Children Of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho: “I’m Backstage Puking Blood With A Broken Shoulder And Broken Ribs Listening To The Crowd Chant ‘Bullshit!’”
Chaos is hanging out with Children Of Bodom and gets the real story behind the cancelleation of their tour…
Over the years one weird thing that has been consistent at Children of Bodom shows for me, is that when Bodom is playing my area I always manage to show up just in time to go backstage for a few minutes prior to Alexi going on. This time would be no different. After the show in true COBHC hospitality, I was invited on the bus to hang out and catch up.
We all remember on the last tour for Blooddrunk, Alexi had an unfortunate accident that left him pretty busted up. A true testament to determination, Alexi decided to continue on with the tour.
“I did ten and a half shows. We had to cut it short in New York. There was nothing I could to do continue, it was so fucking painful. Everybody around me was concerned. Randy Blythe told me he knows I’m not a pussy and I wanted to continue playing, but he told me not to do this shit to myself. I told him, fuck man, I’m going to do this till’ the fucking day I die. But here’s what happened. Picture this dude, there we were in New York, the biggest show of the tour and I had to quit half way through. Now I’m backstage puking blood with a broken shoulder and broken ribs listening to the crowd chant ‘Bullshit’. I don’t blame them, they didn’t know what was going on. One of the Municipal Waste dudes went out on stage and explained what was going on. At least I fucking tried dude. I did ten fucking shows all fucking beaten up.”
Some people embrace being considered a guitar god or hero, where as others may experience feeling pressure and overwhelmed by the whole idea.
“For me it’s a great fucking feeling. I don’t feel any pressure, that’s not what it’s about. At the end of the day it’s all about the music, the music you write, the music you play, the music you feel. I’m blessed to be voted a few times as the number one guitar player by one of the biggest guitar magazines in the world.”
I mentioned that Kirk Hammet thinks he is underrated.
“Fuck, that means a lot to me. I grew up learning all the Metallica songs… that truly does mean a lot to me. Just like Roope [Latvala], he was a huge musical influence on me growing up. Sometimes when we’re on stage and I look over at Roope I think, holy fuck that’s the guy I grew up listening to, this is fucked. He’s a great guy. He’s one of my favorite people and one of my favorite musicians of all time… the guy’s a fucking genius. We’re lucky to have the best guitar player in Finland with us.”
When it comes to extreme music, most people do not seem to think there is any place for humor. Alexi is a funny dude, and jumps at the chance to get silly and have a laugh. Is it important to keep grounded and down to earth?
“I think it is. Not too many people may agree with me. Most of the musicians I grew up listening to were actually able to laugh at themselves. If you take yourself too seriously, then that’s just uncool.”
Alexi told me he has just got a place in LA with his girlfriend and is splitting his time between LA and back home. Most people may not be aware, but Alexi has a second female in his life…His 74′ Dodge Monaco named ‘Monica’.
“I wish I could be with her right now. She’s in a heated garage. Actually in our new practice space. It’s fucking huge. We could park ten cars in there. Way better than our old space. The old space had no insulation against sound. You could hear all these other bands playing clearly. It was impossible to write a song there.”
Did he see any on this tour?
“Dude I don’t want to talk about it…come on dude. That shit gets me, it gets me depressed. I don’t
want to be depressed. Everybody has something weird like that. Another thing I have is a sleeping
disorder. I’ve tried all kinds of shit. I tried hypnosis, but nothing works. Lack of sleep really
hurts the body.
We continued talking about lack of sleep being tough on the body which led to a discussion on health overall. That inevitably brought us to remembering all the great people the metal world has lost in recent times, and the fact that we almost lost Zakk a few times.
“We are so happy Zakks back and he’s OK, it’ fucking scary. Sometimes you think people are made of
steel. It could happen to any of us at anytime. It’s important to be aware of the signs and get checked
out. I feel like shit most of the time and am used to suffering, it might be difficult for me to notice any
signs.”
Just as I was feeling warm and fuzzy about bugging Alexi, Right Said Fred’s epically ridiculous hit ‘I’m too sexy’ popped up on VH1 classic. Alexi’s keen instincts honed in on my loathing for that fucking song. So he stood up and cranked the fucking volume to eleven. Check mate Alexi, check fucking mate. I mentioned my bewilderment of the songs success. Alexi thought it was a comedy bit like ‘I like big butts’ by Sir-mix-alot. No shit, not ten fucking seconds later… you guessed it, the video for ‘I like big butts’ came over the telly. We all lost our shit.
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