People can’t help but stare when Ville Valo walks past. They don’t know who Ville Valo is, but they know he must be someone, for he oozes the sort of insouciant cool that only the staggeringly confident and achingly hip can pull off. To walk alongside Ville through the hateful tourist trap that is London’s Leicester Square on a chilly spring evening is to know how it must feel to be invisible, for passers-by are blinkered and focused as their puzzled eyes lock on the Finn’s chiselled features, searching for clues as to his identity. They’ll search in vain, for in this country Ville Valo is a nobody, albeit a decidedly handsome nobody.”
With these words, in 2003, readers of the world’s largest weekly rock magazine were introduced to the frontman of fast-rising gothic rock band Him. The date was February 25, and walking alongside Him’s lighting engineer, and this writer, Ville was bound for the UK premiere of Jackass: The Movie at Leicester Square Odeon, at the invitation of cast member and pro skateboarder Bam Margera, one of the then26-year-old vocalist’s best friends, and, at the time, Him’s most vocal, evangelical and high-profile fan.
Perhaps predictably, aided by models
