HIM is a band from Finland formed in 1991 by vocalist Ville Valo, guitarist Mikko Viljami "Linde" Lindström, and bassist Mikko Henrik Julius "Migé" Paananen. As of 2006, they are the first and only Finnish rock band to sell Gold in the USA. The band's name was His Infernal Majesty at the beginning, but was changed to just "H.I.M." or "HIM" after people started associating the band with Satanism in Finland. They were also known as HER and HIM and HER for a brief time while in the United States and Germany, respectively.

History

HIM started out as a cover band of artists such as Type O Negative, KISS, Danzig, Black Sabbath and Depeche Mode.

After many lineup changes and a hiatus from 1991 to 1995 caused by the members' military services, the band now consists of the three founding members plus keyboardist Janne Johannes "Burton" Puurtinen and drummer Mika Kristian "Gas" Karppinen.

The band released their first studio album, Greatest Love Songs Vol. 666, on November 20, 1997. The album features covers of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game" and Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". After gaining popularity in Europe, particularly their homeland, with the success of their second album, 1999's Razorblade Romance, HIM broke out into the mainstream in the UK in the early 2000s. The group became more well-known in America and internationally when professional skateboarder and TV personality Bam Margera began using the band's heartagram logo and promoting them extensively on his MTV series Viva La Bam.

Razorblade Romance reached some stores in the United States, but HIM was not allowed to use their name for sales in the U.S. because another American band owned the rights to that name. Therefore, they changed their name to HER only for the U.S. and Razorblade Romance. The full rights to HIM were finally bought, and copies of the album bearing the name HER were discontinued and replaced by a HIM version. During this time, they also used the name "HIM and HER" briefly while touring in Germany.

In 2001, before the group's third release, members of HIM formed a new band, Daniel Lioneye, as a side project. Daniel Lioneye produced hard rock/ sleaze rock music with blues-based guitar solos throughout. The band was composed of Lindström as "Daniel Lioneye" on vocals and guitar, Paananen as "Migé Amour" on bass, Valo on drums, Kai "Hiili" Hiilesmaa on keyboards, and Ike on sound effects. They released one album, The King of Rock'n Roll, in September of 2001.

In August 2001, HIM released Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights. This was the band's first album with new keyboarder Emerson Burton, the final addition to the current line-up. On April 14, 2003, HIM released Love Metal. This was the first album that did not feature singer/songwriter Ville Valo on the cover. Instead, it featured a gold heartagram, the band's well-known logo.

HIM's fifth studio album, 2005's Dark Light, became their breakout in the U.S., debuting in the top 20 of the Billboard Top 200 and spawning two major rock hits, "Wings Of A Butterfly" and "Killing Loneliness", both of which have accompanying videos. The success of Dark Light has also allowed a number of HIM's previous albums (including Love Metal) to chart in the U.S.; however, it has been given mixed reviews by critics [1].

In addition to their studio albums, HIM has released several compilations. These include the Love Metal Archives DVD, the many-disc Singles Collection, a greatest hits titled And Love Said No, and a DVD collection of their videos through 2003.

In May 2006, Valo announced in the UK magazine Kerrang! that HIM will start recording their next studio album in the summer of 2006 and release it around September or October of 2007. [2]

Heartagram

HIM is widely recognisable by their heartagram logo. It consists of a heart and a pentagram, which symbolizes the contrast or perfect balance between life and death or love and hatred, or even love and death together. Valo has said that "the heartagram stands for HIM as a band, as an entity, and for 'love metal' in general," and claims the band is a "love metal band". Many fans of the band have gotten tattoos of heartagrams or other emblems associated with the band (such as the single heart on Valo's right wrist), and fan-submitted photos of such tattoos decorated the lyric booklet for the limited edition of Dark Light.

Genre controversy

HIM's widely-debated musical style is often referred to as "love metal" by Valo and by the group's fans, while critics commonly refer to them as gothic metal or gothic rock. However, their musical style varies between albums, and songs. Ville Valo has stated that the band started as a "Black Sabbath tribute band of sorts"[3], which further solidifies the band's heavy metal leanings.

Some of the more common genres applied to their music include:

• Alternative metal ^{citation needed]}
• Alternative rock [4]
• Goth metal [5]
• Goth rock [6] [7][8]
• Heavy metal ^{citation needed]}

Discography

Albums

Other releases

• Witches And Other Night Fears (Demo), (1992)
• This Is Only the Beginning (Demo), (1995)
• Single Collection (HIM) (Compililation), (2002)

Singles

Members

• Ville Hermanni Valo — vocals 1991–present
• Mikko Viljami Lindström (also known as Linde, Lily Lazer, or Daniel Lioneye) — guitar 1991-present
• Mikko Henrik Julius Paananen (also known as Migé Amour) — bass guitar 1991-present
• Janne Johannes Puurtinen (also known as Emerson Burton) — keyboards 2001-present
• Mika Kristian Karppinen (also known as Gas Lipstick) — drums 1999-present

Former members

• Antto Einari Melasniemi — keyboards (1995-1998)
• Jussi-Mikko "Juska" Salminen (also known as Zoltan Pluto) — keyboards (1998-2000)
• Juhana Tuomas "Pätkä" Rantala — drums (1995-1999)

External links

• Heartagram.com
• Heartagram.org - UK Fan Club, Community and Street Team
• HIM Online.TV