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HIM (His Infernal Majesty or formerly HER in the US; see History below) is an alternative rock band from Finland. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist Ville Hermanni Valo, along with Mikko Viljami "Linde" Lindström (Lily Lazer) and Mikko Heinrik Julius Paananen (Migé Amour). After many lineup changes, the band now consists of Ville, Linde, Migé, their 3rd Keyboardist Jani Purttinen (Emerson Burton), and their 2nd drummer Mikka Kirstian Karppinen (Gas Lipstick). The band is also widely recognizable by their heartagram design. It consists of a heart and a pentagram, which symbolizes the contrast between life and death or love and hate. Ville has also said that "the heartagram stands for HIM as a band, as an entity. And for love metal in general."
Here is a little bit about them and how they got started.
The band released their EP in 1996, titled 666 Ways to Love: Prologue, which features the only publicly known picture of Valo's mother, Anita. They became reasonably well-known throughout Finland because of their cover of Chris Isaak's hit "Wicked Game". In 1997, they received a large amount of exposure in Scandinavia, when their first full length album was released, titled Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666.In 2000, the band released their second full-length album titled Razorblade Romance, which was recorded in Wales. The album received a large amount of exposure in Europe, when a track titled "Join Me In Death" was featured in the European version of the sci-fi movie The Thirteenth Floor, which reached the top of the German charts in 2000. After the European success they went on to release three more singles from the same album entitled: "Right Here In My Arms", "Poison Girl", and "Gone With The Sin".The album also reached some US stores but HIM were not allowed to use their name for sales in the US because another American band owned the rights to that name. Therefore they changed their name to HER only for the US and Razorblade Romance. The full rights to HIM were finally bought and all HER Razorblade Romance's were discontinued and were replaced by a HIM version. In 2001, the band released their third full-length album titled Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights. They released four singles off that album: "Pretending", "In Joy and Sorrow", "Heartache Every Moment" and "Close To the Flame". After recording Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights, three members of the group formed a rock and roll group called Daniel Lioneye. The members of that band include Linde, Ville Valo and Migé Amour.
In 2003, the band released their fourth full-length album titled Love Metal, which was well received by the United States media, in particular Kerrang magazine and also the Rolling Stone magazine. The band did not develop a wide following in the United States until the release of this album. After the release of the album, the band did a United States tour in February of 2004 and then another one later that year. HIM released their fifth album, Dark Light on September 26, 2005 internationally and on September 27, 2005 in the USA. Songs on this album include "Vampire Heart," "Killing Loneliness," "Behind the Crimson Door" and the first single "Wings of a Butterfly".