Author: Logan Rocker

Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory may have been born in Eastern Europe, but his band are an American success story. In 2013, between the two volumes of that year’s The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell albums, we met up with Zoltan and singer Ivan Moody in their HQ to talk war, alcoholism and controversy.

Nine times out of 10 when you go to a rehearsal space you’ll find yourself in a room that’s barely big enough to contain the whole band, let alone any visitors. There’s a 50/50 chance it’ll be soundproofed with old mattresses that carry a vague aroma of damp dog, and slightly greater odds that you’ll be able to hear the horrible indie band bleeding through the walls from next door. Clearly we are not dealing with that kind of band today. We are dealing with a one in 10. Their name is Five Finger Death Punch.

Let’s have a poke around before they arrive, shall we? Say hi to the crew, guitar techs, drum tech, soundman, a nice guy, Buddhist, sitting outside this vast warehouse in the Palm Springs desert, under the shade of a tent that bears the band’s logo. By 10am it’s 106˚ here, but thankfully there are industrial fans inside to cool the place down a little while we check out the stage set-up, all skulls and gargoyles and brass-knuckles and grenades and guns and bullets… Oh so many bullets. The mic stand alone looks like it could take on a small army.

And that might be a problem, boys and girls, because doesn’t it seem, on the surface at least, that 5FDP are a little too into this whole war thing? War Is The Answer and fuck yeah, isn’t America great?! Let’s bomb Syria for bombing Syria and then have a pop at Iran just for a laugh. Coca-cola and Armageddon! Have you seen the Pride video for Christ’s sake?

While the band’s rise to success has been nothing less than astonishing – their last album, The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Volume 1, hit the Billboard charts at number two – isn’t it possible that they’re just a bunch of knuckleheads who got lucky?

It’s one thing to attempt a courteous interview, but quite another to endorse a band with a collected IQ that perhaps fails to reach double digits. The band – frontman Ivan Moody, drummer Jeremy Spencer, bassist Chris Kael, and guitarists Jason Hook and Zoltan Bathory – are disarmingly nice when they arrive, easy company, all smiles, but that could soon change. Some bands throw a hissy fit when you question their motives or their lyrics, so it’s probably best to start off with some easy ones. Ivan’s up first and we’ve heard he doesn’t talk much, doesn’t like doing interviews. Which is a good start.

It looks like you’re set to become one of the biggest metal bands in the world. you even had Trivium and Killswitch Engage open for you last year. Where do you go from here?

Ivan: “Higher and higher, further and further. Why stop now? It took us so long to get here and I’ve always said that we didn’t come to lose.”

How do you develop your stage shows and where do you see yourselves taking them? Are we talking Rammstein and Kiss?

“It’s funny that you mention Rammstein, that’s really our goal. I want to have production like Ramstein, but at the end of the day, it comes down to what we do as individuals on stage. I just saw Social Distortion in Vegas and they probably had seven lights, the whole stage was like a punk rock stage, and it was great! It comes down to the band and the crowd reaction. You can have million dollar stage set-up but if you suck people will tell you about it.”

You recently spoke about having alcohol problems. How are you dealing with that now, and where did it stem from?

“It goes way back in my family. My grandfathers were massive alcoholics; one took his own life and the other died from alcohol poisoning. In my family it was never looked down upon. I never quit, but I’ve weaned myself off the excess of drinking. I got tired of waking up and not knowing how I got to my room, or where my shoes were, or why I had a black eye and my bandmates wouldn’t talk to me. It started interfering with my every day life. The guy who talked me out of drinking so much was Jonathan Davis from Korn. He pulled me up on his bus one night and basically told me that I had the opportunity to be something bigger and that there were millions of people listening to me, so now was the moment to get it together. He told me that he loved what I did with music and on stage, and that was really an honour, but he told me to quit the sauce. I started crying.”

Was that the moment you decided to get it together?

“Absolutely. Jeremy went into rehab and that was a big eye-opener for me. We were up at his house one night, drinking and being stupid, and he was laying out on the patio and I didn’t notice that he’d fallen asleep. All of a sudden I realised he’d stopped breathing and I had to shake him awake! He’s one of my favourite people on earth and the moment I thought about losing another person to such an idiotic thing… When JD pulled me up on his bus it was a real moment for me because I grew up on Korn and almost idolised them to a degree.”

Do you ever get tired of being asked your world views?

“I don’t, but my grandfather told me a long time ago, there’s three things you should never talk about in public: religion, politics and aliens, because everyone’s opinion will be different.”

But you do talk about it. You seem to have an awful lot of songs about war.

“There’s always been war, it’s in our nature.”

America’s starting most of them!

“Let’s be clear about that: American politicians do a lot of that shit. Americans ourselves – the people who live and work their asses off – don’t get to make those decisions and we don’t hear about it until after it’s done. If anybody in the world thinks that we, as a society, promote or embrace that kind of mentality, they’re lying to themselves. I hope the world understands that it’s not us, it’s the people who are in power. We want to apologise to the world! But we can only do so much, and I believe that there will come a time when there will be a revolution in this country, when the politicians are gonna have to change their ways. We’re not going to take the corruption any more. It’s not like it’s not on the ‘to do’ list, it’s just that we’re trying to do it correctly.”

Do you think that comes across? On first glance at the band it’s all ‘war and America, fuck yeah!’

“Well the title, War Is The Answer, is tongue-in-cheek. At the time we’d just gone over to Iraq and it just seemed like it was so out of our hands. That’s why I always promote the military, because I have a serious respect for somebody who, whether they believe in the politics involved or not, is willing to give their life to save the most basic freedoms for the rest of us. But when you’re lied to and told that you’re doing something like that, and then come back and find out the whole thing’s a façade…

“Both times we went to Iraq and Kuwait, we got the same feeling from all the soldiers: we didn’t sign up for this, we just came because we thought this was our duty. When they come back they’re all just heartbroken. There’s a lot of corruption in politics and it’s not just America, I get tired of hearing that. It’s not like the rest of the world is perfect and it’s just America fucking everything up. We have just as much respect for other cultures as anybody else, but it sometimes feels like we’re pissed on because of the decisions in Congress. We can’t overthrow the place, but it’ll happen eventually.”

How was it playing to the troops?

“Amazing. It was one of our best experiences as a unit. Me, Jeremy and Jason were drunks at the time and when we went there for three and a half weeks there was no liquor allowed so it was a real chance for us to get to know each other again and to dry out. It was an honour to meet those men and women who are there sacrificing their lives for something that some of them don’t even believe in.”

Do they mosh?

“Absolutely! We had the military police tell us, ‘No moshing’ and they were just standing there, they couldn’t move, so I went over to the MPs and said, ‘Dude, you’ve got to let them move around a little bit!’ He goes, “OK, fine, a couple of songs,” and the next thing you know there’s dust everywhere and so much energy! Once he gave them the word, they were all over it!”

People accuse you guys of being too macho. Does that ever get you down?

“Macho, huh? Fuck, that’s ridiculous! I don’t even know where to go with that. I never considered myself macho and I grew up anti-jock. I can see as an outsider you might perceive that, but at the end of the day that’s not who we are at all.”

You’ve very much into martial arts, though. Is that something you’d compete in?

“No, the last time I got in a real fight I had 27 staples put in my stomach, 13 stitches in my throat and another 17 in my back and my arm. I got stabbed in a bar fight in Vegas. I went to practice four days later and I couldn’t sing, and the guys told me that if I kept being that way then they were gonna have to let me go. That’s the other reason I admire those who do martial arts; I don’t have the patience they do. My bodyguard, John, trains navy Seals, he’s a fucking assassin, but he’s the most calm and tactful person you’ve ever met in your life. I’m not that guy. People see me on stage and that’s my temperament. That’s why I love what I do because I don’t have to be that angry on a daily basis, that’s why that macho thing kinda threw me. It’s not who I am, it’s somebody I left in a closet a long time ago. That would be the same as saying that about Phil Anselmo. What’s macho about it? It’s a source of release and it was either that or prison. I’d rather be here.”

It seems that you’re open to discussion rather than being ‘fuck you if you don’t like it’. It’s a pleasant surprise.

“If you really listen to my lyrics and not just let it go in one ear and out the other, you’d be surprised. It’s my job to open my chest and to let the world know everything about me. I think the closer I get to my heart, the more it’s relatable.”

Does that also leave you vulnerable, like someone reading your diary?

“Yes, and that’s the reason I don’t do a lot of interviews. I feel like just about everything I have to say is on that album. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have anything to myself, so I leave that to Jeremy and Zoltan. You’re gonna have fun with Zoltan!”

With a name like Zoltan Bathory you’d be forgiven for expecting to meet a wizard, but he’s Hungarian and just has a cool name. He breaks the ice by joking about his accent: “I said I’m a Hungarian not a hung Aryan!” and it’s difficult not to like him immediately. He likes to talk and, having been totally thrown by Ivan, we’ll not make the mistake of approaching him like we might be dealing with the village idiot. Which is probably just as well since he turns out to be a genius. And possibly a wizard!

Most bands seem to break Europe first but you did it the other way around. Why do you think that is?

Zoltan “I don’t know why, but from day one there was an instant connection. I guess, if you look at the art of war, you don’t move away from the water and the resources, and this was our place. Now that we have so many fans in America I feel like the band is stable and now we can go away and stay in Europe for a year and we’ll still have the fanbase here.”

Do you think it’s because, from the outside, the band comes across as very all American and overly patriotic? At first glance, that’s what The Pride video is.

“That could be part of it. The first record was more European-sounding, I mean, I’m European, I grew up there, but now it’s a more American-sounding band. And you’re right, on the surface when you look at this band you may look at it that way unless you read the interviews and get to know us. I was asked so many times, ‘What is this war thing?’ I’m into Eastern philosophy so I look at war in a different light. A Buddhist monk is probably in the biggest war you can imagine because he’s fighting the whole time he’s meditating. I’m a martial artist and life is war. Since you’re born you fight for something, even if it’s a social position. That’s just how we are.”

But on the surface it’s difficult to tell if you’re Bill Hicks fans for instance, or just really into war.

“As an artist, it’s not your place to pick sides. If you do, you’re preaching and that’s not your job. Your job is to push buttons and make people aware. You can nudge people’s perceptions so they’re like, ‘Let’s think about it this way or that way.’ For example, you mentioned The Pride’s video and you see all this corporate advertising and your natural reaction is ‘Fuck that shit!’ But I’m not saying ‘Yay, corporate America’ or ‘No, corporate America’, I’m just pushing a button.

“If you take it one way, it’s about surviving and it’s natural that the strong survive. If someone builds a corporation in some way they become the alpha dog and it wasn’t a physical thing, like being stronger. Somehow he figured out how to get ahead, so is that right or wrong? Should he be condemned? It’s not my job to tell anyone how to live, and no one can tell me how to live or what to say.

“If I was into war in that gung-ho way, even then I’d have the right to do that. This right goes both ways. That’s what we do and many people don’t understand that yet. You have to understand sarcasm in the first place. A lot of people misunderstood what American Capitalist is about and capitalism is the closest to nature. I grew up in a communist system and I can tell you why it doesn’t work. The idea that you will stay in line and not want to advance won’t work, because we are by nature a certain way. The point of that record is that, within the system, this is a lesser evil, and it’s your job to be as strong as you can be.”

How does part two of The Wrong Side Of Heaven relate to part one?

“It’s not a concept record, just a body of work. We had so much music that was dear to us – we couldn’t decide which songs to use. We called the label and said, ‘We have a good problem! We have too many songs!’ They said, ‘No, pick 12!’ So it was like, ‘OK, you fucking pick them!’”

You let the label choose?

“No! We were being sarcastic! We wouldn’t do that. We’re actually an indie label band, we’re the only band on the label, and there’s three employees. We have full artist control.”

You have a very diverse crew – a Buddhist sound-guy, ex-military bodyguard… is that diversity important to you?

“That’s the idea. When you put a crew together, that matters. Most of them have a serious education and a lot of them are martial artists. I would say I’m a Buddhist. Buddha prohibited his students from writing down his teachings because he was against anything organised; he didn’t want such a thing as Buddhism. I’m going by the original idea… it’s more of a path.”

That’s probably not the outside perception of who you are!

“Perception is interesting. Existence and perception are chained together. If you don’t perceive, technically, it doesn’t exist. By perceiving you make the world. I’ll never know what’s in your head or what you see, I’ll only know what I see. If you lost your perception then, to you, the world ceases to exist.”

How did your thinking come about? Doing acid or reading?

“Ha ha! I read millions of books and spent long years with monks. I seek knowledge and to understand what’s around me on a deeper level, so I’ve read everything from Einstein’s work to Eastern philosophy. Before the Aztecs there were Toltecs, a Mesoamerican culture, and they had knowledge of things like astronomy that today we’re like, ‘How the fuck did these guys know?’ Then you read these books and compare them to eastern philosophy like Himalayan Buddhism or Hindi and the concepts and ideas are very similar. It wasn’t like ‘I’m gonna buy a book and then buy into the idea’ – I bought all the books and read everything I could.”

Doesn’t it bother you that this band is seen as stupid when you’re clearly not?

“To a degree it’s entertaining. I worked in the space industry for many years and I have worldwide patents in space and aviation.”

What are you messing around with rock’n’roll for then?

“Because this is a vehicle. Music is a very, very deep therapy. It’s very meditative. And with music, everything that you create, you did not create! You never invented anything and you never created anything. Let’s take a cellular phone: the technology to make a cellular phone was exactly the same 20 million years ago and it’s exactly the same in the way that no one discovered America, it was always there. You didn’t discover physical laws, they were the same laws a billion years ago, you just came to understand them. And you didn’t write that song, you came upon that combination of chords. Those notes and rhythms were possible a billion years ago and we just stumbled across that combination. The potential to put those notes in that order was always there.”

Do you believe in an after life?

“Information and matter cannot be destroyed. All the information and matter you contain has to go somewhere. It fits Einstein’s idea of relativity, but let’s not even talk about Einstein. If we take today’s understanding of physics then we cannot destroy energy, information or matter, it transforms, but it has to go somewhere. So there is a form of afterlife, but it’s not like you sit up and go, ‘Oh, I’m a ghost.’”

This must be the first Metal Hammer cover story to discuss physics!

“That’s my point. Some of the people who read the magazine have never been exposed to that and maybe never question it. When something falls on the floor: ‘Oh, it’s gravity.’ Once it has a name you no longer question it. Most of the things in the world, we gave them a little box, gave them a name, and we’re comfortable with that. An artist’s job is to go, ‘Is that really true? I’m not telling you what’s in the box, but is it what you think it is?’

“Take our album cover: it’s a typical metal record cover, but how many people really look at it? It has the angel/devil concept and there are two angels, both with machine-guns, which we did to push buttons in the God debate. One of them is Justice holding the scale and the other one is Liberty, but Justice is usually blindfolded. In this image Justice is looking at you and we blindfolded Liberty. The people who are there mentally will get it and some people will not think a fucking thing of it.

“You can give someone the key to the universe, but if they don’t understand then the key will be lost. I can give a caveman my phone and he wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it. I can present lyrics, music and information and some people will get it and some won’t. At first people thought, ‘Knucklehead Americans!’ and now they’re starting to figure it out.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 250, October 2013

A veteran of rock, punk and metal journalism for almost three decades, across his career Mörat has interviewed countless music legends for the likes of Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Kerrang! and more. He’s also an accomplished photographer and author whose first novel, The Road To Ferocity, was published in 2014. Famously, it was none other than Motörhead icon and dear friend Lemmy who christened Mörat with his moniker. 

Twenty eight years after Joe Satriani put together the first G3 tour, he reunited with the other two guitarists – Steve Vai and Eric Johnson – for a US tour last year.

The G3 concept, which for a while in the early 2000s was an annual event with a varying cast, had lain dormant for the previous six years so there is a sense of coming full circle.

Listening to three axemen, who were in their prime, on the first G3 tour playing their respective sets with the same skill and dedication in their mid-to-late 60s is an almost humbling experience.

Johnson’s set is perhaps the most intriguing because he has remained the most inscrutable and elusive of the three, not to mention being the oldest at 70. They only give away their ages on the choice of encores: Crossroads as done by Cream, Hendrix’s Spanish Castle Magic and Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild.

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 50 years. Actually 61 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.

Following the release of their sole, self-titled studio album in June 1989, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe embarked on an extensive and well-received world tour.

With the Chris Squire-led Yes languishing in a singerless limbo in Los Angeles, the offshoot tour was the closest fans would get to the Yes live experience throughout 1989 and early 1990.

Recorded at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California on September 9, 1989, An Evening Of Yes Music Plus was originally broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show and as a pay-per-view concert film, before being commercially released in 1993 on double CD and in 1997 on the then-new DVD format. While the former was reissued in 2006, this is the first time the audio and visual elements have been brought together in one package.

An Evening Of Yes Music Plus does what it says on the tin, mixing a cross-section of songs by their then-former band with a decent helping of tracks from the ABWH album and a scattering of solo songs. The first half-hour features each of the four musicians taking time in the spotlight for what amount to ‘solo’ sets.

Jon Anderson’s acoustic medley takes in a plaintive Time And A Word, Yes’s 80s megahit Owner Of A Lonely Heart and ABWH stinker Teakbois. Steve Howe fuses his instrumental workout Clap with Yes’s Mood For A Day; and Rick Wakeman goes full solo with a fluid Gone But Not Forgotten and busy, bright renditions of Catherine Parr and Merlin The Magician. By contrast, Bill Bruford’s sample-heavy electronic drum solo sounds like an antiquated music shop demo recording of space-age percussion.

Also impressive is the anthemic Order Of The Universe, where even Bruford’s syn-drum break works

Unsurprisingly, the Yes canon is heavily represented, with And You And I, Close To The Edge, Starship Trooper and Roundabout all rolled out. But it’s the ABWH songs, freed from the dated late 80s sonics of their recorded counterparts, that benefit most from the live treatment.

There’s a strong version of Birthright, featuring a more pronounced acoustic feel; and a sparkling, organic Brother Of Mine, with bassist Jeff Berlin –standing in for regular ABWH member Tony Levin, sidelined with hepatitis – on fluent form. Also impressive is the anthemic Order Of The Universe, where even Bruford’s syn-drum break works, despite sounding enjoyably like laser sound FX from a vintage arcade game.

Within 18 months of this recording, the quartet had been re-absorbed into the main band in time for the Union debacle. Yet this remains a fine reminder of an excellent, if fleeting, part in the Yesstory.

An Evening Of Yes Music Plus is on sale now via Esoteric Recordings.

In the late 1990s, Children Of Bodom did as much to put Finnish metal on the map as countrymen Nightwish and HIM. In 2013, late frontman Alexi Laiho and Janne Wirman looked back on the rise of these Nordic hellraisers.

Ask Children Of Bodom founder and frontman Alexi Laiho how he got the nickname ‘Wildchild’, and indeed, why he’s still using it at the ripe old age of 33, and he sniggers and says, “Actually I don’t use it these days, and it doesn’t appear on our album covers any more, but some people still call me that. I guess I’ve had a few crazy times over the past few years.”

You could say that. The career trajectory of Finnish fivesome Children Of Bodom has been a rollercoaster ride, but it hardly compares to the life experience of Alexi himself, who has been through more broken bones and bottles of Jägermeister than most of us would encounter in three lifetimes. How he’s made it this far is a mystery to us.

COB, now one of Finland’s bestselling metal bands and a Europe-wide force as well as in the UK and America, have humble roots at their high school in the tedious Helsinki district of Espoo, whose name is about the most amusing thing about the place.

“Espoo is boring in every single way,” says Alexi, looking back at the band’s early days. “It’s just another suburb of Helsinki: there’s nothing there, and nothing to do, so you have to find things to do. For me it was playing guitar and skateboarding. Most of us went to the same school in Espoo: me and our drummer Jaska [Raatikainen] started playing together when we were about 12 years old. Then a bass player called Samuli Miettinen joined us and we started playing covers – crappy versions of Metallica and Sepultura songs. We didn’t really know how to play, but we did it anyway. A couple of years later we started writing our own stuff.”

The band called themselves Inearthed and played pretty basic death metal, recalls Alexi. “We wanted to come up with a name that was death metal-sounding,” he shrugs. “We recorded three demos under that name: they’re surprisingly good for 16-year-old kids. The lyrics are a bit juvenile but by this age, we could play a bit. The music was death metal, but later we incorporated keyboards into them. I heard one of the songs a while back when someone played it at a party: they’re all over YouTube!”

Like all teenage bands, Inearthed rehearsed wherever they could, including a stint chez Alexi. “We rehearsed in my dad’s garage,” he recalls, “and later at a place where young people hung out which had a room at the back. We’ve moved around a lot since then, though. The one we have now is better than my dad’s garage, ha ha ha!”

A solid line-up first came together when Samuli took off for a new life Stateside. “The original bass player moved to the States and then Henkka [‘Blacksmith’ Seppälä] joined,” Alexi adds. “We’ve been together a long time now. We’re still good friends. We argue and bitch at each other every once in a while, but it’s nothing serious.”

A second guitarist, Alexander Kuoppala, and a keyboard player called Jani Pirisjoki were recruited and Inearthed were now in a position to make serious music. The group may have been in their mid-teens, says Alexi, but there was no shortage of ambition among them. “We always took it seriously,” he tells us. “Even around the time we recorded the first demo, we were practising every single day, for hours. We did that for years and years, rehearsing constantly. We were very serious about taking the next step forward. We sent our demos all over the place, to pretty much every single independent record label that we knew. We got rejected every single time.”

Finally, a small label (which had better remain unnamed, as you’ll see) took the bait and asked Inearthed to sign on the dotted line, which they duly did without realising what a crap deal they were being offered. At the same time, Finnish metal specialists Spinefarm offered them a much better contract, leaving the band in a quandary. As Alexi remembers, “There was one record company that we sent the demo to and signed a deal with, and it was a totally bad deal – but then we heard that Spinefarm were interested, so we just told the guy [at the first label] that we’d decided to break up, and then we changed our name to Children Of Bodom and went with Spinefarm. I’m sure he was pissed off, but you know what? Fuck him! The record deal he gave us was basically stealing candy from a baby. I don’t feel bad about it.”

As for the new deal with Spinefarm, fortunately the label were good eggs and didn’t rip their new signings off, Alexi adds. “We had no management because no one was interested, and we didn’t have lawyers because we didn’t have any fuckin’ money, so basically we just signed Spinefarm’s contract. They could have really fucked us over, because we were just stupid kids – but we got a fair deal.”

And so Inearthed became Children Of Bodom. For those not well-versed in Finnish social history, a popular Espoo attraction is Lake Bodom, which became infamous in 1960 when three teenagers were murdered while camping there. Calling the band after the murder victims might seem a bit tasteless with hindsight, but Alexi says that he’s never received any criticism on the subject.

“I’m not really sure how the name came about,” he says, “but Lake Bodom is near where we grew up. There was the whole story [about the murdered children] and somebody came up with the idea of using the word ‘Bodom’. We came up with different options before landing on the name Children Of Bodom. I was expecting to get some shit about the name, but nobody said a goddamn thing. Then again, we’re not afraid of it: if we’d had some crap about the band name, it would have been publicity, and good for us!”

Keyboard player Janne Wirman joined just as COB began recording their first album, Something Wild, in 1997. “The songs were already written when I arrived,” says Janne. “Children Of Bodom looked like a really cool band to be in. I was only supposed to stay for that first album, actually, but I ended up staying.” As you’ll know if you’ve seen COB live, Janne is as much of a headbanger as either of the guitarists, playing his keyboards at a slanted angle. Why? Because it’s more metal that way. Chuckling at our suggestion that he might have invented heavy metal synth playing, Janne explains: “I guess I wanted to play keyboards like a guitarist plays guitar, and the slanted keyboards make sense because they’ re easier to play.”

Like the rest of the band, Janne had to work at a rubbish job all day in order to pay the bills. “I was a janitor at a school,” he recalls. “Actually it was really easy, because all I had to do was open the gates in the morning and close them again in the afternoon!” Alexi, meanwhile, had a job erecting tents at outdoor events, which might not sound bad if you’ve never seen how massive those things are…

Perhaps the effort of doing a McJob all day and rocking out at night explains the sheer exuberance of Something Wild, which Spinefarm released in 1997. “I like the energy of that album,” says Alexi. “To me, it just sounds like young dudes who want to crank out metal. It has good vibes, even though I wasn’t an experienced songwriter at the time. Some of the arrangements don’t make any sense, but then again, it was back in the day: death metal songs had wacky arrangements anyway.”

Once the album was out, COB hit the road, first for a Finnish tour and then across Europe with the Swedish death metal band Hypocrisy and German black metallers Agathodaimon. The road was where COB were born to be, says Alexi. “I fuckin’ loved it from the first second! First we just toured Finland, and then we did our first European tour in early 1998. We had a blast, it was so much fun. Was it debauched? Definitely – you can only imagine! Free beer everywhere, and you play a show every goddamn night… We’ve basically been on the road since we were 18.”

Having grabbed the European metal scene’s attention with their blend of death metal, power metal and straightahead heavy stuff, Children Of Bodom recorded Hatebreeder, a noticeable step up in sophistication.

“You can hear the improvements in the band between those two albums – in the songwriting and the arrangements. It was a real leap forward for us,” says Alexi, who also remembers the release as the point when he could finally stop working day jobs. As any budding musician will know, playing music is the easy part: actually paying your bills with it is much more difficult – a fact which Alexi has always appreciated.

“When Hatebreeder came out, that’s more or less when I stopped working other jobs,” he says. “All I ever wanted was to make a living out of music, and I’m so happy about it.”

Although the third album, Follow The Reaper, on which COB experimented with their sound, was a respectable effort, it wasn’t until 2003 and Hate Crew Deathroll that COB made a serious impact. Solid touring in Europe had consolidated the band’s fanbase and a world tour beckoned. “Hate Crew Deathroll was our breakthrough album. We found our sound and our place in the world,” says Alexi.

Although that same world tour claimed a casualty – Alexander Kuoppala, who was replaced by Roope Latvala after citing a lack of enthusiasm for the touring life – nothing could stop Alexi’s hate crew now, and in fact the band even decided to spark up a little controversy by recording a metallised cover of Oops, I Did It Again by Britney Spears.

“We recorded that cover during the Hate Crew Deathroll sessions,” sniggers Alexi. “It was a fun way of freaking people out. We love doing covers anyway, and it was so much fun for us to do a Britney Spears song instead of metal songs: it was more challenging and more fun.” Predictably, a whole bunch of headbangers failed to see the joke. “Man, it was amazing, the reactions we got out of people. A lot of kids were super-mad at us, but I think most people understood the joke.”

Having built up serious momentum, COB were on a roll in 2005 when they released their next album, Are You Dead Yet?, although Alexi noted some moderate whining from people who resented the similar title to the previous year’s Aren’t You Dead Yet? album by Swedish thrashers Carnal Forge. As he says now, “It was a coincidence. I heard about it afterwards and I was like ‘What are you gonna do? The damage is done.’” This last sentence is also pertinent in the light of a bruising encounter between tarmac and Alexi’s skeleton, when he broke his shoulder after a few sherries one night…

“Before we started writing Are You Dead Yet?,” recalls Alexi shamefacedly, “I broke my wrist when I was drunk and acting like an idiot. I was standing on a car roof and it was snowing, so slippery, and I fell and smacked my head on the concrete. I used my wrist to break the fall. I had a cast on for six weeks, so I couldn’t play, which sucked. I started writing songs, though. The good thing was that we’d just got back from the road, so we didn’t have any shows left. If you had to break a wrist, that was the time to do it!”

More importantly than either busted arms or inadvertent title clashes, AYDY? was the biggest-selling Children Of Bodom album yet, widening the band’s appeal still more – and Alexi was rewarded in 2006 with a gong for Best Guitarist at that year’s Metal Hammer Golden Gods. Asked if he was chuffed by our recognition of his shredding mastery, Alexi exclaims: “That was awesome! Whenever anything like that happens, it’s always rewarding and flattering. I don’t see myself as the king of the guitar or anything, though. I’m still learning.”

Reluctant as we are to admit that anything is cooler than getting a Golden God award, the most impressive thing to happen to COB that year had to be Slayer’s invitation to join them as part of that year’s Unholy Alliance tour. By this time, Slayer guitarist Kerry King had become a vocal admirer of Alexi’s instrumental prowess, and the idea of the two bands playing on the same stage made sense.

But perhaps not when it came to Alexi attempting to match Kerry’s legendary drinking capacity. Asked if he partied with the Slayer co-founder, Alexi groans. “A lot! He drank me under the table so many goddamn times. It takes a lot to do that, because I can drink more than most people, but when it comes to Kerry King and Jägermeister, dude, there’s no way! I’m telling you, I tried…”

Keyboardist Janne didn’t get off lightly either. “Fuck, we drank so much Jäger with Kerry that I literally couldn’t touch it again for years! Those tours were amazing because they taught us so much about how a really professional tour operates at the top level.”

A few months after the Unholy Alliance tour, Alexi managed to pull off an amazing feat of self-injury, and this time in a deeply un-metal location. He’s laughing as he tells Hammer this next anecdote, but we dread to think how much it must have hurt.

“Ah, the infamous bowling accident,” he sighs. “I was drinking at a bowling alley and I slipped next to the bowling lane, because it’s really fuckin’ slippery and I was wearing those bowling shoes, which are also slippery. Some- how I flipped upside down in the air; I don’t know how it was possible, but I did a complete 180˚ flip and landed on my shoulder.

“That pretty much makes me the biggest fuckin’ idiot walking on this Earth,” he laments. “No one’s ever broken a bone while bowling. Ah well, shit happens, you live and learn…” Except he didn’t…

Blooddrunk came out in 2008 and once again, COB had stepped up their game. “The song- writing and performances had definitely developed again,” nods Alexi. “It was more professional, and we had taken it in a heavier and dirtier direction. I think it had the same sort of anger that Something Wild had.” You want to talk about serious touring? This time COB went for it with all guns blazing, playing at Download and Wacken and touring alongside giants of metal such as Slipknot, Machine Head, Cannibal Corpse and Lamb Of God.

In 2009, Alexi managed to fuck himself up again, this time in bed (the safest place it is possible for a human to be). We’ll let him tell the story in his own words… “Well,” he begins, “when we were on a tourbus, I always used to sleep in the top bunk, which was probably not a good idea to begin with. We were out on tour supporting Lamb Of God, and I guess I had climbed up there to my bunk one night and passed out, with one of my legs hanging outside the bunk or whatever. Then the bus made a really sharp turn and I just fell out. I slammed into the floor pretty hard. My shoulder was fucked up again, and this time I broke a couple of ribs too. I was like, ‘Not again!’ But we were supporting Lamb Of God, so I had to do it. I got some painkillers and played 10 shows with the broken bones.”

Ever broken a rib? Then you’ll know what Alexi went through. “I’ll tell you, dude, broken ribs are some painful shit: even breathing hurts, so imagine what it was like when I was trying to sing and scream!” he says. “I was in fuckin’ agony, seriously. It just got worse and worse, and in the end we had to cancel the last five shows. I sleep in the bottom bunk nowadays, by the way! I still go bowling, though.”

Janne tells us, with massive diplomacy, “It got a bit frustrating, having to cancel shows because Alexi had hurt himself again. You expect a bit of crazy stuff to happen when you’re on the road, of course. Anyway, he hasn’t done it for a while…”

After a covers EP, Skeletons In The Closet, Children Of Bodom released their most recent album, Relentless Reckless Forever, in 2010. “With each album, we’ve come forward as a band, and that’s all we ever wanted to do,” says Alexi. “With this album we’ve got to play countries that we’ve never played before, and I thought we’d been everywhere! We’re almost done with the touring cycle now, so we’re gonna do a bunch of festivals and club shows in the summer, and after that we’re gonna start writing new shit. For release in 2013? Yes, that’s the plan: we want to be a bit quicker between albums than we were last time.”

Does Alexi ever get tired of the album-tour cycle? “I never get sick of it, no,” he tells us. “Sometimes it gets exhausting, and it’s hard to get up in the morning and get to the point when you’re ready to play the show, but you just have to kick your own ass. And you get into the right zone as soon as you hit the stage. Being on stage and seeing the kids always wakes you up!”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 231 (May 2012)

Joel McIver is a British author. The best-known of his 25 books to date is the bestselling Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica, first published in 2004 and appearing in nine languages since then. McIver’s other works include biographies of Black Sabbath, Slayer, Ice Cube and Queens Of The Stone Age. His writing also appears in newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Rolling Stone, and he is a regular guest on music-related BBC and commercial radio.