in the United States, but HIM was not allowed to use their name for sales in the country because another American band owned the rights to that name. Therefore, they changed their name to HER only for the United States and "Razorblade Romance". Eventually, the full rights to HIM were finally bought, and copies of the album bearing the name HER were discontinued and replaced by the correctly titled HIM version.
[edit] Dark Light
HIM's fifth studio album, 2005's "Dark Light", became their full breakout in the United States, debuting in the top 20 of the Billboard Top 200 and spawning two major rock hits, "Wings Of A Butterfly" and "Killing Loneliness", both of which have accompanying videos. In the summer of 2005 they played the mainstage of Download Festival with Black Sabbath and Velvet Revolver.
The success of Dark Light has also allowed a number of HIM's previous albums (including Love Metal) to chart in the United States. It was announced in October 2006 on their official website that "Dark Light" had been certified Gold by the RIAA in America. This made HIM the first band from Finland to sell over 500,000 records in the US.
In addition to their studio albums, HIM has released several compilations. These include the "Love Metal Archives" DVD, the multi-disc "Singles Collection", a greatest hits titled "And Love Said No", and a DVD collection of their videos through 2003.
[edit] Recent events
HIM released thier third compilation album titled Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 in November 2006. Valo announced in the UK magazine Kerrang! in an interview during 2006, that HIM will start recording their next studio album in the summer of that year and that it would be released around September or October of 2007. [1]
[edit] Heartagram
Heartagram is the name of a trademarked symbol of HIM. It consists of a heart and a pentagram. The heartagram has been falsely associated with satanism, so some believe HIM is satanic, which is false according to Valo. The heartagram symbolizes the contrast or perfect balance between life and death or love and hatred, or even love and death together.[citation needed] Valo has said that "the heartagram stands for HIM as a band, as an entity, and for 'love metal' in general,".[2]
Many fans of the band have heartagrams tattoos or tattoos of other HIM emblems (such as the single heart on Valo's right wrist). Fan-submitted photos of such tattoos decorated the lyric booklet for the limited edition of Dark Light.
Jackass star, professional skateboarder and Ville Valo's close friend Bam Margera has agreed to share the license on the image and is accordingly entitled to use it for his promotional purposes.[citation needed] Because of that many people think it's Bam's logo, but even so that has been profitable for the band because it gives them a lot of publicity, and according to Ville in one of his interviews, more people know the band because of the symbol and Bam than because of their music.
[edit] Name confusion
Their first bandname was His Infernal Majesty (chosen spontaneously, almost as a joke). But as their popularity rose, they needed to change their name because:
- Finnish people were having difficulties pronouncing the name
- The band name was never actually serious
- The band started getting unwanted occult associations
Consequently, the band changed the name to HIM from the Wicked Game single (The "Your Sweet Six Six Six" single included a 'His Infernal Majesty' sticker) onwards. Some people, mainly American fans and journalists, incorrectly use "H.I.M.".
In the official HIM biography, Synnin Viemaa, Ville Valo admitted to making things up and joking about the name during interviews, leading to conflicting accounts of the origin of the name and the confusion that exists today. During an interview, Valo has said:
- "In almost every interview someone asks what does HIM stand for. I can't even remember our latest lie about that. When Hanson was hot, we said it means Hanson Is Murder. The name doesn't have a particular history. His Infernal Majesty was a totally different band. I think HIM derives from some death metal joke. And it was our protest to Haile Selassie's rastafarian religion, he used to be called His Imperial Majesty. But nowadays because of Linde's hair, we actually might be supporting him."
Their first major US release, Razorblade Romance, was released under the name HER because a New York based post-rock band named HiM held the trademark on the name. HIM eventually bought the rights to the name "HIM" in the US.
[edit] Genre controversy
HIM's widely-debated musical style is often referred to as "love metal" by Valo and by the group's fans. Musically the band mix influences from gothic rock, hard rock and early heavy metal. Ville Valo has stated that the band started as a "Black Sabbath tribute band of sorts"[3], which further solidifies the band's heavy metal leanings.
Critics commonly refer to them as gothic metal or gothic rock. However, their musical style varies between albums, and even between songs. Some of the more common genres applied (correctly or not) to their music include:
[edit] Members
- Ville Valo — Vocals (1991–Present)
- Linde — Guitar (1991-Present)
- Migé Amour — Bass Guitar (1991-Present)
- Emerson Burton — Keyboards (2001-Present)
- Gas Lipstick — Drums (1999-Present)
[edit] Former members
- Antto Einari Melasniemi — Keyboards (1995-1998)
- Zoltan Pluto — Keyboards (1998-2000)
- Juippi — Drums (1991-1992)
- Tarvonen — Drums (1991-1992)
- Pätkä — Drums (1995-1999)
- Oki — Rhythm Guitar (1992-1996)
[edit] Discography
- "Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666" - (1997)
- "Razorblade Romance" - (2000)
- "Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights" - (2001)
- "Love Metal" - (2003)
- "Dark Light" - (2005)
[edit] References
- ^ Blabbermouth
- ^ Heartagram - Valo
- ^ Black Sabbath - Tribute
- ^ MetaCritic
- ^ Metal-Observer
- ^ AllMusic
- ^ MetaCritic
- ^ RockDetector
- ^ NNDB.com
