Ville Valo, currently enjoying his solo career, was interviewed by Hammer and discussed various topics, including his music taste. The musician stated that he had a specific process of liking a song or a band, which also applied to Metallica and Nirvana‘s commercial albums.
The former HIM vocalist’s latest album ‘Neon Noir’ was released in January, and he has been making press appearances to work on its promotion. While there have been times he answered questions about his former band and his album, Valo also expressed his opinions on different topics.
In a recent interview, when asked to choose between Megadeth and Metallica, the singer explained that he preferred the latter. He discussed his view on Metallica’s music and ‘The Black Album’ by stating that they have been known and admired more than Megadeth in Scandinavia, which affected his opinion.
Valo started answering the question by saying:
“Metallica, of course. I think I heard ‘Master Of Puppets’ first, and nobody can deny its impact, even if you’re not a big Metallica fan. That was a big deal when I was a kid. It was the kind of music that, because we got it on vinyl, you weren’t sure if you had to listen to it on 33rpm or 45rpm.
That happened to us with Celtic Frost; it sounded so weird because we weren’t sure what speed we were supposed to listen to it. I still don’t really know. That probably explains a lot about my early development, both as an artist and as a human being! As for Metallica and Megadeth, maybe in the States, they were on more of an even playing field, but in Scandinavia, at least, Metallica were always the biggest and baddest. Especially when ‘The Black Album’ came out.”
The musician added that he needed time to like ‘The Black Album’ as he did with Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind.’ He said he was ‘a slow burner’ when it came to music and required some time to pass for the music to settle in. Thus, he had similar approaches to both albums.
He expressed himself as follows:
“But by that time, I had already sort of jumped into the more grungy, artsy aspects – I found Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More, and that stuff was way more intriguing to me than ‘Nothing Else Matters.’ I’m a slow burner. My friend bought me a copy of ‘Nevermind’ because I denounced it when it came out. I thought it was uncool, but everybody else liked it. It’s probably the same with ‘The Black Album.’ I’m always fashionably about 20 years late, but I’ll definitely give it a chance and be like, ‘What’s this youthful racket?!'”
Ville Valo came to like both ‘The Black Album’ by Metallica and ‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana after some time passed, as he was the type of person who wouldn’t instantly like something. He still would give new songs a chance after discarding them the first time, mostly resulting in admiration.
