Ville Valo talks about the incredible power of Scandinavian music export: “You know, it gets terribly cold in the winter”

During an interview with Gustavo Maiato, ex-HIM frontman and now solo artist, Ville Valo comments on the incredible power of the Scandinavian rock and metal music industry. With an ironic approach and a critical point of view, Ville Valo summarizes the causes and effects that have made countries like Finland a true symbol of the genre.

A lot of that stuff happened at the same time. Stratovarius was there a bit before, and they toured South America as well; they were one of the first bands from the metal genre [from Finland]. We had, I think, punk bands like Terveet Kädet, like these bands that Sepultura liked back in the day – they were listening to sort of Finnish hardcore from the ’80s.

– Ville Valo (transcribed by UltimateGuitar.com)

And addressing more tricky issues, such as the satanic cliché of northern European bands, Ville Valo finds a very simple cause: it’s the cold of winter, which could make sense of the phenomenal energy blast of all the countries where metal is the most produced genre:

But I’ve always been laughing that, maybe it makes all the sense in the world for Fins to create metal – the headbanging keeps us warm. You know, it gets terribly cold in the winter. So it makes all the sense in the world that that would be the reason. That’s also probably why the Norwegians burned the churches. It’s nothing to do with Satanism, but they were cold.

– Ville Valo (transcribed by UltimateGuitar.com)

Is it true? Is it false? In the meantime, you can discover the entire interview below: