TASTEIT TV – Picking Ville Valo’s brain, special guest: his ghost.



Part1
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- Tasteit TV. We really wanna see the person behind the artist. I don’t mean that who you are daily or all that stupid crap. We just wanna know what you think and where your music and inspiration come from. Because for us that’s what a real artist is.
- Yeah, for me too, you know. I grew up with Black Sabbath and they’re always the same characters on and off stage, and same, I’m big fan of Neil Young; and he’s the same character, you know. I do love Kiss and David Bowie, and I do like some aspects of let’s say of Marilyn Manson, for example. But I never wanted to be a part of that thing that you would wear a mask to become an artist or have character, like Alice Cooper, that kind of thing. I’m not that much into theatrics and I’m not an actor myself. You’re just (???) a bit on acoustic guitar, writing a few songs, and then, hopefully, one day perform them in front of people. The word “artist”, it’s got two angles today. In some people it, kind of like, evokes an idea of a self-centered, pseudo-rebellious person who doesn’t give a flying F about politics of the world or anything besides themselves. And then again, it’s (???) kinda challenging character that challenges the whole world, in a sense, so…I don’t like the word ‘artist’. You know, it’s just a word, which is hard to categorize, anyway. Because, what is an artist? And… (zhurnalistka pytaetsia vstavit svoji piat kopejek) and how- Sorry about that – And how do you separate entertainment from art, or life from art, you know, life imitating art or art imitating life, that kind of thing.
- I think art needs to be real and it needs to come from emotions, to me- that’s art.
- Yeah, in that sense life itself is very art form, you know. Every creature, every human being is a piece of art, everybody‘s got a story to tell, everybody’s got a different (???) to their work, and usually for a reason, if you know what I’m saying. In that sense, it’s like on an atomic level, even genetics, you know, even your genes, DNA, that’s part of art, you can go that far very easily and it’s not negative thing at all. But, in that sense, how do you define art, you know, when we’re talking about (kakoe to imia) selling his pieces of spank for like hundred thousands (??). So, that’s kind of like the challenging part of it. And, I can’t remember, it was probably Oscar Wilde saying that when two businessmen get together for a dinner what they discus about art, or when the artists get together for a dinner they discuss about money. So, it’s one of those things. It’s hard to define the line when it becomes art and when it doesn’t. So, in that sense, you know, I don’t care. I just have the great opportunity of writing music and being able to see a lot of places in the world through traveling and touring, so… If it’s art, I’m fine about it, if it’s not I’m fine about it too.
- Ok, maybe I worded it wrong…
- No no no. By the way, that’s a fascinating topic to discuss about, because a lot of people see art as a kind of a shield, like a mask they’re wearing, that they don’t have to apply to the rules of society.
- I never saw art like that. To me art was the most honest thing that existed.
- Sure. Yes, but then again everything was art for (Dali ??), at the end of the day he was great entertainer. And to a certain extent if you take entertainment as far as lets say Kiss – it is art. It’s pop-art, maybe. And what’s the difference of pop-art and art? (?? Neponiatnoe predlozhenie) or his movie about a guy sleeping for 8 hours. (??) if you just, if you verbally talented enough you could turn this conversation into an art piece. And we can make it art. If you know what I’m saying. It’s just a matter of the angle how we’re viewing what we’re doing here at this particular moment of time.
- What is pain for you?
- Well, you know, to a certain extent when it comes to art our music or expressing ourselves is one of the things in this world in this modern times, you know, everybody’s probably said that for the past 2000 years that pain is a reminder of that you live, in a way.
- What causes your pain?
- Oh, what causes my pain? Eh, watching the news. There’s a lot of painful stuff happening in this world. You know, obviously, there’s a lot of thing being personal and a lot of things I don’t wish to talk about, because in the case of me talking about particular painful things that cause me to write a song I would destroy the image that people have created of couple of our songs. And that’s the beauty behind the book versus movie, that you can make your imagination work. Or, finding one line in the song very important for you in that particular moment in time, for very different reasons that was important for me. And that’s what behind music in general. I don’t know where (imia) was looking for from what he wrote the lyrics of Paranoid. And I can still feel my own feelings through that song, and I guess that that’s the important thing. That’s the song aura, aura (??) can be a catalyst for yourself, subconsciously it alters your state of mind and you get something out for yourself. And I guess, that’s a good thing. And it opens… it gets couple of skeletons out of the closet.
- So, you actually want people to be free to interpret your songs.
- Yeah, we’ve never been a religious or political band, we don’t have a message, in that sense. So, all the stuff we’ve done was very personal. So, it’s kind of weird also to write at times very personal things, very … you know, stuff that’s very really close to me, and then hide it behind some lyrics, not to be too blunt, and I’m not talking about James. And…and eh… and then see how it affect people so differently. It’s kind of weird, it’s like being (??) man jerking off in public. If you know, kinda the vibe. So, it is weird but…it’s also, you know, I started writing because it’s very cathartic and maybe I didn’t have friend to talk to at that time about me having my heart broken for the first time, or whatever. So, it was very natural for me since I have been playing music to express myself through music, so, and it made me feel better. And that’s what music at its best does, you know. When you’re feeling really bad, the weird thing is that when people feel bad they usually never listen to positive stuff, they always listen to really gloomy and doomy and rocking stuff, it’s like a cathartic thing, they’re experiencing their pain with the artist, maybe from a different angle, on a different level. But still again…
- They don’t feel alone…
- They don’t feel alone with the bad thing that they have. And then when they’re having a good time that when they’re listening to (???), or whatever.
- Yeah yeah yeah. I’ve been talking about good and bad, actually, and wanted to ask you- what do you think of what good and bad is. And I need this because I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I mean, you have these.. you have society, and you have a way that you’re supposed to behave, and then you have a definition of good and ban in society. But I think a lot of pain is caused by the definition of good and bad, because sometimes that’s not the same thing that you’re feeling and –I don’t know if I’m making myself clear…
- Yes, you are.
- But what is good and bad for you and how did you discover your good and bad?
- I guess that’s an ongoing journey, because I still do believe that people learn from their own mistakes and that’s probably the only way you can actually learn. You do something, and all of a sudden, you realize that you’re feeling bad because of it, and that makes you not repeat that thing, which means that everybody does have their own rules of good and bad. And, I was talking to a friend and he was an aspiring archeologist before he turned into journalism, and one of his teachers at school somewhere was, he was studying a little tribe somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in a forest somewhere, I can’t remember where it was in the world, but there were maybe 300 people in the tribe, and before a kid turned, a male turned into a man, I guess I was 15 or 16, before that their routine was, I don’t know how often, was to jerk the granddad off, and that was considered… that was an honour to do that. It wasn’t called molestation what it would be in western world. So it’s kind of weird, especially now when it comes to pornography and violence, videogames. It’s kinda weird that you’re able to, let’s say Lord of the Rings, you’re able to show the beheadings of zillion orks, because – for 12 yea olds– because their blood is black. Originally, I guess they were thinking of making blood red, but because red is kinda a real color of blood it would be for some censorship organization too real. So it’s kind of weird how you define wrong or right, and I still do consider if you watch a film like “Closer”, the drama, it’s a lot more emotionally devastating than seeing a lot of violence, because we are so very descent to violence, we see so much. But, that’s a tough question what’s wrong a right, and you can speculate about that forever. And I guess we still don’t know the answer when we’re (???), that could be the meaning of life trying to define the rights or wrong for you, yourself. That’s an interesting thing, without hurting anybody else. Outside of it that’s nearly impossible but it’s always working.
Part2
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