About Ville Valo

Ville Hermanni Valo was born on November 22, 1976 at 8:28 a.m., in a small wood-house suburb of Helsinki called Vallila. Valo was born to Finnish father Kari, who owns a sex shop, and a Hungarian mother Anita. He is the vocalist, songwriter and frontman of the Finnish band HIM. Valo is one of the founding members of HIM, a band that have gone on to enjoy success across Europe and the US. He currently lives in Finland and is known to be friends with skateboarder and 'Jackass', Bam Margera, Valo also appeared in Bam's MTV show Viva la Bam. Ville Valo is often known for having a charisma that "enchants" many listeners, as well as drawing inspiration from many dark aspects/themes that reflect himself at worse times (solitary, loneliness, lost love, ect.).The somber and often introverted Valo has drawn comparisons to late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison of The Doors (whom Ville played in The 69 Eyes video 'Wasting The Dawn'). Ville Valo's first musical step was as a three year old bongo drummer. Aged 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 Ville spent a period working in the shop before launching his career in music. 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. 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. At the age of around 18 (during hangover) he invented a symbol that looked like an upsidedown star shaped like a heart and he called it the 'heartagram'. Many people get this confused with the sign of the devil, but it is actually mean't to show love and hate, the good and bad sides of love, alot like the Ying Yang symbol. It's also similar to logo of Finnish hospital called Mehiläinen. Bam Margera shares the copywrite to use the 'Heartagram' by Ville Vallo.