^That's the soundi one aka this one. They only posted some quotes online. But yeah here's the whole article translated. Sorry for any mistakes I'm tired as f u ck. There's also a short Daniel interview in there it's written in cursive.
SOUNDI 2/2019
Original text by Aki Nuopponen, translation by tragician
GOING ON WITH HATE
This spring Alexi Laiho turns 40 years old, but before that, Children Of Bodom is releasing their 10th album, which really is a sign that age is just a number.
The sight out of the window on this January day is grey and slushy and I'm supposed to contact Alexi Laiho on Skype. Skype is a surprising way of contacting him, because usually the interviews with the COB frontman have been done face to face here in Helsinki.
The weather in finland feels even worse, when I ask Alexi where in the world he is skiing right now. (Sounds better in finnish, ”Missäspäin hiihtelet?” is a pretty normal thing to ask)
-Not skiing around here at all! Alexi laughs happily as we start the Skype call.
-I have been living half of my life here in Australia for a couple years now and I can honestly say that I don't miss the slushy shitty finnish weather at all now that I'm looking at the temperatures here.
But living in Australia has not been a Holiday for Alexi at all. The new COB album isn't the only thing that's kept him busy lately. In April, an anticipated biography book will be released, and it has been written by the Soundi reporter Petri Silas. According to Alexi, it took a while to get him into doing the book project.
-I was literally fighting against it through it all, haha! I remember, it was probably in 2004 when Petri said he wanted to write a book about me. And my opinion was just ”Hell no!”. Because A: I do not deserve a book like that. B: I'm not old enough and C: Too many people who would be ”starring” in the stories are alive right now and I couldn't tell half of it.
-But now I gave in because it was a good time with the 40 years coming up. But I kept warning him that the book would be really fuckin boring because I couldn't tell the funniest stories. Petri didn't let it bother him.
In the end, good content kept building up and the book named ”Guitar, Chaos & Control” became 400 pages long, and the contents didn't even get censored as much as Alexi thought.
-There's a lot of good stories, actual history even and some cool technical details. Whatever you're interested in. But it didn't go like me just sitting down with Petri and ”Telling my life story”. Both of us could introduce ideas of what they wanted to get in the book. Petri sent parts to me and I read them and sent them back and that's how we built it.
There are big promises on the publisher's website: ”One of the most internationally successful finnish metal musicians turns 40 years old and tells us all about his eventful career!”
-I'm definitely not going to tell everything!! I needed to leave some parts out! Alexi laughs for a minute.
-Let's put it like this; I think it's a good and interesting book, don't get me wrong. But I couldn't put all the ”non-musical adventures” into it. Yet. We'll think of it when part two comes out when I'm laying on my deathbed. Then I'll tell you everything.
Distant rock'n'roll life
In the social media there has been a playful ”10 years challenge”, where people have posted their pictures from ten years ago next to their recent pictures and been excited to see the changes in their life. Ten years ago Children Of Bodom had just released their album Blooddrunk. If you take a look at the interviews from that time, you can see certain themes repeated very clearly.
Alexi Laiho had a habit of doing interviews hungover, even days in the studio could be just a fight for survival and a reccurring subject in interviews was whichever bone Alexi had broken at the time because of his ”Curse of January”.
-Fuckin curse of January... I had completely forgotten that thing. Alexi mumbles, shaking his head.
-Back then I used to have broken bones and all kinds of Jackass-incidents, that were ”unintentional accidents”, but really it was just drunken craziness. The luck of a drunk would help until a certain point and then I would have a broken wrist and talk about a cursed month called January.
Alexi ten years ago sounds like a stranger to an almost 40 year old Alexi?
-Yes he does. And fortunately so, because even if all those drunken adventures were funny, I can't do that anymore. I can't do it, not the fuckin hangovers and not remembering the events of last night. And most of all I don't want all the other things on tour to become more important that the music. If I had carried on that way, I would be in a coffin right now, instead of talking about the tenth COB album. It was a sort of a vicious circle like that, what was at first just a party, was suddenly just the normal tour life and the shows stopped being the highlight of it all.
Laiho makes a point to tell us that obviously the most important thing for him has always been the concerts, but as his age kept getting higher and his lifestyle getting unhealthier, his priorities turned upside down.
-It didn't make sense anymore. We were privileged to tour the world and play shows all around, but the hangovers turned the shows into just a couple hours of fighting for survival.
-And yes even nowadays I sometimes like to have fun and just get fuckin drunk, but now that I'm not drinking so much I can enjoy life so much more. I realized I have been drunk enough. I have seen that shit.
Alexi has been famous for his rock'n'roll lifestyle, so he has caught a lot of attention after his healthier decisions. While recording the new album, COB released videos where a skinny Alexi could be seen introducing the new songs. The comment sections were filled with comments where the ”social media doctors” were analyzing Alexi's appearance.
-Yeah. I've heard all kinds of theories that I have at least three different kinds of cancer, very serious eating disorders and also that I do crack, meth and all kinds of shit, which is the reason why I look like this nowadays.
-But you can send greetings from me to the ”social media doctors”that right now I'm feeling better than I have ever felt and just because I'm not all bloated looking, it doesn't have to mean that I've started doing drugs or have a deadly illness. Don't worry, I have never even tried any drugs.
Even the name of the upcoming book has the word ”control” in it, but thinking about tour life after the drinking times Alexi doesn't admit it being difficult at all.
-I think it was actually pretty liberating to realize that I don't have to think about whether or not I will die on stage and drown in my own hangover sweat. Or will I survive to drink more later so the same thing can start over again.
-Family life also has had it's effect on me. A year ago I got married here in Australia and a stepdaughter was brought into my life. It has opened my eyes into a completely different kind of life. Nowadays for half of the time I'm Alexi who has a family in Australia and then the other half I'm Allu on a world tour and I like that a lot.
Not a metal jukebox
So Laiho is soon turning 40 and the next COB album that will be released in March will be their tenth. But these things have not really had any effect on Alexi. Quite contrary actually. Alexi says that he didn't even think about the album being their tenth before naming it.
-Then I thought that I rally don't fucking want the record name to have any kind of an X theme to it. You know, ”Look how clever we fucking are, using roman numerals and shit!” But then well, look at how that shit turned out... We chose the name ”Hexed” and.... There it is. That fuckin X! Even if it doesn't really have anything to do with the number 10.
Bodom's pace doesn't really seem to get any slower. At least if you compare it to the many idols of theirs. Metallica's newest album was the tenth of these veterans and so was Ozzy Osbourne's latest. And Slayer's newest is only their 11th album, even if all these bands have been around for decades before COB.
-Maybe we have been a little faster, even if we have toured just like them. I don't know why it happens and to how many bands, but we have never wanted to become just a metal jukebox. You could see last winter when we had that four first albums tour, we could probably tour a decade just playing those songs, but I don't feel like it would be fun.
-Don't get me wrong. We don't have a problem playing all the hatemes, lakebodoms and everytimeidies every night. But we are still a band that creates new music, and that is important to us. I think we are pretty far from becoming all middle-aged.
But Alexi admits that writing new music, album after album, it becomes harder. Then he laughs and assures me that he takes his writer's blocks much more calmly these days.
- I started writing songs when I was 12-13 years old, so obviously I sometimes realize I'm writing the same riff over and over again and I wonder if I have anything left to say after over a hundred songs.
-Sometimes I would completely flip out if I had a writer's block. I would take a gold album fom the wall and smash it against my face. Then I would be getting stitches. But now I know that if I just give myself more time and relax, my mental health will be better and new music will come.
Alexi says that one of the important things in the creative process this time was Daniel Freyberg, who joined the band in 2016 and brought some fresh air into the band.
-Daniel is a really fuckin nice guy and I can say without any kind of sarcasm that lately all work in the studio and touring has been fun! He has a good working ethics, he is a really good guitarist, he looks great on stage. And he really fits in very well to our little family, which is actually even more important than guitar skills, because the rest of the band has been together since the first album.
Countless amounts of fans admire the edginess of the technical riffs and solos, but Aleix just laughs as he tells us how little the music is actually planned.
-Our music... It just happens and that's it! When we started wroking on Hexed, we didn't have any kind of a plan on what we wanted to do. In the beginning ther were just some riffs forming and then melodies. And I started searching for the kind of atmosphere I wanted to have there, for example how I felt while watching some movie. But If I had to guess what it would be like before it was done, I wouldn't be able to tell.
-Janne's keyboards are a little different this time.Hexed sounds very different because he doesn't just triple the guitars and plays something different instead.
BIG BOOTS, BIG FEET
The place of the rhythm guitarist in Children Of Bodom has been the windiest in the band's history. In 2016 the band went through a big change as 37 year old Daniel Freyberg took the place next to Alexi Laiho.
The task was not going to be easy. Daniel would be stepping into the big boots of former guitarists Roope Latvala and Alexander Kuoppala. But Daniel isn't even trying to hide his excitement as his new job has been a dream come true.
-This has probably been the most eventful time in my life ever, so I feel like all my expectations will come true fast! The last three years have gone past so fast, but if you look at the amounts of stuff that has happened it feels like a super long time. That first show (Tampa, Florida, 9.2.2016) feels like it was forever ago.
-This band is familiar to me of course. From ancient times. Hatebreeder was the album that got me really interested in the band. Follow the Reaper was also listened through just as much. Those two have a special place in my record collection. Hatebreeder is actually one of the most fun songs to play live.
-It was a of course a great honor to join a band of such talented players and I was a bit nervous for a lot of reasons. But I didn't really have the time or interest to think about other people's expectations because I was so concentrated on doing my own thing. I just thought that if I'm happy with my work then it's surely enough.
-At first it wasn't so clear if this was going to be a permanent place or not. There was a certain period of time where we could all think of this and how we want this to go. But then time just went past and it had gotten completely out of hand so here we are. We had fun together right from the beginning so it all happened very naturally.
-But this is different from my earlier band experiences with Naildown and Norther because with COB, things are planned very well a long time ahead. And things are done very professionally. Fortunately there's a lot of people working in the background so I can concentrate on my own job.
-I had been following this band's career a long time so I knew right in the beginning that these guys play like 500 shows a year, but now that I've been aboard on their train I have realized there's a lot more work that goes into it.
-Making of Hexed worked out very well even though their habits of working in the studio were a bit different from what I was used to. For example I think this was the first time for me that the whole album would be practiced through before the recording. I don't remember ever practicing this intensively before studio!
-Of course the songs are still written by Alexi, but we would exchange different guitar details and arrangements. But the studio sessions were more traditional. When the songs were ready and practiced, the recording was quite painless. This band doesn't have any useless hassle with these things.
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If something is clear right on the first spin of Hexed, it's definitely the fact that Alexi himself isn't becoming softer. The world around him is frustrating. Even more than before. And that's what he'll let us hear.
Ten years ago in a Soundi interview Alexi said that the main theme of their band's music is being eternally pissed off. And through the years it has turned out to be a very endless source of inspiration.
-Well you never run out of subjects to write about. We could have started to write about all kinds of deep saving the world subjects and it could have been fine, but it never felt like something I'd like to do and it still doesn't feel like it suits our music in any way.
-It all began 20 years ago when I couldn't come up with any better subjects for song lyrics, but after all these years I have noticed that if you just keep your eyes open you will find shit to get angry about.
So 40 year old Alexi isn't any calmer compared to his 20 year old self?
-To be honest I feel like I'm just becoming angrier every year! I feel like COB will become angrier and heavier in the years to come. If I had to guess I'd say our last album will be our angriest. Just give me a decade or two and you'll find me out there on the street, hitting kid's ankles with my cane and screaming about everything. But then I'll have a right to do that because I'm old. If I ever am a senior citizen, then I will write the best lyrics ever.
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The Inferno interview that came out on the same day is for the most part the same shit as this but I'll probably do it too it's interesting enough.
