INTERVIEW WITH CHILDREN OF BODOM GUITARIST ALEXI LAIHO

Finland is a breeding ground for heavy metal, and CHILDREN OF BODOM guitarist Alexi Laiho is the offspring of this fertile ground. Laiho is also part of the new breed of shredders, and shared the cover of GUITAR WORLD magazine with STEVE VAI and ZAKK WYLDE. We caught up with Alexi to shoot the proverbial shit... and alert him to what was going on with the band's MySpace page...which he wasn't too happy about

Paragon Rob: After seeing you live at the NJ Metal & Hardcore Fest in 2003, and watching the “Betcha Can’t Play This” video from Guitar World this year, I am amazed at your playing speed. Obviously that comes with years of practice, but how much of your time now is spent dedicated to practicing scales and working on speed?

Alexi Laiho: Well, I still do practice a lot. It’s kind of a thing for me that I just enjoy doing. Even “practicing” for me sounds like the wrong word, because I actually have fun doing it. I just sit down and play for hours. It doesn’t have to be practicing scales or stuff like that, it’s just play and jam and do whatever. And plus, I still think that I want to improve all the time, and I never think that I’ll ever be good enough. I don’t think anyone can ever be good enough; you can always improve.

Paragon Rob: On your website, you list the Metalway Fest as your most embarrassing career moment because you forgot the name of you fourth album during a speech. Have you ever been on stage and forgotten lyrics or even a guitar part to a song?

Alexi Laiho: I never forgot a guitar part, that’s actually true, but lyrics, yes, sometimes. But I’m actually lucky to be somebody who sings like I do. People can never tell the difference it doesn’t matter what the fuck I’m saying. ::laughs:: They can never really tell what the hell I’m singing about anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. But, yeah, when it comes to guitar playing, I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten a part, I really don’t think so.

Paragon Lisa: Have you ever gotten the hiccups right before going onstage? How would you deal with trying to sing while you had the hiccups?

Alexi Laiho: ::Laughs:: That’s actually a good question, but no, that never happened. But I actually have a pretty good trick to get rid of hiccups. For me, it works every single time. First I just exhale and then inhale and I hold my breath and also hold my nose, and then I gotta swallow 10 times in a row. Usually I take small sips of water. I take 10 sips in a row, and after that the hiccups are gone. So that’s probably what I would do, but yeah, that never happened before, and I hope it wouldn’t ever happen in the future either.


To the fan with the green Honda outside... your lights are ON!

Paragon Rob: I have to ask you about your MySpace.com page. Who is in charge of updating that thing, is it someone in the band or is that a job for management?

Alexi Laiho: I have no idea. Seriously, dude, I have nothing to do with the internet thing at all. You are talking about our website, right?

Paragon Rob: No, your MySpace.com page. It’s like one of those online personal profiles. And you have your tour dates on it and people can join your “friends list” and leave messages…

Alexi Laiho: It’s actually got nothing to do with the management, that’s how much I know. Somebody’s working for us, somebody’s doing that shit, but like I said, I’m not really an internet type of dude anyway, so I don’t know anything about it! ::laughs::

Paragon Rob: Oh okay. I was actually going to ask you if you’ve actually seen any noticeable growth in sales at all due to the page?

Alexi Laiho: Well not from the page, but we talk about stuff all the time, obviously. So I’ve heard everything that it probably says on the page.


Busting apart those rock stereotypes, eh?

Paragon Rob: One last thing about MySpace.com -- With all the song stealing and downloading going on, you guys have 4 tracks from the new album on there, you put 9 original tracks on the U.S. release, so technically, you put almost half of the album online. Aren’t you afraid of that making it even easier for people to rip you off?

Alexi Laiho: First of all, I didn’t even know that. ::laughs:: I didn’t know about that, and now that I do, I’m actually kinda pissed off about it.

Paragon Rob: Uh oh… ::laughs::

Alexi Laiho: No, but seriously, I just think that it’s fuckin bullshit that people are just downloading songs and downloading albums. Obviously, yeah of course, it’s a really easy way to get albums for free and not have to pay shit, but every single time you do that, I think you’re just slowly killing the music industry. It’s not about the fact that musicians are money-hungry bastards or anything, but the fact is bands need money and record companies need money to carry on and make albums. Obviously, there’s so much expense in making one album. If they don’t get recouped, there isn’t going to be another album. So I just hope that people will actually understand that.

Paragon Rob: Hypothetical situation: You’re walking down the street one day and a young kid walks up to you, and he’s wearing a really nice new pair of sneakers and some designer clothing, and says, “Hey, I love the new album! I just downloaded the whole thing! I’ve been listening to you guys for years!” Now, this is someone who can, obviously, afford to buy the album. What do you say to someone like this?

Alexi Laiho: I’d say, “Fuck you for stealing our album.” Definitely, dude, that’s fuckin bullshit. It’s another story if somebody in, I don’t know, Russia, or something like that, would come up to me. It’s happened before where someone was asking for an autograph for a bootleg, but that’s a different story. They don’t have any fuckin money, and these albums are really hard to come by in those countries. Usually bootlegs are the only kinds of copies they can buy. But, like you said, with somebody who actually has money, I think it’s fuckin stealing. That’s what it is. It’s somebody stealing from me and I’m not gonna be nice to that motherfucker, that’s for sure.

Paragon Rob: The Lake Bodom murders inspired the band name as well as quite a bit of your material. If that case is ever solved do you think it would help or hinder your writing?

Alexi Laiho: I don’t think it would have any affect on the songwriting at all. Actually, what happened, I don’t know if you know this, but just 6 months ago, actually, somebody got charged for the murders.

Paragon Rob: Yeah, wasn’t it the fourth victim or something?

Alexi Laiho: Yeah, which was pretty funny, but apparently they had almost watertight evidence to put the guy in jail. But I don’t know if something happened, they went through the whole trial thing and everything but he never got convicted so he actually got away. But it was pretty close. Everybody in Finland thinks that he’s actually the guy but he never got convicted anyway. So, in a way, the killer got caught, but then again, there’s a slight possibility that it wasn’t that guy so it kind of still remains a mystery. But even if he would’ve been convicted, it would not affect our songwriting. Usually we only have one song about that whole Bodom thing [per album] but it’s always fictional, it’s never anything based on facts.

Paragon Rob: The band has come a long way since you guys first started, and you even ended up sharing the cover of Guitar World with STEVE VAI and ZAKK WYLDE. I know you’re a fan of both of those guys. What advice do you have to the kids out there that hope to someday share a cover with you?

Alexi Laiho: I don’t even know how the hell that happened for me. ::laughs:: I’m still fuckin shocked that that even happened. I can’t believe that happened. They’re my favorite guitar players and all I can say is that, first of all, if you want to get out there as a guitar player, it’s some serious shit. You really gotta practice a lot, and usually it requires a lot of sacrifices as well. You can’t really let anything just get in the way of you and your music or you and your guitar, meaning your school or job or girlfriend or anything. It’s the way I always did it. It worked for me, but that’s pretty much the only advice I can give to anybody.

Paragon Rob: Aside from music news, the internet is also a big breeding ground for drama. I’ve seen some people on message boards praise you guys like crazy and I’ve seen people bash you like crazy. Some people love your cover songs and others think you’re sell-outs for covering “Oops I Did It Again.” Ultimately what the band does is up to you guys, but I was wondering if you could tell me what you think of people that have nothing better to do than sit around and bash bands they don’t like?

Alexi Laiho: Well, the funny thing is that that’s actually one of the many reasons why we covered Britney [Spears]. I don’t know if people even realize it, but it’s so entertaining for us to actually read all that fuckin crap on the internet. There’s always a certain group of people who say that everything new we do sucks, and it’s always like, “You guys are a fuckin sell-out; this is not true Metal anymore.” All these fuckin morons out there who are saying, “Oh my God, Children of Bodom covered Britney! I just burned all of my COB CDs, I’m never going to listen to that fuckin band again! They’re not true Metal because they covered Britney.” And I’m like, “Jesus, get the fuck out of my face with that fuckin bullshit.” It’s got nothing to do with not being Metal or anything like that. Metal’s about having fun, that’s it. It’s not only the cover songs, it’s a lot of stuff that we do, and there’s always certain people that flip out and go all over the place saying how much they used to love us, but only because I was wearing a red t-shirt in this one picture now I’m a poser and I’m not true Metal, so now they’re not listening to Children of Bodom anymore. I just think that’s funny as hell, man. In a way, that’s one of the reasons why I actually hate the internet; not because they would actually be trashing Children of Bodom. Obviously you can’t please everybody, and that’s totally cool. But the fact that anybody can pretty much write anything and just post it on there, and the thing that really sucks is that everybody actually takes it seriously. I could actually go onto the internet right now and say that I just saw Janne fucking a German Shepherd in the ass, and people would be like, “Oh my God, he actually did that!” They would actually believe that fucking crap. ::laughs:: So, in a way, for some reason, on the internet, people are just so fuckin stupid. And don’t get me wrong, [because] obviously, this is just a minority and most of the people are totally cool and are saying really nice things about Children of Bodom and that’s something which is really cool, but like I said, there’s always these certain people who just, I don’t know, take everything way too fuckin seriously.

Paragon Rob: I actually think that’s it’s a good thing for bands like yours to do covers of different styles of music, because it’s a sign that you guys are talented in different ways and it’s also a sign of growth, and it shows that you guys are in it to have fun rather than just to make money and fit a specific category.

Alexi Laiho: Yeah, the fact is we really have fun doing this, making music and touring, and everything that is related to the whole band thing. And we want to show people that we’re having fun, and just covering Britney was one way of showing that we’re not trying to be these mysterious sort of cartoon rock stars. We’re down there just like everybody else is.

Paragon Rob: You guys are leaving for your next tour in a few days and you’ll be touring straight through until early February. How does the road treat you guys; what are your favorite and least favorite parts of touring for an album?

Alexi Laiho: There are a lot of good sides of touring, for me at least. I love it. It’s my life. Just the fact that, when you’re on the road, all you have to concentrate on is doing your show and that’s it, whereas you have to take care of all this fuckin bullshit when you’re at home; you got bills to pay and a bunch of fuckin crap that nobody even wants to do. And also, I’m the kind of person that likes to move around all the time. I have always been restless, having a hard time settling down and sitting still, so that’s why the fact that I wake up in a different town every single day is something that I actually really like. Meeting people all the time, and playing live is my favorite part of it, and partying with the locals. There are a lot of those kinds of good sides to touring, but I’m trying to think of some negative stuff. Definitely my least favorite part is flying. Not the actually flying, but everything around it, like all the fuckin airport bullshit, all the security checks, the passport and whatever, blah, blah, blah, fuckin immigration crap. We got a tour bus only in Europe and the U.S. Otherwise, in other parts of the world, we fly everywhere, which means that if we’re done with a show at 2am or 1am, we only get a few hours and we don’t even really get to sleep. We have to go back to the airport and do all that fuckin shit again. And then we fly and we go to the next town and play a show and, before you know it, we’re back at the airport again. So that’s actually something that I really do hate.

Paragon Rob: A lot of guys these days have multiple projects, and there is almost always a solo CD or solo career that pops up sooner or later. There are also a lot of “super bands” these days like Velvet Revolver, Painmuseum, and Superjoint Ritual. Do you see yourself doing a solo or “super band” project anytime down the road?

Alexi Laiho: Not anytime soon, that’s for sure. I mean, I seriously have no idea what’s going to happen in the future, but I do know that right now I’m just concentrating on doing Children of Bodom. I have another band called Sinergy and I try to do as much as I can for that band, but the schedules with Children of Bodom are so hardcore right now that I don’t really have time for anything else at the moment. But doing a solo album or this kind of “superband” is not anything that I would think about right now.

Paragon Rob: You said waking up in a different town or state every day is enjoyable for you, but I’ve been told by many people in bands that they don’t actually get to see where they go because they get off the bus, get onstage, and get back on the bus. Do you actually get to check out new places when you get there?

Alexi Laiho: Sometimes. It really depends. If it’s like Hollywood, sure, we go out there, but if it’s like Gale, Texas or something like that, some small city with nothing to see, then not really. But, for me, I just like to sleep my day away. I usually wake up at like 5pm or something like that, so there’s really not that much to do. I guess it really depends on how hung over I am if I want to go out before the show or if I don’t wanna go. ::laughs::

Paragon Rob:Last words or plugs to our readers?

A: Just a huge thank you to everyone who has bought a CHILDREN OF BODOM album and supported us in any way, and a lot of respect [to them]. Come to check out our show.

Check out CHILDREN OF BODOM on the web: ChildrenOfBodom.com

C.O.B.'s latest disc, Are You Dead Yet? is on sale now!

This interview will also be featured in print in Paragon Music Magazine. To get your copy of Paragon Music Magazine, email your name and address to ParagonMM@hotmail.com and include $2 per copy by cash, money order, or Paypal (email them for payment info)