Early Life and Influences
Ville Hermanni Valo was born in the Vallila district of Helsinki. His father, Kari, is Finnish and his mother, Anita, is of Hungarian descent. Soon after his birth, the family moved to the riverside community of Oulunkylä where they lived throughout his teenage years. In 1984 his younger brother and only sibling Jesse was born. In his late teens, he worked at his father's sex shop and later moved out on his own when he was 18.
As a child, Valo was exposed to the songs of popular Finnish performers such as Tapio Rautavaara and Rauli Badding Somerjoki. In various interviews he has cited his favourite artists include King Diamond, Elvis Presley, Neil Young, and Dir En Grey, as well as bands such as Fields of the Nephilim, The Sisters of Mercy, Black Sabbath, Type O Negative, Depeche Mode, Iron Maiden, Kiss, and The Stooges. Valo is frontman of the Finnish rock band HIM, who are currently working on their eighth studio album. They became the first and only Finnish rock band to achieve a gold record (more than 500,000 copies) in the United States. Valo was also the drummer for the Daniel Lioneye project which featured HIM's guitarist Linde Lindström on vocals/lead guitar and Migé Amour on bass. In late 2007, Valo went to a rehab facility called "Promises" in Malibu, to drop his habit of drinking alcohol. He currently resides in Helsinki
Read more about this topic: Ville Valo
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or influences:
“But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Whoever influences the child’s life ought to try to give him a positive view of himself and of his world. The child’s future happiness and his ability to cope with life and relate to others will depend on it.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)