H.I.M
HIM started out as a cover band, covering songs of artists such as KISS, Type O Negative, 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. HIM made a demo tape called Witches and Other Night Fears, which was done in 1992, but Ville Valo is the only person to have a copy. In late fall of 1995, HIM released This is Only the Beginning. This too was a demo tape, with only 100 copies made and sold in specially chosen stores on Helsinki. It featured the first version HIM had done of "Wicked Game" and "The Heartless". The tape also includes rare songs "Serpent Ride", "Borellus", "Stigmata Diaboli" and "The Phantom Gate". This album was done only with Ville singing and playing drums, while Linde was playing guitar and bass. 666 Ways to Love: Prologue was released in 1996 solely in Finland, and only 1,000 copies of this album was sold. It was produced by Hiili Hiilesmaa, and was recorded at Finnvox Studios, MD and Peacemakers, Helsinki. The band released their first full-length studio album, Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666, on November 20, 1997. It 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. The album was produced by Hiili Hiilesmaa, who also produced their EP 666 Ways to Love: Prologue. Like the EP, the album was recorded at Finnvox, MD and Peacemakers in Helsinki, Finland. Guest vocals were provided by Sanna-June Hyde and Asta Hannula on "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" and "For You", respectively. A special digipak version was also released with "For You" moved to the first track. Another special edition was released in Germany with the bonus track "Stigmata Diaboli", taken from 666 Ways to Love: Prologue. In keeping with the theme of 666, the album's length is 66 minutes and 6 seconds and contains a total of 66 tracks (56 of which are blank). There is another track which starts at 6 minutes into the 66th track, called HIM 666. This album is also the only HIM album so far to have hidden bonus tracks. 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, selling over 500,000 of this single in two months. 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. In 2002, Razorblade Romance was re-released and put into stores in the United States. HIM was not allowed to use their name for sales because of the American band, HiM, owned the rights to that name. Therefore, they changed the name to HER in the United States, and to HIM and HER in Europe, for this release. Eventually, full rights to the name HIM were bought, and copies of the album bearing the name HER were discontinued and replaced by the correctly titled HIM version. Of the alternatively titled album, only 1000 copies exist, which makes it a rare collectible amongst HIM fans. 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 stage name Daniel Lioneye for it. The style of music played on the album falls between bluesy-hard rock, with sleaze rock themes such as sex, alcohol 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 2001, and have only performed together for four shows. Although it was not a commercial success, it retains a cult following. After the Daniel Lioneye project, HIM released Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights in 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". Such success further facilitated their gradual emergence into the mainstream. 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 Funeral of Hearts" was the first single and their first high appearance 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 the time of the Love Metal album 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 appearance from Natural Born Killers actress Juliette 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. And Love Said No: The Greatest Hits 1997-2004 is HIM's first greatest hits album. It contains two unreleased songs: "And Love Said No" and "Solitary Man", the latter of which is a Neil Diamond cover. It also had a rerecorded version of "When Love And Death Embrace" and the British version also had a rerecorded version of "It's All Tears (Drown In This Love)". The digipak version of this album came with a DVD with six songs live at Semifinal Club in Helsinki. 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 2006/2007, HIM released their second and third compilation albums titled Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 and Uneasy Listening Vol. 2, respectively. Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 was released in 2006 on October 27 in Germany, October 30 in the United Kingdom and November 14 in the United States. It contains special versions of various songs from their albums Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666, Razorblade Romance, Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights and Love Metal. Most of which has already been released on various special limited editions of the maxi-singles. Uneasy Listening Vol. 2 was released in 2007 on April 20 in Germany, April 24 and 25 in rest of Europe, May 22 in the United States and May 25 in Australia. It contains many rare tracks such as "Hand of Doom" which was released on the Love Metal Archives DVD. Venus Doom is scheduled for release on September 17, 2007 internationaly and September 18, 2007 in the US. It is said that it will be HIM's heaviest material to date. At the "Give It A Name Festival 07'" HIM played one of the songs off of Venus Doom called "Dead Lovers' Lane" The video for this song is available on YouTube. According to the June Issue of AP magazine, Ville stated that the longest song on the album is to be around 10 - 11 minutes while the shortest song is about 5 minutes and a half.
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