Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Up In Neon Lights With VILLE VALO
Transcript
- 0:09With his distinguished baritone five octave kruner voice, Velvallo blends charisma and gothic alure
- 0:16both on stage and off. His effusion of Johnny Cash's presence, the Sisters
- 0:22of Mercy's vibe and Elvis's swagger, all wrapped up in the lyrical elegance of
- 0:28Lovecraft, Poe and Bokowski. As the mastermind behind him, he carved out
- 0:33a genre defying niche, bewitching the world with dark anthems and soul stirring ballads.
- 0:40Follow's evolution from the vampiric leader of him to the solo artist known today
- 0:45as VV is represented perfectly Ya Hymn's iconic heartagram logo, something Vallo gifted the
- 0:51world when he created it on his twentieth birthday. The truly iconic image perfectly
- 0:56captures the juxtaposition of the music with the heart repper its softer side, while
- 1:00the pentagram conveys the heavier, darker elements with VV. The hardagram has been
- 1:07updated to include two extra lines to form the monica VV at its center.
- 1:11From him iconic hardagram logo to his solo venture as Vvvolow's evolution is a testament
- 1:18to his artistic depth. His debut solo album, Neon Noir, was released
- 1:23in twenty twenty three, and it showcases his storytelling finesse, weaving tales of
- 1:27darkness and light. Falo has been taking VV to stages across the world and
- 1:33is hitting Ozzie Shaws. In mid March, I was given the privilege and
- 1:37the opportunity to have a chat with Phil about his upcoming Australian visit and even
- 1:42brought him up to speed on his Ossie slang. I'm ez and you're listening
- 1:47to the Heavy podcast, please stick around and enjoy my conversation with Phil Valo
- 1:52wack O. Hello, how are you sorry? Sorry for the wait,
- 1:59Super, I can't keep my mouth shut. That's that's totally okay. That
- 2:06is one fine with me. I actually have a funny story about you being
- 2:10late, because last time we spoke it was me that got us in trouble.
- 2:15That was over a year ago. So don't worry. I'm not going
- 2:16to make you try and remember me. But I'm I do remember. Yeah,
- 2:23that's lovely. I was very much conscious of making sure that we stay
- 2:28on track of time tonight so that I don't get us in trouble again with
- 2:31your management, because I'm pretty sure we got we went down a rabbit hole
- 2:38of talking about tarot and astrology and cryptid creatures and whatnot, and then next
- 2:43minute we were way off track of time. So but it was worth it.
- 2:46It was worth it, you know. So it takes what it takes,
- 2:50and you know, unfortunately, thankful enough, the time is not linear.
- 2:53But that's another rabbit hole. Yeah. I was going to say,
- 2:55do not even start me on that one, because I could talk for hours
- 2:59on things. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the Heavy
- 3:04Pod tonight. Anyway, Phil tonight, it's tonight for me. I imagine
- 3:08you're in a completely different time zone. All yeah, I'm a late bloomer,
- 3:15so it's it's still morning for us here in Finland. Well, good
- 3:19morning, thank you very much. But well, yeah, it's all good,
- 3:23it's all good. What does the day ahead look like for you?
- 3:25Then? Have you got like just a day full of press meetings or have
- 3:30you got some personal time like slotted away as well? I haven't walken up
- 3:36proper yet, so I think I'll do some reorganizing of the studio. I
- 3:40like preparing stuff, so whenever the news tells me to do, so I
- 3:46have the ability to start creating, you know, right at that very much.
- 3:51So I'm not just basically just recabling stuff and tuning my restringing my guitars
- 3:57and do that sort of stuff you do in the inter uh and uh and
- 4:01you know, keeps me close to the music but doesn't take my focus off
- 4:04the tour. So sure, yeah, all the all the nerdy musician stuff.
- 4:10Yeah, it's it's been interesting. Like probably like the only hobby I
- 4:15have, you know, next to music these days, it's probably electronics.
- 4:19I'm really bad at it, but I'm getting into it because there's a lot
- 4:23of stuff you need to be able to fix and liveing in a country such
- 4:25as Finland, there's not not a lot of good well not a lot of
- 4:29good, but not a lot of texts around you know who can take care
- 4:31of musical stuff. And there's lutt ears like great ones. But but so
- 4:38I've learned how to solder and do all that sort of stuff. So so
- 4:42it keeps me busy. That's awesome, though you like, having like an
- 4:46extra set of skills is just not I'm very very much one of these people
- 4:50that doesn't really like relying on other people so I kind of get how that
- 4:55would be. You know. Yeah, relying on other people can end in
- 5:00bitter disappointment a lot of the time. Well then it can be the best
- 5:04thing in life too. So it's a it's a it's a complicated it's a
- 5:08complicated balance sword, probably coming from a slightly bitter angle tonight because I've had
- 5:15just a really rough day and people have been the cause of all the problems.
- 5:19So but I must say I am really pleased to be ending it with
- 5:25a chat with you tonight, So so thank you for turning my shitty day.
- 5:31We try not to get on topics of I don't know, weird,
- 5:36weird and wonderful things, and we should be we should be right, keep
- 5:41it professional and I'll be good. I know. Well there's professional and then
- 5:46there's professional. So how long is a piece of strength at the end of
- 5:48it? Look, I feel like you and I could be a very bad
- 5:51combination because it's just all those philosophical, open ended things that we could just
- 6:00the rabbit holes, like you said before, that we could go down.
- 6:02Yeah. Well you know, you know, I'm not sure if if any
- 6:08of you my philosopher friends would call it that. Well, you are about
- 6:13to tour Australia, which is why I've got you on the line tonight.
- 6:16So I'll get to talking about that in a minute though, But the last
- 6:18time we did speak was when you were just on the cusp of releasing Neon
- 6:23Noir. So given that that was a year ago, I imagine that you've
- 6:28like really settled into those songs and you've you have been to touring fairly solidly.
- 6:33So how have the audiences taken to that solo material. It took a
- 6:38week bit we started to write when the album came out, and you could
- 6:40see in the audiences that they still had had the time to live with the
- 6:43songs and it was getting better by the day. But and I'm sure also
- 6:49that the audiences didn't know what to expect, you know, with whether it's
- 6:53going to be and we're going to play him songs, or whether we're not
- 6:55going to do that stuff, or whether it's going to be something completely new
- 6:58or or this nice transitional period musically speaking. But it's been going really really
- 7:05well. All in all. We played about one hundred and twenty shows last
- 7:10year, which is a lot for me. I've never been in a band
- 7:13like Iron Maiden, who do like two hundred and fifty shows for three years
- 7:15straight, so so so I never had the opportunity of doing anything that massive,
- 7:21so so this is this is really good. And also the fact that
- 7:26we played a lot of especially festival wise here and here in Europe, we
- 7:30played very different kinds of festivals to play metal festivals and morel so like mainstream
- 7:34pop things and everything in between. So that's a great way of as well
- 7:40seeing how the music resonates and what kind of people might might it might you
- 7:45know, ticle whose fancy is so so yeah, yeah, it's been,
- 7:48it's been. It's been exciting and it's still it's an ongoing journey. It's
- 7:51funny how time flies, you know, like, as you said, it's
- 7:55been a year or so, you're in a year in a week or all
- 7:59right that. Yeah, but yeah, it's I think it'll take me until
- 8:05early May, once we finished the tour to sort of realize what just happened.
- 8:11It feels like like a big long dive, you know, take all
- 8:13the breathic and mean then you're just diving deep. And I think in May
- 8:18I'm gonna sort of like see what's on the surface again. Yeah, sure,
- 8:22thing do you think playing those festivals has opened you up to even newer
- 8:28audiences and fresh fans. I suppose because you've got you've always had well for
- 8:33a long time now, you've had a very loyal fan base, So I
- 8:37guess there's a difference between your long term fans jumping on board with the new
- 8:43solo stuff and you know, collecting brand new faces along the way. Well,
- 8:50we've been really lucky that there has been both. It seems that the
- 8:56people who liked what him would do haven't abandoned the sh it, And then
- 9:01there's a lot of new people aboard, you know, and a lot of
- 9:03people, those younger people who didn't have the chance to see him play live.
- 9:09So it's been a good mispresson. And oddly enough, there have been
- 9:13people who know the new songs better than the old ones. Because I thought,
- 9:16for obvious reasons, that that I was in the band him for such
- 9:20a long time, we taught so much that that would be the sort of
- 9:22main attraction, those songs and the sort of like you know, the Golden
- 9:28Oldies, old and goldies sort of thing. Yeah, but no, it
- 9:33seems to be very well balanced, and there's a there's a new set of
- 9:37fresh you know, twenty year olds. I imagine that you've still got like
- 9:41something of an attachment to the hymn songs. But it must be nice as
- 9:46well to see that people are latching onto that newer stuff. Yeah, miscontinuation
- 9:52of what I've done in the past anyway, So it's it's not too far
- 9:56off. But I think that's probably for an older musicians such myself. I
- 10:01think that's probably the biggest challenge of the big, biggest thing you're worried about
- 10:03when an album is released. It's like when you go on tour and if
- 10:07people only you know so like enjoy the older material. Of course, you
- 10:11feel that you've failed to a certain extent, but you do understand the allure
- 10:16of older songs because people have to have had the time to live with them
- 10:20for a long time, and they might have become very special in some cases
- 10:24and so forth. So new music is always a bit of a challenge,
- 10:28Yeah, especially when those older songs have been sort of a part of people's
- 10:31formative years. There's a whole other attachment to them. Then. Thankfully enough,
- 10:37the formative years of globally speaking, they happen all the time, so
- 10:41there's always formative years for the new generators happening, So there's the chance for
- 10:46people to find out all sorts of music and that will influence and direct them
- 10:50and work work as the soundtrack of their lives, that they are very important
- 10:56part of their lives. Yeah, definitely, are there any songs that have
- 11:00performed better in a live sitting than you expected from like from the new catalog.
- 11:05I know that there can be quite a difference, like in the life
- 11:09within a song comparatively to the recorded version versus how it comes across a lot
- 11:16to arrangement was We've been trying to keep them quite close as well. With
- 11:20the hymn tracks. We haven't all of a sudden time joined Me in Death
- 11:22into a reggae version. Whatever it's it's very close to the probably closer than
- 11:26what him did back in the day to the to the album versions. And
- 11:31I think a lot of times with especially newer songs and being a vocalist,
- 11:37it takes a long time to get them select the muscles your vocal cords said
- 11:43in the right way. It takes usually years of singing. Like songs I
- 11:46joined Me in Death, I've sang thousands of times, so that feels like
- 11:50second nature, but some of the new ones still I'm still learning my way
- 11:54around them, especially when on tour and playing let's say, five gigs in
- 11:56a row and then traveling a day and then do another five gigs. So
- 12:00because your voice tends to not necessarily wear out, but it changes the time
- 12:03both changes and and and also if you can hit the high notes or the
- 12:07low notes or whatever as well. And so it's a it's stuff that you're
- 12:11not supposed to be thinking when when you're recording now, because then you're just
- 12:15following the sonics. You know, what sounds good to you at that point.
- 12:18Yeah, but then there's there those ugly truths that you'll find out later
- 12:22in life, you know, when when you when you hit the road.
- 12:26But well, it's been good. There's it's such a fine line too,
- 12:30isn't it. Sorry, it's just kind of off, But it's a fine
- 12:33line, isn't it to walk that walk that line between uh, portraying the
- 12:39emotion in a song and then technically pulling off. I'm a vocalist as well,
- 12:43so I understand that you know the technicalities of heating notes and pulling off
- 12:50a certain sound, but also keeping true to the emotion behind the lyrical content.
- 12:56Yeah, it's it is a complicated task, you know, I've struggle
- 13:00with that part of my life, but right, but yeah, it's I
- 13:05think I think it's been working good in a way that somethings like let's say,
- 13:09when love it that embraced from ninety seven, it still feels as current
- 13:13as it did, you know when singing it. It feels fresh, and
- 13:16it feels full of meaning to me, which is important. I guess that
- 13:20Yeah, that's great, Yeah, and full of meaning. That is not
- 13:24too far off from the Maybe my lexicon has changed a bit along the way,
- 13:31both musically and verbally. But but the emotional states I'm trying to you
- 13:37know, convey or portray that they're not too different or it's still about the
- 13:41wistfulness and the sort of beautiful sadness and solitude and and the catharsist that music
- 13:50can you know, help us go through get rid of some the sonic shower
- 13:56as we say, yeah, absolutely, And I think as well, like
- 14:00in terms of performing songs live, each audience is different, So I think
- 14:05often people think that our artists must get really sick of playing old material over
- 14:09and over and again. For years. But if you're in front of different
- 14:13people every time you perform who are responding differently, you're feeding that, you
- 14:18feed off them, and it's so easy to step back into that emotion with
- 14:22that song, you know, no matter how old the song is. Yeah,
- 14:28you're absolutely right. And then also the cool thing about the history of
- 14:31him is the fact that different albums were appreciated by different kinds of people in
- 14:37different areas of the world. So a like song like Johnny and Death was
- 14:43massive in Europe when it came out, and Better Light by Love was pretty
- 14:46big and certain scene scenes you know when that came out, and then in
- 14:50North America, Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly I played a lot on
- 14:54MTV two or whatever it was at that time. And so it seems that
- 14:58there are different highlight it's when it comes to the older tracks as well,
- 15:01which is which is cool because it keeps us on our toes a bit and
- 15:05it doesn't it doesn't feel bay on generally night. Yeah, definitely. Okay,
- 15:09So what's what's the song you reckon? Was the the Aussie's favorite?
- 15:15Then we're going to put you right on the spot. Well it should,
- 15:20you know, No, if I remember a sound wave and especially the side
- 15:24shows with that. It was you know, we were surprised that there were
- 15:28so many people knowing what we actually did, you know, knowing the songs
- 15:31and stuff. I guess it's stuff from Love Metal that seemed to work really
- 15:35well, which I'm happy about because it's it's probably my Venus Doum and Love
- 15:39Metal it was probably my favorite. There's a bit More Left of His Sense,
- 15:41a bit more Sabbathy album, so so very Libell worked out great.
- 15:46Love Metal was my favorite. Oh cool cool, Yeah, well, thankfully
- 15:50enough, there is a favorite. But yeah, it's uh, if I
- 15:54remember correctly, it was, it was it's funny, like I mentioned,
- 15:56the song joined Me in Death and it's it was bit of a like a
- 16:00quite a big crossover here. It was number one in Germany and number one
- 16:03here in Finland, and we were all of a sudden, this you know,
- 16:07goth boy band doing all like teeny pop pops and stuff, which was
- 16:11weird. But it's for example, that's one of the songs that if people
- 16:15haven't really heard it and we'll play that at a metal festival, people kind
- 16:19of don't know how to react to it. Yeah, and it's still it's
- 16:25still like that, which is actually a cool thing. So you're able to
- 16:27to throw people off, not in a negative way, but sort of like
- 16:30out of their take them out of their musical comfort zone for a wee bit.
- 16:34And I think that ebb and flow and that sort of like sense of
- 16:38David Lynchy and otherness is important when it comes to music. Yeah, yeah,
- 16:42hell yeah definitely. So what about new material then? Can fans expect
- 16:48any new releases from you in the near future or are you thinking about starting
- 16:53anything new in the stage. I've been working on some ideas, but nothing's
- 16:57finished yet. And to be honest with you, I've always been really bad
- 17:02at writing well on tour because if for me, it's that's the only football
- 17:06point. You know, you wake up, stop figuring out the settle list,
- 17:08you get you know, I steam my suit, steam the you know,
- 17:14the creases off and the wrinkles off, and and and that takes all
- 17:18my focus and all my all my attention. And once the album the tour
- 17:23is over in May, I'll probably start working on music bit more proper and
- 17:30and to see where where it can take me, if if if it makes
- 17:33any sense, or if it doesn't it's you can't really force it. But
- 17:36as as I said earlier, it's when you create an environment where it is
- 17:41easy to be creative, it doesn't hurt. So so it's good to have
- 17:47your stuff around, get be sort of like create an inspiring atmosphere. And
- 17:52that's what I'm trying to do at the moment. And then then just wing
- 17:56it as I've always done, as you're supposed to be. Just follow the
- 17:57music and follow the spark, and follow the sound and let it take you
- 18:03wherever it might take you. The process is incredibly psychedelic and yet invigorating and
- 18:10yet interesting, and you know, it's a cool mixture. It's like that
- 18:14love and metal coming together. It's in both intellectual and spiritual and and and
- 18:18all that at least for me, and that keeps me afloat and helps me
- 18:22get out through the through the you know, through the pandemics, whatever it
- 18:29might be, the internal pandemics, yeah, yeah, and the boring adult
- 18:33responsibilities of life. What are those? Well, I tried to remain in
- 18:38denial about all of them. So it's not working out well for me.
- 18:41But anyway, here we are. When you come here in March, will
- 18:48the fans be getting a bigger dose of the solo material compared to the hymn
- 18:53stuff, or will you be you know, doing sort of a good mixture
- 18:56of both. What sort of can I expect from the live shows that are
- 19:00coming up? It'll be half and half. It's I think that balance works
- 19:04the best. It's it's fair for the audience, it's fair for me,
- 19:07and it's I've never enjoyed so artists just to play new stuff and then maybe
- 19:11finishing off or playing four old numbers or whatever we're doing. But we're doing
- 19:15the old and new back to back, so it's like zig zagging between the
- 19:18past and the present and and and it's worked out great like that, as
- 19:22as as it also breeds new life into the old songs, having you know,
- 19:27playing Joining Death after Neon Noir, and then it creates cool new tensions
- 19:33and new sort of like dramatic moments and the roller coasts. Yeah, indeed,
- 19:40And that's uh, that's that's how I like it anyway, And I
- 19:44think it's cool for the for people's well. So you don't have to know
- 19:47all the Human albums, or you don't have to know the the one on
- 19:49oliv the album to enjoy the evening, there's a there's enough all sorts of
- 19:53things going on. So so that's at least how it's looking like. I'm
- 20:00sure that that w was. I did the maths. And it's been ten
- 20:03years since you were in Australia, So is there anything in particular that you're
- 20:07really looking forward to when you come back to visit again? Getting rid of
- 20:11the jed lag it's my first and foremost sort of like target. But it's
- 20:18been so special back in the day touring with you know, touring the sound
- 20:23Way for example, because it's such a it was such a weird cookie left
- 20:29of the center and different sort of a festival as the bands had a lot
- 20:32of time to spend with each other, get to know new people in the
- 20:36scene, have a few days off. We had great parties there, you
- 20:40know, Dennis and Disc Disc go until early week hours of the morning and
- 20:45and all that all that stuff. So so it's always been great in Australia.
- 20:51We only we only flew over that maybe three times before, but it's
- 20:56it's not it's not been many times. So there's many new things to see
- 20:59and the new faces to see hopefully in the audience as well. And yeah,
- 21:06it's just, you know, always to myself, it doesn't feel like
- 21:11a full blown world tour if you're not you're not playing Australia, you know,
- 21:15it just feels that it needs to be part of it, so like
- 21:18make it official and uh. And I'm really happy that we're able to organize
- 21:22so that we can fly over and play those dates. So fingers crossed everything
- 21:26goes well and I'm hoping. I'm hoping that everybody will stay healthy and safe
- 21:30and so forth and it'll be good. What about support bands? I did,
- 21:33I did do a little bit of delving and I couldn't really see who
- 21:37you've got on the bill with you when you come over here? Have you
- 21:41got locals jumping on? Or we don't even know? You know. It's
- 21:45because I was the one asking the question. I think when was it,
- 21:52like, you know, in the summer time when we're discussing this thing.
- 21:56And I'm sincerely hoping that we could bring Zetra over, the band from London.
- 22:00They're going to be orientoring with us in Europe right after Australia, and
- 22:07it'd be great for them, I hope, and it'd be great for me
- 22:08because I love their music and it's a great weird combo. They haven't played
- 22:11Australia before, so fingers crossed that that might happen. Otherwise it might be
- 22:18something local. I don't know yet, but I'm quite particular when come to
- 22:22support acts. I never usually want the bands to sound like the main attraction,
- 22:26if you want to call it that, like like we taught with we
- 22:30taught the States in Europe about a year ago. We taught with Kayla Migla,
- 22:37the female trio from Iceland that have this sort of new way you got
- 22:41electronic thing to them, and it worked out so beautifully in tandem with the
- 22:45music we play, as it shares similar sort of emotional center or backbone,
- 22:55but the way we've approached down and music is very different, and I think
- 22:59that that it says the mood in a great way, but it doesn't wear
- 23:03the ears out for the listeners. If you have two bounds that sound exactly
- 23:06the same, or three bounds, it's even worse. You're kind of like
- 23:08you're already been there, done that before the you know, the main band
- 23:12starts, So try to avoid that, try to play. And I think
- 23:15it also detracts from those supports because if some like as an audience member,
- 23:22for example, if I was standing there, and I'm less likely to get
- 23:26into them if I feel like they're a cookie cutter of what is what I'm
- 23:30there to actually see, whereas if I saw them outside of that setting,
- 23:36I might be like, oh, this has got a hymn or a valow
- 23:38kind of sound to it, and I like that. But if you're seeing
- 23:41them all clumped together, yeah, it detracts from the uniqueness of those those
- 23:47bands, and it's lots of it. Also with levels, like with the
- 23:49with the overall overall volume of the evening, you know, I like the
- 23:53iff. In my case, I like if the the the opening acts or
- 24:00a bit more quiet that they're not as noisy. With Klea Mickle was great
- 24:03because they didn't have guitars, so it was basically the first time the people
- 24:07heard a male voice and guitars was during the opening song for ourselves, so
- 24:12it felt great. And we told with the band called caspiing back in the
- 24:15days with him and that band was instrumental, so like cold rock, and
- 24:19it worked out beautifully because it set the mood in a great way, and
- 24:23it was it was similar in emotion, but it was very dissimilar in other
- 24:29ways, but people, you know, the audience were really appreciating the term,
- 24:33how how it worked out. I think you can make an evening more
- 24:37special by making you know, really trying to figure out a good set of
- 24:40bands. It's not always about what's a good band, it's about bands that
- 24:45fit together. So yeah, I completely understand where you're coming from. It's
- 24:51yeah, yeah, you're setting a mood from the stand of the night you're
- 24:53part of, and you're part of the mood as a as a in this
- 24:56case, as the as the headliner as well. So it's a I think
- 25:00what when you're trying to create is a is an event more or less an
- 25:06evening with sort of as opposed to just three or three random man's playing they're
- 25:11setting off their goal. Yeah, it's more about trying to, yeah,
- 25:15trying to turn the venue into our into a bit more of an otherworldy experience,
- 25:21especially when having shitty, bittersweet days, you know, like yourself today
- 25:26seems you know, it's you need to you need to be taken out of
- 25:30that real world, the realities of being a being an adult, responsibilities and
- 25:36so forth for a little bit. I think that that's very important. I
- 25:38agree. I was just about to say, being transported away from reality is
- 25:41what what you pay money to go to a show for? One hundred percent?
- 25:45Agree with that. Yeah, Well, since it's been a decade since
- 25:49you were over here, I thought I just have a bit of fun with
- 25:52you, and I thought we might see if you're brushed up on your Australian
- 25:59lingo not go for it, I don't know, I'm okay the local linger
- 26:03none none watching? Okay, Well, I'm gonna toss you right in the
- 26:07deep end here then with if you'll indulge me in a little bit of a
- 26:10quiz. Oh lord, yes, your face just now hilarious. So I'm
- 26:18going to no cheating. You can phone a friend I oh, chuck you
- 26:25some ossie slang terms and I'll see if you can tell me what what they
- 26:30mean. So h The first one is what if if someone was to say
- 26:36you were a dobbar? What would they What is a dobbar? Well it
- 26:41sounds like a knob head. But so this is this is a problem being
- 26:45a thing. You know that you come to a new country, you hear
- 26:47worse like that, and you misinterpret everything by one hundred percent. So I'll
- 26:52say it's an amazing head. Well, do you know what a dobba by
- 26:57default really is? A knob head? But is it like a tattle tale
- 27:00or some Yeah? Yeah, like no one likes to be told on your
- 27:06heads? Are the sort of people that tell on people? So yeah,
- 27:08you I'll give you that one. Yeah. If an ass he says that
- 27:15they're going to the servo, where do you think they're headed? Would be
- 27:22service station? I'm not quite sure? Yes, fair enough, you got
- 27:26it? What does it mean to nick Off? To nick Off? I
- 27:33would hear that in terms of, like, you know, all Off,
- 27:37that's you know, gone away from you know, just yeah, That's that's
- 27:41how how I would hear it. I'm going to nick Off. That's I'm
- 27:45going to nick Off tomorrow. That's exactly it. Yep, go yeah,
- 27:51to go away, to leave a situation. Yep, all right, you're
- 27:52doing well. If someone says they're feeling crook, what does that mean crook?
- 27:59Oh? There can be so many different things. Uh, the crook
- 28:07it is an interesting one. It doesn't have anything to do with criminallygis,
- 28:11that's for sure. I think that has to do with feeling under the weather.
- 28:15Yes, oh, it does, Well, you got that one too,
- 28:18Yeah, it short does? Jeez, you have downplayed you know what
- 28:23you're doing here? If downplayed this? What does it mean if someone is
- 28:29referred to as a dag? Dag? Oh? Man, well that could
- 28:34be a way weird, sort of like intonation of the word doug as well.
- 28:38So it's sus to say, but I thought of like a testosterone field
- 28:48example of male toxicity. That that that's how dag sounds to me. But
- 28:52if it's probably something completely different, dag, you should give me a hint.
- 29:00How do I give it a hint? The word actually comes from the
- 29:06ship that hangs off the end of a sheep, but that's actually not what
- 29:10it like. That's not how we use it, though it is. If
- 29:12someone's I can't give you a hint on that one, it's really basically I'm
- 29:18going to just give it to you. I'm just going to tell you it's
- 29:22someone who is being funny or humorous or being silly. If you if you're
- 29:26mucking around, you're oh, give me a sentence. Okay, yeah,
- 29:32sure, I got it, But it doesn't mean no. So if someone's
- 29:36really funny, you might say, oh, he's such a dag. Hey.
- 29:40The reason why I don't I didn't get that one is the fact that
- 29:41we fins are not funny. This is this interview is going to be published,
- 29:51just recorded only no video, so I can't like reiterate what you're dead
- 29:56how deadpan? Your face just looked? All right, Let's keep rolling on.
- 30:03What is a snag? Dagger snag? That sounds sounds like two cartoon
- 30:11like a yeah, like the series after the Simpsons snag. I can,
- 30:17I can, I can give you a hint on this one if you like.
- 30:19It will sound like somebody being a drag or that, like dagger snag,
- 30:26but snag well snag. Also, it sounds like a bit like a
- 30:32kip. It sounds like it sounds like a uh, a little nap you
- 30:37might take in the middle of the well, darling, I need to take
- 30:38a little snag. You're quite cold. I can. I'll give you a
- 30:45hint. It's some something you eat snag. I'm vegetarian, so maybe that's
- 30:52the reason. Maybe that's the reason, you know, if it's not vegetarian.
- 30:56I'm proud, proud to not know the words snag one hundred percent not
- 31:00vegetarian. It is the word we used to describe as sausage snag. Well,
- 31:07where does that come from? Snagg it? Yeah, what's the That
- 31:11is a great question. I don't know. I'm just a stupid Australian that
- 31:17just says it. You know, you go down to a small sausage is
- 31:19nuky in Finnish, so snag is not actually that far. And actually if
- 31:25we yeah, actually if we go to to like buy a donu, you
- 31:27know, like a little shop in the middle of or stand for a fast
- 31:32food somewhere, we call it snag auty. So it has the word snag
- 31:36in it. It usually means when you're buying a hot dog off the street
- 31:38or something. So I should have known this, But once again, I'm
- 31:42proud of Sterians, so that that might have been the reason, and that
- 31:45gives me the gives me this sort of right not to know this. I'm
- 31:51going to have to look at the etymology of this word when I when I
- 31:53get off this interview though, because maybe it was maybe a finished person came
- 31:57over here and it just got it got shortened down to snag or the other
- 32:02way around. Yeah. Maybe. Okay, So you've got a couple more
- 32:07for you. What does RVO mean? What was that RVO spelled I I
- 32:14r v O horrible. Harvo is actually a finished name. It's a it's
- 32:19a it's a man's name. It's it's kind of all school. It's like
- 32:22George or a Philip or something like that. No idea what that could be,
- 32:32No idea. Horrible. It's a time of day, that's your hint.
- 32:39I don't even have the slightest that it could be a M or p
- 32:43M or whatever. But horrible. I never heard that it's afternoon. It's
- 32:49just down short. It's like it's like in scaling or when when obvious it's
- 32:53r V Yeah, it kind of doesn't make any sense, makes sense.
- 32:58Horrible? Okay, man, you know that's that's a good one. That's
- 33:00a good one. What do you like? They say, what do you?
- 33:02What are you doing? The savo is what are you doing? Yeah?
- 33:07Sure, if you chuck a sicky, what are you doing? Chuck?
- 33:12I'm not sorry. If chucking is throwing it away or smoking it,
- 33:16yeah, it's it's well technically it's throwing it away, but it's also you
- 33:21are making it very apparent to me. How how weird? Because yeah,
- 33:27because you could use it, and you could use can you chuck me a
- 33:29cigarette or cigg or a fagot or whatever. Fag No, it's and it's
- 33:36sick s I c K I E not. You were talking about what's a
- 33:42Yeah, so if you chuck, oh, it's that sounds sick, but
- 33:47uh, what could that be like asking a day of work because you're supposedly
- 33:54underweather, but you actually have a you have a hangover? Yes, or
- 34:00so sick as a day for being ill, you know, being sick.
- 34:02That's one hundred percent what it is, right, Yeah, yeah, pretending
- 34:06Yeah, get away from your responsibilities. Excellent, you know. Yeah,
- 34:09there is some logic. No matter how thin the logic is, it can
- 34:14be found. I got two more for you. What is an eski?
- 34:19Esky? It sounds like eskimo, but you you're on the right track.
- 34:25Could be corn, cone of ice cream or that could be ice in your
- 34:30glass. We have eskimo. We have ice cream back in fill and called
- 34:35eskimo. But now they're changing it because suppose it's not the it's not a
- 34:39word you're supposed to be using these days anymore. So, so which I
- 34:44completely understanding. Esky. You're on the right track. What it's cold?
- 34:46It's something called it's a cooler. So that's cooler. Okay, yeah,
- 34:52yeah, yeah, that makes all the sense in the world. Yeah,
- 34:53you know, like a portable cooler you take, take two barbecues and stuff
- 34:57you put your drinks in. That's an escy o man. Yeah. And
- 35:00last one, sure, the last one is if I say that we're going
- 35:05to do a Macca's run, where do you think we're going? Macca's run?
- 35:09It as important Mcartney Mecca. Yeah, m A C C A mic
- 35:15is run. But to me it just sounds like you're going bar hopping.
- 35:21But uh, to be honest with you, no idea. You would probably
- 35:24do a Maca's run after you go bar hopping. So is it like it
- 35:30has something to do with eating then mm hmm. Again you probably don't eat.
- 35:36I don't do McDonald's. If that's where it started from, Yeah,
- 35:39it means you going. I remember those I remember when you're completely sourced aff
- 35:45to a bar and you know, the sun is rising a bit bit and
- 35:49it started to get light again, and then you, with your last ounce
- 35:52of inner strength, you sort of like try to find an establishment where to
- 35:57get a hamburger in the wee hours of the morning. I do I do
- 36:00remember that crawl your way through the door indeed, And how do it taste
- 36:05for a second? Yeah, yeah, you put me on the spot.
- 36:10I know, I can see, I can see blood pressure has gone up.
- 36:14It is I'm squirming. I do know what, though, I think
- 36:17you're going to be just fine. I think that you will. You might
- 36:21be confused for a second when you if you have any prolonged, any prolonged
- 36:27conversations with Aussies over here, but I think you'll work it out as it
- 36:31doesn't matter I do. We do have only the littlest amount of time left,
- 36:36so I might have to to call it there. But we are really,
- 36:40really really looking forward to having you back after ten long years. And
- 36:45I believe your first show is beginning in Melbourne, which is my neck of
- 36:51the woods, so we're excited that you'll be kicking it off down here with
- 36:54us. Yeah. Yeah, we're playing Auckland a couple of days before and
- 37:00that'll be interesting too. We've only visited New Zealand once before with him,
- 37:04so so it'll be a lovely experience once again. And then we're well prepared
- 37:08for you in Melbourne. Yeah. Dust the cobwebs often or in our case
- 37:15in our dust them on all righty well, thank you so much for chatting
- 37:22with me tonight and we can't wait to see you out here. Leasure once
- 37:24again New Zealand and Australia, mark your calendars. Ville Vaalo will be gracing
- 37:35the stages of Auckland's Power Station on Wednesday, March thirteenth, followed by a
- 37:40performance at Melbourne's northkit Theater on Friday March fifteenth. Then catch him at Sydney's
- 37:46Metro on Saturday March sixteenth and Brisbane's to Volley on Sunday March seventeenth. Tickets
- 37:53are available now and it promises to be an unforgettable experience, so don't miss
- 37:58your chance to witness the the Gothic magic that is Velvelo live in Concept.
- 38:04You've been listening to the Heavy podcast, Thanks for joining me. Peace Out,