
Ville Hermanni Valo (born November 22, 1976) is the vocalist, songwriter and frontman of the Finnish alternative rock band HIM. They have released five full length albums, and as of 2006, they are the first and only Finnish rock band to sell Gold in the United States.
Official site: http://www.heartagram.com
Official Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/heartagram
Early life
Valo was born at 8:28 a.m. to a Finnish father Kari and a Hungarian descent mother Anita in a small wooden-house suburb of Helsinki called Vallila. As a child, he was influenced by his music-loving parents, who exposed him to the songs of popular Finnish performers such as Tapio Rautavaara and Rauli Badding Somerjoki, while an older cousin introduced him to the heavier sounds of bands like KISS, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Valo's first musical step was as a three year old bongo drummer. At age nine, Valo attended the Pop and Jazz Conservatory in Helsinki, where he studied several different musical genres. Soon after his birth, his family moved to the riverside community of Oulunkylä, where his father eventually opened a sex shop. During his late teens Valo spent a period working in the shop before launching his career in music. His interests gradually expanded to include reggae, early blues and country-oriented material such as Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Neil Young. From a young age, Valo's enthusiasm for music also took a more active form of expression, and he participated in a large number of different Helsinki-based bands: B.L.O.O.D. (1986-89), Eloveena Boys (1987-88), Kemoterapia (1989-97) and numerous other, more obscure projects.
The Birth of HIM
In 1995, Valo enlisted old schoolmates Mikko ("Lilly Lazer" now "Linde") Lindstrom and Mikko ("Mige Amour") Heinrik -- augmented by drummer Juhana Rantala and keyboardist Antto Melasniemi -- to form HIM, a band that blended a goth-drag presentation with heavy metal, ambiguous mysticism and dark, fatalistic romanticism (a combination that would ultimately earn the media tag of "Love Metal"). He started out by playing bass for his band HIM, however he had to sing for their first demo as they couldn't find a vocalist. He then became full-time vocalist for them. He also plays drums and guitar on some of HIM's songs.






















