Biography questions

[EricDraven]

I spent some time google'ing about HIM's early biography and actually I found a lot of differing stories. So maybe someone here could help me clearing up some things:

1. Where & when (time) was Ville born?
2. His Infernal Majesty was found in which year?
3. Who are the founding members?
4. Anyone knows of a 7 track demo tape called "Witches and Other Night Fears from 1991?
5. Who recorded the 3 track demo tape in Lepakko (?) and when?
6. Who recorded the 3 track demo tape in Tapanila (?) and when?

I would be glad about every single bit of information, but please also tell me the source where you're taking that information from (like from "Synnin Viemää", page XY).

[Supervixen]

Is this a quiz? What's the prize?

1. Ville Valo - place and time of birth
Born November 22, 1976 at 8:28 AM
in Helsinki (Finlande)
Sagittarius 0°05 AS Scorpio 27°19

source: http://www.astrotheme.fr/en/portrait.php?info=1&clef=BKmSdNXAH66J
this site is pretty accurate
btw, click on "dominant planets, horoscope and interactive chart" to see his astro profile. On that site you can even see your compatibility with Ville. Hehe, girl's gonna love that.

[robertzombie]

I spent some time google'ing about HIM's early biography and actually I found a lot of differing stories. So maybe someone here could help me clearing up some things:

1. Where & when (time) was Ville born?
2. His Infernal Majesty was found in which year?
3. Who are the founding members?
4. Anyone knows of a 7 track demo tape called "Witches and Other Night Fears from 1991?
5. Who recorded the 3 track demo tape in Lepakko (?) and when?
6. Who recorded the 3 track demo tape in Tapanila (?) and when?

I would be glad about every single bit of information, but please also tell me the source where you're taking that information from (like from "Synnin Viemää", page XY).

HIM formed in 1991. They recorded a 7 track demo in 1992. The tracks include Black Candles, Don't Fear The Reaper, Wicked Game, The Heartless and others that I don't know. The only people that have a copy are Ville and (supposedly) Bam.
The Lepakko and Tapanila tapes were both recorded in 1995.

The source is my own knowledge, so I could be wrong on some stuff but I'm pretty certain about it.

Here's some info that I wrote for my GCSE ICT HIM powerpoint presentation:

HIM got together in 1991. Ville Valo and Linde Lindström assembled three songs which they played to their friend Mige who instantly knew that the two of them should form a Band. They decided that Ville should be the vocalist and Linde would play guitar and bass. They set about recruiting a drummer but couldn’t find one in time so Ville played drums on the first demo tape. Which was recorded in 1992.

[Harker]

The demos Lepakko and Tapanila are called after the name of the studio/place

Demo 1 recorded around 1995 in Lepakko
Ville: drums & vocals
Linde: guitars & bass.
Demo 2 recorded in summer 1995 in Tapanila
Ville: vocals
Linde: guitars
Mige: Bass
Juhana Rantala: drums

http://www.himforfans.de/html/body_demos.html:

The second HIM demo was recorded at the finnish club “Lepakko� (translated bat) 1995, no releases. Tracklist:
Borellus
Serpent Ride
The Heartless

The third HIM demo was recorded at “Tapanila� in Finland 1995, no releases. Tracklist:
Stigmata Diaboli
Wicked Game (Demo Version)
The Phantom Gate

Foundings members:
Ville, Linde and Mige (left temporality because of joining the army)


More information about mebers/recordings etc:
Read English parts of Synnin Viemáá Collected by Whitetrashhobo



There are rumors going that the next songs are on the Witches And Other Nightfears demo:
Black Candles
Don't Fear The Reaper
Wicked Game
The Heartless
Love's Requiem
Source: HIM fans on the internet 

[EricDraven]

Thank you all for your help so far! I hope we're getting closer or could find the truth somewhere in between...

I found e.g. that site http://www.buzznet.com/tags/mige/journals/28046/ saying that HIM was formed in 1991 by Ville and Migé. Linde joined in 1993. As Migé went to military service (in finland 13-16 months), only Ville and Lindé recorded the demos 1993 & 1995.

As for Ville's birth Synnin Viemää says that Ville was born in Kätilöopisto hospital in Helsinki, no exact time mentioned (http://www.himsite.addr.com/synninviemaa.html). English Wikipedia says he was born in some wooden house at 8:28 am (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ville_Valo)

[robertzombie]

I have the dvd "Poison Arrow" it tells you lots of stuff about the bands origins, i'll watch it on the weekend and type some stuff up

[Jerry Lee]

I have the dvd "Poison Arrow" it tells you lots of stuff about the bands origins, i'll watch it on the weekend and type some stuff up

They don't even say Ville's name right. lol

But they do interview people who knew about HIM before all of us.

[Sucubus666]

I have Witches and Other Nightfears 

[smedlock]

I want witches and other nightfears lol

[robertzombie]

I have Witches and Other Nightfears

you're not the only one

[Thanatos]

  both have witches and other nightfears

but how do yoou get it...

i dont think you wanna share with us but its true?

[Sucubus666]

yes its true. and no i won't share. most of you are dicks to me soooo lol
i guess its mostly my fault that you are dicks to me, but i don't care, you can't have it.

[Jerry Lee]

Alright, trivia.

On the very last part of the track. What is said? What is the last words?

[Thanatos]

yes its true. and no i won't share. most of you are dicks to me soooo lol
i guess its mostly my fault that you are dicks to me, but i don't care, you can't have it.

almost fall asleep  reading this shit zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Sucubus666]

Alright, trivia.

On the very last part of the track. What is said? What is the last words?

Some people claim that there's a woman to blame,

But I know it's nobody's fault.


duh. everyone knows that.

[dahaka]

If "everybody" has Witches and other night fears. Why don't share it? At least one song. I don't understand you guys

[Sucubus666]

cuz we're greedy bastards and maybe its special to have something that not everyone has, like a third nipple, or a prince albert.

[Len666]

i'm sure it'll get released eventually bmg is going to try and make what ever money they can off the band. they must have the rights to it. if love's requiem was on witches and other night fears then re-recorded for love metal than they have the rights for it. it'll probably be a while, once him starts really blowing up in the states all that stuff will get released. at least i think so any way.

[Thanatos]

If "everybody" has Witches and other night fears. Why don't share it? At least one song. I don't understand you guys

succubus is a fuc...  liar dont believe him

[smedlock]

Sucubus666 youd be suprized how many ppl acually hav a prince albert, lol

[Jerry Lee]

Are we talking about the peircing here?

If so. My tattoo artist has one.

My cousin does too.

Pretty sweet shit.

[MiLToS_666]

Hello,

I would like to add my 2 cents since the 1995 demos were kinda leaked by me back in the days... A guy from Finland contacted me claiming that he had both HIM demos from 1995. The first one, we already had it from "Napster" but in inferior 128kbit mp3s and the songs were "Serpent Ride, Borellus, The Heartless". The second demo... with the songs "Wicked Game (the actual demo not the one from the EP we already had mislabeled as demo), Stigmata Diaboli, Phantom Gate". I was kinda unsure about the authenticity of these files so I told him to send me 30sec clips from the files and tell me where he got the mp3s from. He did send me the clips... Believe me... It was indeed jaw-dropping to listen to these unsurfaced demos... He told me that he got the mp3s from a guy who had the 2 demos directly from HIM in cassetes and that he had transfered the tracks himself but sold the tapes after that... Also, he told me to look into "Synnin Viemää" pages 48-49 to see that the names of the demo songs are written there for real... After that, we setup a trade for A HELL LOT of live cds and in return i would get the 6 original 192kbit mp3 files directly from him... As soon as I got my hands on the mp3s I posted a topic in www.himclub.com forums and announced the surfacing... I also posted some proof and in no time everybody had the files that I uploaded to my old site! The places that the recordings took place are written in pages 48-49 as well and so, I made a small description and uploaded the info to my site... But here comes the strange thing that no-one knows...
I met Ville & Mige backstage in 2003 gig in Athens, Greece, I had recorded the demos on a CD-R and I wanted to give that to Seppo cause he always liked bootlegs (that's why he had contacted me in 2002 asking me to make a complete copy of my live cd collection for him). When I took the CD-R out of my pocket and gave it to Ville, he was shocked! He gave it to Mige and they asked me where on earth did I find this! Then Ville turned it around and I had written on the covers the info about "Lepakko" and "Tapanila"... He said "Hey, those were not recorded there... Hmmm I can't remember... Mige?" but Mige was far too busy with fans all over the place... So, he thanked me and said that he will give it to Seppo (I met Seppo on my way out and told him that I gave sth to Ville for him)...

That's the brief story, it's the first time I'm writing about this although I have talked about it with some people... Sorry about the grammar, I wrote things as they were coming to my mind.

About "Witches And Other Night-Fears"... Some info about it is written in pages 23-24 and it also mentions that HIM were formed in 1991 but since I can't read finnish... Someone had to help us with the translation...

Last thing... Turn on page 51 in "Synnin Viemää" and you will see another demo from Ville & Mige called "Unga Kaskelotäär"

MiLToS_666

P.S. My only wish is to have these demos released in great quality someday... The noise reduction shit used on them has destroyed the sound...

[EricDraven]

Hey MiLToS_666, thanks a lot for that great story! It's just sad, that we still don't know when and where those two demos have been recorded.

Never heard about that "Unga Kaskelotäär" demo so far and I can't take a look into "Synnin Viemää" as I don't have it as I think it makes no sense as I can't read finnish. I've read that HIM aka Kafferi recorded a demo called "Xilqa Xilqa Besa Besa" but I'm not sure if that is true or just someones wild fantasy (see http://villelover90.buzznet.com/user/journal/28046/).

I hope some fins are here in this forum owning that book and those people will help us out. Do you know Hanne (a finnish girl around 30, that lives in USA for quite some time already and that was a lot into trading about 5-7 years ago) - maybe she could help.

More details about those demos or the band forming would be really interesting!

[Sucubus666]

miltos is where i got borellus from the first time, back in the day, but the actual files for the demos i received from an anonymous source.

[MiLToS_666]

That "Xilqa Xilqa Besa Besa" is also mentioned in the same pages...
I will post a scan of the "Unga Kaskelotäär" demo tape in a while, have to get my scanner connected!

MiLToS_666

EDIT: Here it is, look at the date of the recording! 01-26 December 1992
This demo is only Ville & Mige, there's info about the studio that the recording took place and even "Fan Club" info!