Himfinland.net met up with Ville Valo in Helsinki on Monday 24th July 2006. Ville kindly spared us an hour and a half of his well-deserved summer vacation, and chatted to us about the band's tour plans, the upcoming album, what it's like on tour, and how over-enthusiastic fans sometimes make life rather difficult.

HF.net: So, how does it feel to be on vacation?

Ville: I haven't had time to be on vacation yet. We've just done a festival, and we were in Romania the weekend before last, after which I flew to a meeting in England, where I spent three days and met some of my friends and the press. I came back to Finland on Friday night and - what day is it? [Monday] and on Wednesday I'm going to Hamburg, for a holiday, though. Anyway, there've been all kinds of hassles, so I haven't had a chance to settle down properly. I also moved a while ago, so I need to take care of things like buying toilet paper, sheets and other basic stuff. And when you haven't done that for a while, it's damn hard (laughs).

HF.net: And you probably want to see family, too...

Ville: You're right. Actually, I haven't seen my mom yet, although I've talked with her on the phone rather a lot. And I'm going to Hamburg with my little brother, to celebrate his birthday.

HF.net: Many people want to know about this "Design the new heartagram" competition. What's it all about, and whose idea was it?

Ville: I don't really know where the idea came from. I believe some person had designed several different heartagrams and people were supposed to choose the best of them, and it would've been used for something. But I thought those heartagrams totally sucked, so I suggested that people rather send in what they want. And I don't know what the prize is.

HF.net: I think it's one of those 'Dark Light' gold record editions. At least that's what it said on the website.

Ville: Sure. I don't use the Internet that much. In America it's a very important medium, and there are competitions and other stuff all the time. I'm not familiar with them, because the band doesn't follow those things - and we're constantly on tour anyway. But the idea was that if someone comes up with something brilliant, it gives us ideas as well. It's creative work after all, and those ideas may be used on the cover of a single or something, and then the guy who created it gets a piece of the fame.

HF.net: You just played a show in Romania, and from what we hear there were people from Warner shooting a live DVD. Is this correct?

Ville: No. We were originally supposed to shoot the DVD there, but we didn't because the location costs and the technical standards weren't up to the standard that we wanted. And there wasn't enough time, either. Sibiu is a fantastic medieval town, but to shoot the DVD there would have required written permission from every house. It was really complicated. Warner is hoping to produce the DVD in a couple of months. I don't know the exact location and time, but sometime around August we're going to film a show and add some other material to that

By the way, there's this system in America these days.. DVDs are sold in normal CD packs, among normal music CDs, so that they come together with the CD. That means that people buy both the record and the DVD - it's just that the price is not that bad, only about $24.90. So they're actually buying both Dark Light and DVD and that means they both turn up on the charts. This is sort of political, and it differs from country to country. The record companies have also calculated that if you have an ordinary DVD case, it sells much less than if the DVD is in an ordinary CD case. People simply don't browse music DVDs. Anyway, Warner probably wants that DVD out by Christmas, so that it would increase our record sales. After all, we're after a gold record and it would be fabulous to be the first Finnish rock band to get one.