The Next Chapter: Bodom After Midnight

[<Arcane>]

They don't have a keyboarder yet, or did I miss anything?

And can someone enlighten me - BAM play - if there's any concert this year - only old Bodom stuff or do they play new stuff? What I thought first was, that BAM is a new band who will play new songs and no Bodom anymore.

 

[Supra]

They don't have a keyboarder yet, or did I miss anything?

And can someone enlighten me - BAM play - if there's any concert this year - only old Bodom stuff or do they play new stuff? What I thought first was, that BAM is a new band who will play new songs and no Bodom anymore.

they will play Bodom songs, and they have a touring keyboard player, called Lauri Salomaa. I wish they would use this covid-19 time to write a new album.

 

[CharIie]

They explained somewhere that the plan was to play Bodom songs during this summer festival and then to write their own stuff after that.
I imagine that they will keep playing some Bodom-hits until they have a few albums.

 

[(__Joonas__)]

They promised some songs from old albums they haven't played yet (those only include Wrath Within, Northern Comfort, Taste of My Scythe, not sure if they ever played Triple Corpse Hammerblow), and ones they haven't played in a long time, I'd guess Knuckleduster, Lil' Bloodred Ridin' Hood, and some from Blooddrunk. I think they should include Punch Me I Bleed and One Day You Will Cry, first of all. And never play a set without the first three tracks of Hatebreeder.

They've had some fixation to songs like HCDR, Needled, Downfall, Hate Me, they just sound thin live imo, the band has never been in the crowd themselves - not even pocket, groove and dedicated emphasizing can improve it (maybe it’s my detest of thrash metal that I never liked the song HCDR even on record). The number one thing they can do to turn tables is put some excitement into the setlist; sometimes they do, sometimes it gets back to the usual. Maybe it’s more important to satisfy fans who want to hear the only ten songs they know. Still, nobody understands why they're not playing Knuckleduster, for example, but I guess they’ll still tour for Hexed and play it. I can’t see why it would hurt if 90% of the crowd haven’t heard it before. Maybe it feels weird to rock on stage if the crowd is still and quiet. But is a moshpit song any better? Just cos a crowd goes into moshpit mode doesn’t mean it’s a better song, moshpit songs just have a steady pulse with minimal emotion or changes.

Of course, we've never been on their side of the stage, so it's hard to think how it feels like to play a certain song. The order is also nearly as important as the selection of songs. It's a play of energies that needs an element of tasteful surprise that serves one epic entirety. Just like a song: the artist has to understand what the listener is expecting, but playing with it, sometimes throwing in an interesting surprise, but one that fits, and sometimes flowing with what seems to happen next, building suspense until the resolution.

Interesting will be if some of the sticky songs were on the set because of some of the three guys who have now left. Maybe now more room for Alexi's and Daniel's song choices (Alexi was the only one who liked Tie My Rope, for example), and maybe each of the new dudes gets a special pick.

 

[tragician]

I think Alexi said that they would play different sets on the summer festivals that were now unfortunately canceled. That it would have been different from the usual setlist we've seen a million times but I wasn't exactly holding my breath knowing that on the NPLH tour Alexi's setlist was the most boring one lol.
On Daniel's instagram I saw a couple days ago some story posts that showed a music recording program of some sort but not sure if it had anything to do with BAM, it could be something else too. But as for using this pandemic as an opportunity to work on new music, I'm pretty sure cancelled festivals piss Alexi off enough to write some good riffs

Btw, I tried to get them to play Tie My Rope on multiple occasions through the years; comments, asking them irl, signs at shows, threw a hat on stage that had a message, talked to crew too. Eventually what I got out of it was that a. Alexi didn't like playing that song? or b. They said they haven't practiced it enough with Daniel yet? Never got to hear it live but it was not for lack of trying lmao

 

[Sany]

 

[<Arcane>]

^
it was already posted on the previous page

 

[Sany]

Oops

 

[sfont]

New voice over here!
Yesterday I finished reading Alexi's book (English version) and, man, it left more questions than answers (so that's why I ended up in here haha). To me, dates, don't make any logic: I think that book must be written somewhere in the early stages of Hexed (for the constant references to it's nearly future); my guess: 2018-ish/2019. And, in the book he says that the band, as a family, is the best think it happened to him, constantly saying that these guys are the best people in the world. And, at the end, there's 2 pages of "nothing" (some words but no real meaning) about the new chapter. But then, if the book was written at the same time (kind of) that Hexed, the band was already fucked up, or am I missing something? I mean, sometimes it looks like it has been planned for a long time -and nobody is saying a thing- and sometimes it looks like it was sudden reaction.

CoB dismemering felt like my parents getting divorced. My mom's new boyfriend is kind of cool, he lets me drive its car but he's not my dad (despite my dad being a dick sometimes). So, I don't know. I'll wait to see what's going on with BAM and then jugde if they're worth it or don't.

And for CoB without Alexi...it's weird and I think they're not going to continue that path. It looks like Sepultura without Cavalera brothers. They're cool (Quadra's cool imo) but they're not the same.

Sorry for this long post but, maaan, I feel relieved since this dismemering thing.

 

[tragician]

I was going to make a really long post aboit the book but kinda forgot about it. I read it in finnish and FUCK IT WAS SO DISAPPOINTING. It's so badly written an full of mistakes, a lot of details were wrong and it's just run through like "yea then this happened we had a tour and ya know yeah."
I dunno if shit's been corrected for the english version, but that book is overall so bad it's just an extended wikipedia page. Any user from this forum could have done better. But what I gathered from the interviews before it was released that Alexi wasn't very excited either and he was kinda pressured by the reporter that has been asking about it for the last 17 years.

Nothing gets really explained in detail, it's all just "I went there, we released album, I was on tv, oh also I broke my arm lol" for a long time fan there was nothing. And the pictures included were like furst results of google image search (and in the finnish one a live picture with Roope was captioned Alexi on stage with former guitarist Alexander). I mean a less detailed basic book would be alright but don't market it as "ALEXI REVEALS EVERYTHING" bc a metal hammer interview from 2008 would probably tell you more about him in 2 pages.

/rant
Was a shitty book and also the release hype was fucked up in finland, like we were promised signed books but it never happened lmao. I also think the book being so lame had to do with the upcoming band breakup. Maybe they started writing it and things started going to shit and Alexi couldn't say it yet. Why not release it later? Did they scramble that together just for his 40th birthday?
I first heard about the book release in October 2018, which means they probably started writing it in 2017. A lot changed between that and march 2019. It's also weird they were going to first release it in april but it came out in march. And the books were in stores before the release day so preorderers got it later?

And same, COB breaking up was like parents divorcing. This band was such a big part of my childhood/teen years and they were kinda my life soundtrack. I think I spent more time listening to interviews than I ever listened to my parents.

 

[fanfzero]

I think Alexi is one of those guys who tries to make things look like everything is going fine even if is not.

He had the arm injury and he said it didn't affect his playng, years later he needed a surgery and said it actually did and that's why he needed the surgery

Same with drinking, he had an stomach problem that made him cancel shows and he said he stopped drinking because "he could't deal with hangovers anymore"

Then he started to look really bad and slim in early 2019, but he kept touring as if nothing was happening (now we know situation inside the band was really fucked, so maybe the stress also affected his health)

 

[tragician]

Alexi is that meme with the dog sitting in a burning house like "This is fine"

 

[(__Joonas__)]

My mom's new boyfriend

That would make a nice songname, My Mom's New Boyfriend, like that one Type O song.

 

[sfont]

That would make a nice songname, My Mom's New Boyfriend, like that one Type O song.

Like Fountains' of Wayne Stacy's mom. So, if Stacy made a song would be My mom's new boyfriend hahaha

And yeah, I totally get these "badass attitude" in metal and staying tough but, at the end of the day, man, you're a person and if you are fucked up, you can tell and fans are going to keep you up (trolls gonna troll, but that's another story haha). I mean, at one point you can be truly honest and tell how hard things muts have been and how rought this time must also have been and that's not being weak, it's totally fine. It's hard to believe that, in the book, on one chapter you're saying that this people is your true family and the best thing that ever happened and, in the next chapter, Oh, btw, we split but everything's okay and I'm a badass metalhead...

 

[(__Joonas__)]

Honestly I think Bodom have been one of the most humble bands out there. They downright avoid publicity or speaking about their music. During the last 7 or so years there's been pretty much zero deep interviews and nearly zero videos about their playing skills. There was never a video about the keyboardist explaining his playing, it would've been interesting to have that together with the lead guitar. I can understand the mysticism of some black metal artists, but other genres, in this day when it's nearly impossible to get people's attention for a few seconds and you need to bring new stuff consistently or they forget...

 

[tragician]

Like Fountains' of Wayne Stacy's mom. So, if Stacy made a song would be My mom's new boyfriend hahaha

And yeah, I totally get these "badass attitude" in metal and staying tough but, at the end of the day, man, you're a person and if you are fucked up, you can tell and fans are going to keep you up (trolls gonna troll, but that's another story haha). I mean, at one point you can be truly honest and tell how hard things muts have been and how rought this time must also have been and that's not being weak, it's totally fine. It's hard to believe that, in the book, on one chapter you're saying that this people is your true family and the best thing that ever happened and, in the next chapter, Oh, btw, we split but everything's okay and I'm a badass metalhead...

Maybe the whole "tough metal guy" thing just amplifies his typical finnish workaholic lifestyle.

Also I think COB just was the perfect fit for the 2000s music magazines era. They might seem like they don't hype their music as much as the others or talk in interviews very deeply, but actually music journalism has changed a lot in the last 15 years. Now the interviews seem to all be like 5 min clips with some scrape the surface questions. Back in mid 00s they used to do really long and detailed interviews. Haven't seen one in a long time.
Now it seems it's the band's job to report their personal lives into social media and then reporters post about it on some metal news thing. They don't seem to come up with interesting questions anymore.

 

[(__Joonas__)]

They might seem like they don't hype their music as much as the others or talk in interviews very deeply, but actually music journalism has changed a lot in the last 15 years. Now the interviews seem to all be like 5 min clips with some scrape the surface questions. Back in mid 00s they used to do really long and detailed interviews.

Yes, the questions seemed deeper and more interesting back then. Or was it just COB's music was hotter back then? Or is metal diminishing? Maybe the band even tried to give interesting answers, but honestly none of the Bodom guys were good at giving (linguistically) deep descriptions about their music, for example the seven or eleven questions by me which Alexi answered but he only cared to answer with like one or two words.

These days, for the past four COB albums, the interviews always had preset questions about the albums (either preset or the interviewers just googled and copy pasted the previous interview thinking that way they'll save time researching and seem like they're up to date with stuff), with preset answers, the same thing in every interview, it was kinda annoying. And imagine how annoying it is for the band to act the same interview ten times in a row. Are metal magazine journalists these days in their job thru nepotism and too lazy to look into a band they interview? Maybe some of the dumbing-down is due to social media, meaning these days what draws masses is dumb short stuff, not the deep stuff, unfortunately.

The Blooddrunk studio session was very suspense-building, with the mysterious cues about the songs, the musical style, the videos, that made it feel like they were sincerely excited about the album...

 

[CharIie]

Now that you mentionned it Joonas, I do find it very weird that Janne has never made some keyboard instructional video like Laiho. He was a master at his instrument and it would have been very interesting.

On a side note, yeah. Haven't seen a worthwhile interview in ages.

 

[tragician]

Maybe the questions being more interestimg back in the day were also because often in Soundi/Inferno, all the rest of finnish big magazines it seemed like the journalists were friends with the band. Even in foreign magazines the journalists had seen COB multiple times and actively would ask about stuff the fans would want to know. But nowadays there's new people in the music magazines and it looks like it's some summer job kid copy pasteing interviews and linking youtube vids.
Actually in the last few years it's been Jussi 69 who has asked the most interesting questions? But yeah he's friends with Alexi so he knows whats new.

I remember the Blooddrunk hype was so fuckin cool, it was what brought me into this band, felt like I couldn't get enough, there was something new to find all the time. Damn I wish I could time travel it was a great time in my life too I was 10 years old when Blooddrunk came out and it was the best thing to come home from school every day to blast COB and other bands home alone and drink coffee. I spent a lot of time on this forum too and I pretty much learnt english mostly from here and COB interviews, I would sit in front of the computer with a dictionary figuring out what everyone was saying!
But it's true, social media seems to make attention spans shorter. It could be other things too but it's kinda depressing I don't find the interest to be as passionate or interested in things nowadays. I spent so much time finding new bands and reading stuff, buying and borrowing albums and watching dvds. Now I don't do any of that anymore. I think I should take a break from the whole internet for a bit and read a couple of books

 

[sfont]

Maybe the questions being more interestimg back in the day were also because often in Soundi/Inferno, all the rest of finnish big magazines it seemed like the journalists were friends with the band. Even in foreign magazines the journalists had seen COB multiple times and actively would ask about stuff the fans would want to know. But nowadays there's new people in the music magazines and it looks like it's some summer job kid copy pasteing interviews and linking youtube vids.
Actually in the last few years it's been Jussi 69 who has asked the most interesting questions? But yeah he's friends with Alexi so he knows whats new.

I remember the Blooddrunk hype was so fuckin cool, it was what brought me into this band, felt like I couldn't get enough, there was something new to find all the time. Damn I wish I could time travel it was a great time in my life too I was 10 years old when Blooddrunk came out and it was the best thing to come home from school every day to blast COB and other bands home alone and drink coffee. I spent a lot of time on this forum too and I pretty much learnt english mostly from here and COB interviews, I would sit in front of the computer with a dictionary figuring out what everyone was saying!
But it's true, social media seems to make attention spans shorter. It could be other things too but it's kinda depressing I don't find the interest to be as passionate or interested in things nowadays. I spent so much time finding new bands and reading stuff, buying and borrowing albums and watching dvds. Now I don't do any of that anymore. I think I should take a break from the whole internet for a bit and read a couple of books

Some time ago I read about Corey Taylor & Kerrang/other press and they said that the press needed much more Corey Taylor than Corey Taylor needed the press. Might be the death of metal press as we know? As the bands have their social media management and stuff, the news come faster and directly from them, which makes easier the press disappearing.

And regarding your lack of interest about new music, I'm living the same situation. I have tried to look for new music a few times and nothing has quite catched me (and I'n not saying that there are no good musicians/bands out there; it's just that I don't find them THAT appealing or catchy). Ola Englud (The Haunted, Feared, Youtube master) has said many times that, he's also not digging into new music lately and he stays with old death metal stuff (he also didn't knew about CoB haha), so, are we...getting older? Are we the metal dads? hahaha