Alexi passed away

Status
Not open for further replies.
The following post is from the BAM Facebook group, written by an older lady under a picture from Alexi at the 2019 hexed NA tour, where he looked really thin. I had tears in my eyes after reading this. I felt like I had to share it here.

I did the meet n greet in NYC, 4/2019,he was not his usual self. when It was my turn to chat, and hand him a few gifts and a card.. he remembered me as always from other meet n greets and shows and he signed my cds and his autobiography and battle jacket. the someone In the crowd yells out a out his weight and how he should eat something. he just looked at me with those sad blue eyes , and I put my arm around him, and said " oh sweetie, we all worry because we love you, as a mother I'm worried. you didn't have to finish the tour." he looked at me and said" but I have to, its my job. you always cared about me, thank you for caring"
I couldn't do a big embrace because I was afraid I'd hurt him, and also, that he just may have fallen apart mentally, which would not be good before a performance. then he reached out and touched my arm, and said, " thank you for always truely caring about me, I'll be OK " we blew each other a kiss, and with that i left the line and had to pull myself together, thinking this may be the last time.

Damn I was not ready for that........:cry:
 
Yeah that was pretty hard one to read. Man I'm still so fucking sad. Alexi had so much stuff in the future and was really waiting for everything.
It felt strange, after Hexed I saw Bodom live pretty much all the time because finally I had the money to go everytime I wanted to. I'm not gonna start speculating on whatever was going on, but he seemed like he didn't want to meet fans anymore. Or maybe he did but there was some reason why not and I could imagine people yelling at him in meet & greets and commenting on his appearance was one of those reasons.
I got to talk to him several times on the day Hexed was out. He did look tired, but he was friendly and joking around. I asked him a question about the inspirations for the album but for the life of me I can't remember what he said. He talked for several minutes. It was one of those times when he just forgot what the question even was.
The last time I talked to him was at a meet & greet, he signed my stuff and I thanked him, moved on. But then he kinda stopped what he was doing and was like "Hey! I just wanted to tell you I think the way you dress is fucking awesome and you always got a cool goth look going on it looks great!" And it came so out of nowhere my reaction was a bit blunt.
I said, "Haha I always get comments I look like you though." I do.
He was just like ???? And I was just like going in my head like WHAT ABOUT JUST SAYING THANK YOU HUH
And Janne started asking me questions about the last time I met him like "Are you the person who did this and that then and there"
I don't know, I couldn't sleep the next night I felt I was rude to him.

I hope the "happy first gig" gift I got to give BAM was something he liked though. It was just a bunch of DIY hair ties with black velvet on them so it doesn't rip or tangle into your hair like a regular one.
 
Last edited:
dQiPnpv.png

UU1mg1t.jpg
 
Ok I have been thinking about this a lot lately:

In October, right before the three BAM shows I had this dream:
I went to Tavastia couple hours early like usual, just to make sure I get front row and there was SO MANY people there I couldn't imagine them all fitting into the venue. I was in the queue a bit nervous, did they oversell the show? What the fuck is going on? I look around and do the usual pocket check that I have the ticket with me and haven't left it at the hotel or anything. I put my hand in the pocket and the pockets of my jacket and jeans are just overflowing with setlists and tickets from old shows. Everything I pull out of there is a past show's ticket. I start panicking a bit by now and decide to walk somewhere away from the crowd, I ask someone to hold my spot in the queue and walk around a corner to have a smoke.
There, around the corner on the street, there's this case. A long one. You know the kind they bring the band's gear into the venue with. And there's smoke coming out of the side. I go closer to see if I need to find somebody to stop a fire. Then I kneel next to the box and open the hatch. Alexi is there in the box.
"You found me?" He asks and I ask him what the fuck he is doing.
"Well I uhh... I just wanted to have a cigarette privately?"
I told him "But keep the hatch open, you're gonna choke with the smoke in there or burn yourself!"
"Yeah... Good point. I just wanted to have a cigarette. You always find me somehow!"
"Yeah, but I won't bother you if you don't want to talk."
"It's ok, let's have a smoke together."

So we smoke the cigarettes and before I'm finished he gets carried away, I tell him have a good show.
I get back to the queue, I manage to find my ticket. The doors open and I somehow get through the rush of people and get my jacket into the wardrobe, get into the concert hall.
Silence. No one there. No one comes in. Everyone has just disappeared completely, except there's two japanese girls in there too but they don't hear me when I try to talk. Band just doesn't come on stage no matter how long we wait. I try to buy a beer from the bar but the counter is so tall that the bartender doesn't see me, a huge jug of water falls down and I get showered with icy water.

I wake up and wonder wtf this means. We talked about this in the queue too. But I just couldn't think it was anything bad, we made some jokes that they're smuggling Alexi in the venue in a box so he have his privacy.

This just gives me chills.
 
Dude there's so many weird coincidences. I'm not the kinda guy to believe in supernatural stuff, so I just call them conincidences but it is weird. Just a couple of them.

At the end of December Jeff Waters from Annihilator randomly reminisced about that time him and Aleksi did a karaoke cover of Turbo Lover at 70k Tons of Metal. They were good friends but that's the first time in years and years he mentioned Aleksi, just a week before his untimely Valhalla visit, let's put it this way.

Here's another one. The day before Aleksi said "you know what, fuck all of this" and went off to jam with Eddie Van Halen, I finished reading a book by Iain Banks called Espedair Street, linked it just so you know I'm not completely making this up. The book, told from the narrator's perspective, describes a huge ex-rockstar whose band broke up a few years ago, he struggles with alcohol and self-blame and decides to kill himself right at the start of the book. And let me tell you, the author is one of the darkest I ever read so you expect the absolute worst to happen to every character. So what do you know, this rockstar somehow turns his life around, delivers himself from his old demons and starts a new life. And it is only revealed in the last few pages, until then it looks like he would indeed take his own life, and then there's this most surprising, abrupt almost, warm and happy ending, totally uncharacteristic of the author.

Next day I learned of the news and couldn't believe it. Just when I thought Aleksi turned his life around too, the end of that story was just as abrupt, only in the opposite direction. I know it's stupid but it was a very uncanny experience.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, a lot of weird coincidences. I believe in paranormal stuff 100% but I don't take it lightly or go full on GHOSTS very easily. I just have a lot of experiences in my past that are proof for me that shit like this is real.
Another thing is that in december I wanted to paint a picture of Alexi using a concert photo as a reference. I fucking hate drawing or painting guitars it's something I just can't do but the painting turned out fucking awesome. I remember looking at it and thinking; This is exactly how I will forever remember Alexi. The painting turned out so good I can't believe I did it myself, it looks like having a dream where you go see him play.
This just gave me an idea for future paintings that I would be doing and I was thinking that it would be awesome to have an art exhibition that is themed around subcultures and live music.
Right then, a local concert venue announced that they would be organizing art exhibitions for local artists, for free and to send an application before 7th of Jan. I planned that I would paint a few more pictures since I have time and then I would apply. I got the news of Alexi's death and I completely forgot about it. However, I thought the painting described him so well that I decided to take it to The Riff.
At the Riff, a reporter for a magazine took a picture of it and I have received multiple messages saying; It looks like he's in a dream,this is how I want to remember him, I can't stop thinking about it, will you make another one I will buy it.

Like ok it might really just be that a lot of people liked it but I feel like he's kicking my ass and telling me to stop doubting myself.
 
Last edited:
The last time I tried to draw a tree, I go so angry, I had to lay down and count to ten
Could be totally me lol

I totally agree with the weird coincidences. It's almost ridiculous. I had this experience mystelf with starting to listening to AYDY a lot again in the last December week. Then all these stuff I've read here on the forums and elsewhere.

In the BAM FB group for example someone posted a picture of their Hexed Reaper Statue. It fell down and broke apart in the week Alexi died.
 
  • Like
Reactions: COB-666
Holy shit man. I'm a bit too late to post here, but better late than never. Alexi got me into the raw vocals/agressive metal. Back in 2010 I remember when I joined this forum and spent 4 years of my life here. You guys are amazing and I learned so much when it comes to guitar, specially from Arcane and Warheart posting the tabs. It's so sad that Alexi passed away so early, I was really looking forward to see what BAM would come up with. It's very unreal and I still can't accept it in a way. Lately I've been playing Bodom and remembering this place or how I was inspired to learn more technical songs. COB's music will last forever, certainly I'll always come back to it.
 
Ok I have been thinking about this a lot lately:

In October, right before the three BAM shows I had this dream:
I went to Tavastia couple hours early like usual, just to make sure I get front row and there was SO MANY people there I couldn't imagine them all fitting into the venue. I was in the queue a bit nervous, did they oversell the show? What the fuck is going on? I look around and do the usual pocket check that I have the ticket with me and haven't left it at the hotel or anything. I put my hand in the pocket and the pockets of my jacket and jeans are just overflowing with setlists and tickets from old shows. Everything I pull out of there is a past show's ticket. I start panicking a bit by now and decide to walk somewhere away from the crowd, I ask someone to hold my spot in the queue and walk around a corner to have a smoke.
There, around the corner on the street, there's this case. A long one. You know the kind they bring the band's gear into the venue with. And there's smoke coming out of the side. I go closer to see if I need to find somebody to stop a fire. Then I kneel next to the box and open the hatch. Alexi is there in the box.
"You found me?" He asks and I ask him what the fuck he is doing.
"Well I uhh... I just wanted to have a cigarette privately?"
I told him "But keep the hatch open, you're gonna choke with the smoke in there or burn yourself!"
"Yeah... Good point. I just wanted to have a cigarette. You always find me somehow!"
"Yeah, but I won't bother you if you don't want to talk."
"It's ok, let's have a smoke together."

So we smoke the cigarettes and before I'm finished he gets carried away, I tell him have a good show.
I get back to the queue, I manage to find my ticket. The doors open and I somehow get through the rush of people and get my jacket into the wardrobe, get into the concert hall.
Silence. No one there. No one comes in. Everyone has just disappeared completely, except there's two japanese girls in there too but they don't hear me when I try to talk. Band just doesn't come on stage no matter how long we wait. I try to buy a beer from the bar but the counter is so tall that the bartender doesn't see me, a huge jug of water falls down and I get showered with icy water.

I wake up and wonder wtf this means. We talked about this in the queue too. But I just couldn't think it was anything bad, we made some jokes that they're smuggling Alexi in the venue in a box so he have his privacy.

This just gives me chills.

This reminds me, I shit you not, but during summer 2020 I had a dream that Alexi was dead and I was confusingly devastated by that in the dream. Like when people see their family member suddenly dead devastated. The sadness was really overflowing.

When I woke up I was pretty surprised by how strong my reaction was in a dream, since I haven't been listening COB that much in years. I remember that I also told my girlfriend about how weirdly strong reaction I had about it in a dream.
 
This reminds me, I shit you not, but during summer 2020 I had a dream that Alexi was dead and I was confusingly devastated by that in the dream. Like when people see their family member suddenly dead devastated. The sadness was really overflowing.

When I woke up I was pretty surprised by how strong my reaction was in a dream, since I haven't been listening COB that much in years. I remember that I also told my girlfriend about how weirdly strong reaction I had about it in a dream.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I remember like maybe six years ago I had a dream that wasn't really anything strange except it was just a fact that Ville Valo was dead. It was like I was the only one who didn't know that he was dead and people were like "What? You didn't know? He died like ten years ago!" It was so strange that when I woke up I actually thought it was true for a while until I just got this "but??????" feeling and googled it. I was so relieved!
 
Interesting stuff. Just goes to show how meaningful Alexi's music was to us.

The only experience I had around the time of his passing, was that I had this urge to listen to Banned From Heaven again and again and again. Personally I think that Banned From Heaven is the greatest COB song no one cares about. And it's also something of an emotional song for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: P4T0U
Banned is the one I'm probably not gonna be able to listen for a while. It's one of my favorites but just thinking about it feels bad right now. Personally for me it's an important song.
FTR has been making me feel great though. That's just such a fucking good album, you can't be sad when listening to it. And I hadn't listened to Tokyo Warhearts in a long time but I decided to listen to it on my way to Helsinki and it just made me feel really good.

Man I really fuckin miss waiting for a new COB album and going to their shows. I don't even know wtf to wait for these days. I like so many other bands but I don't care as much and the best shit is all in the past. I really need some new bands to get excited about. It's just kinda hard because if someone tells me to check something out it' s very likely I just don't care :D I have to find it myself to get into it. I have been listening to all these goddamn dad bands like CCR and Fleetwood Mac lately.
 
  • Like
Reactions: COB-666
Man I really fuckin miss waiting for a new COB album and going to their shows. I don't even know wtf to wait for these days. I like so many other bands but I don't care as much and the best shit is all in the past. I really need some new bands to get excited about. It's just kinda hard because if someone tells me to check something out it' s very likely I just don't care :D I have to find it myself to get into it

I feel exactly the same. Alexi is the only one that never disappointed me in music.

I follow many other bands too, but most of them only have like one really good album and I just follow them because their next release might be good.

With CoB I already knew before it's gonna be good. Their releases and being hyped for them was something that made the live worth living for me. I'm really gonna miss that excitement every ~ 3 years.

It's really unfortunate that the new album was about to be recorded and now we won't ever hear it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.