Metal Music 666

Kamelot



Kamelot are a band you can rely on! For several years now, they've fascinated their fans with their own brand of melodic power metal, vocalist Roy Khan's charismatic voice and Thomas Youngblood's powerful and at the same time intricate guitar work. Along with drummer Casey Grillo and bassist Glenn Barry, the band's trademarks are unmistakeable; each of their albums is marked by superior compositions and an impressive technique. At the same time, Kamelot have continued to redefine their sound, year by year, tour by tour, album by album. After a year of songwriting, pre-production, recording, mixing and mastering, Kamelot's next masterwork is finally ready. Their latest offering is called The Black Halo and mixes typical Kamelot characteristics like melody, speedo and classical orchestrations with new ideas and fresh influences. “In addition to the complex subject matter, The Black Halo sounds tougher and darker than our previous releases, without dramatic alterations to our style,” comments Roy Khan. “We've put even more emphasis on a dynamic guitar sound, tailoring it to the concise and carefully written songs.” States guitarist Thomas Youngblood


As usual, Khan and Youngblood started to work on the material early, allowing enough time for the production team to develop the intricate arrangements in their full splendour. The continuation of their Faustus adaptation about the battle between good and evil that began on the predecessor album, Epica , again combines Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's opus with the band's own experiences and views. The story is as multi-layered as it is deep, and it works on several levels. “This part is clearly more complex than the previous one; it deals extensively with political, cultural and religious events at Goethe's time, and there is no obvious red line through the story. On The Black Halo however there are many cross references relating to our own lives, fragments of private experiences and our political opinions, like of the war in Iraq.”




As would appear fitting in view of the ambitious theme, Kamelot were supported by various guest musicians during the recordings of The Black Halo , the most renowned among them Shagrath, vocalist with Dimmu Borgir, and Stratorvarius keyboard magician Jens Johansson. The opener, the gripping mid-tempo number ‘March of Mephisto' features a sensational meeting of Kamelot, Shagrath and Johansson. “This song embodies the album's atmosphere,” Khan explains. “On the one hand you have Kamelot's typical stylistic means, then Shagrath, the frontman of the world's currently most important black metal band, and an amazing solo by Jens, whose “violininstic” approach represents the devil's instrument.” Another impressive track is ‘Memento Mori' with around nine minutes playing time, Kamelot's longest number not only on The Black Halo but also in the band's entire history. Khan: “An epic, bombastic track that stands for the end of the concept, but not for the end of the album; a little piece of art in itself.” We don't need to mention the fact that next to unusual tracks, there are also typical Kamelot numbers along the lines of ‘Soul Society', which feature the musicians from their speedy, powerful and at the same time deeply melodic and melancholy side. “We are always reaching for new sounds and goals with our music, but remaining true to our roots and the “Kamelot Sound” that we have created over the years”, states Youngblood.



The Black Halo was produced mainly at the Pathway and Gate studios in Wolfsburg under the direction of Sascha Paeth and Miro.Guest musicians, next to Shagrath and Johansson, are Simone Simons, vocalist with Dutch act Epica, Mari (Masqueraid), and the Kamelot choir consisting of Herbie Langhans (7 th Avenue), Amanda Somerville-Scharf, Miro, Gerit Göbel, Thomas Rettke (Heaven's Gate) and Elisabeth Kjaernes plus additional guests. “I'd like to give a special mention to Cinzia Rizzo, who sings in Italian on the intermezzo ‘Un Assassinio Molto Silenzioso', adding an authentic cabaret feeling to that part,” says Khan.
The Black Halo deals with Love & Wonder, Life & Death through the eyes of Kamelot.




HISTORY:

Kamelot signed a recording contract in 1994, releasing their debut, Eternity , the following August. The press praised the album as one of the most promising first offerings ever. 1996 saw the arrival of Dominion , an album that sounded even more varied and diverse than its predecessor. In spring 1997 Kamelot found Casey Grillo and the former Conception vocalist Khan, who joined the group during the production of Siege Perilous . In autumn of the same year, the new line-up embarked on an extensive European tour and returned to the Gate studios in Wolfsburg twelve months later to work on the album that set a new standard for the band; The Fourth Legacy. In summer 2000, Kamelot's first live album was recorded during the New Allegiance tour, which took them through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Greece and Spain. Only a few months later, Khan, Youngblood, Grillo and bass player Glen Barry presented their fifth studio cut, Karma , and embarked on a European tour. Epica arrived in 2003, followed by another tour as Headliners in Europe, Japan, Mexico and the US as well many top Festival appearances. The Black Halo adds another exciting and epic chapter to the band's brilliant history.

U Hrvatskoj 5.1.2006. četvrtak u Zagrebu u Boogaloo koncert od COB-a dođite biti će genijalno

CHILDREN OF BODOM - biography

In spring 1993 two guys from the town Espoo in Finland (near the capital city Helsinki) decided to found a Death Metal band under the name "Inearthed". Their names were Alexi Laiho and Jaska Raatikainen and they knew each other from school. Many young people from Scandinavia decided to found Metal bands at that time but the story of this band becomes very successful. Alexi was a very talented guitar player who also thought that he could do the vocals and Jaska played drums. A bass player was found in a guy called Samuli Miettinen. On August 20th and 21st in 1994, the “band” entered the Munkkiniemen demostudio (which still provides demo bands a chance to record their demo) to record their first demo on a 24 track recorder. It got the title “Implosion Of Heaven” and contained three songs and one outro. Alexi wrote all songs and the lyrics were written by the bass player. There isn’t much known if anything important happened in the year 1994.

In 1995 the second demo entitled “Ubiguitous Absence Of Remission” was recorded in the Astia-studios in Lappeenranta only by Alexi and Jaska and mixed by the producer Anssi Kippo. Miettinen was not available for the recordings but he wrote all lyrics again and was still a member of the band. Alexi and Jaska decided to add keyboards to their music for their second demo, which they played by themselves. The two guys also used a female singer for one song. This demo contained one intro and three songs. It was Death Metal like on the first demo but this time the music was more melodic. Right after the recordings Alexander Kuoppala (guitars), who was a buddy of Jaska, joined the band.
At the end of 1995/beginning of 1996 Miettinen left Inearthed and Alexi and Jaska found two new band members for the recordings of their third four track-demo called “Shining”. The new members were Henkka Seppäla (bass) who went to the same school like Alexi and Jaska and Jani Pera Pirisjoki (keyboards). “Shining” was also recorded at the Astia-studios by the producer Anssi Kippo in February 1996. In the meantime Inearthed played some minor gigs in youth clubs in their hometown Espoo and also on a little festival in Lappeenranta. Actually this was a very hard time for the band and they almost split up but in the end they continued.



The birth of the children - Born to be wild...

In August 1997 Alexi also joined the Finnish Black Metal band Thy Serpent as lead guitar player. But he still concentrated on Inearthed who sent out their latest demo to many record companies but none of them were really interested and impressed by just another melodic Death Metal band. So the band decided finally to do something and make a step forward. They prepared to enter the Astia-studios again and start to record new stuff for their first album. At this time Jani Pera Pirisjoki left the band. (Although he was fired, the guys thank him in the booklet of that album.) The studio date was booked and the guys had to find a new keyboard player very necessary. It was Jaska who came up with a friend that we knew from his highschool. This guy wasn't very into Heavy Metal at that time but he was a very talented piano player (who was graduated from the Helsinki Pop Jazz Conservatory when he was sixteen). His name: Janne Wirman. The other guys in the band liked him and his playing so much that they asked him to join the band as a fulltime member and not only as a session member for the recordings.


The band was complete and ready to record 7 new songs for their (self-financed) debut album “Something Wild” (without having a deal at that time). The costs were about 3,500 € which were a lot of money for the guys. They also re-recorded their old demo song “Talking Of The Trees” from the Shining demo but finally they decided to not use that song because it wouldn’t reach the quality of the new songs. This time all songs were written by Alexi. Unfortunately he could only write lyrics for one song. For the others he just screamed some words that were in his head. (This was a problem which haunted the band on every album) The style of “Something Wild” wasn't as easy to describe as the Inearthed demos which were pure Melodic Death Metal. On this debut album elements of Speed-, Black-, Death- and Heavy Metal and even neo classiclal inlfuences can be found combined with a very high technical level, played by skilled musicians. After the album was produced and raw mixed the band got an offer from a Belgian record label and the guys decided to subscribe a record deal (the band still got the name Inearthed). Unfortunately it wasn’t a good offer because the record company didn’t pay for the studio costs and the label didn’t have enough money to promote the album, so the band had to sell 1,000 copies of the album by themselves. It was the best offer which the guys had so far, so they accepted.

At that time Alexander worked together with Sami Tenetz from Thy Serpent and he gave him a copy of the album. But Ale didn’t know that Sami forwarded the album to Ewo Rytkönen who worked at the Finnish record label Spinefarm Records.
He liked it so much that he made an offer to Inearthed to sign to Spinefarm two days after he got the album. So the guys had now a new offer which was much better than the one from the Belgian label. So they just told them that the band Inearthed did split up to come out of the contract. With other words: The band just changed their name to sign a new record deal over 3 albums at Spinefarm. A new band name was found in Children Of Bodom which was suggested by their label manager who told the guys to do something related to the Bodom-murders, after he saw a map of the lake in a phone book by accident. Finally Spinefarm even paid the money back to Children Of Bodom which they spent for the recording sessions.

Children Of Bodom angry are rising…

After the band got "baptised" in the unholy waters of Bodom they played a gig as opener for Dimmu Borgir in December 1997 in Finland before the album was released. It was the first gig in this line-up and under the name Children Of Bodom. One guy from the German label Nuclear Blast was watching the gig and asked Children Of Bodom‘s label manager for a licensing deal for Nuclear Blast to release the album in the rest of Europe which is the most important market for Heavy Metal. Children Of Bodom became bigger and bigger in the Finnish underground in the meantime. The band was also featured on Spinefarm's "METALLILITTO"-compilation (released in October 1997 in Finland), and got a great response for their track “Deadnight Warrior”. The band played a gig in Tavastia in front of many people from Spinefarm and the media. Unfortunately this gig didn’t go well at all and some band members consider this the downpoint of their career and the worst gig they ever played.

An artwork for the first album was found in a picture of a red Reaper made by the Canadian artist Graham French which the band saw by accident and liked at once. After the album was released in November 1997 via Spinefarm, Children Of Bodom were making a video for the first song of the first album: “Deadnight Warrior”. It was directed by Mika Lindberg and the budget was less than 1,000 € but the video was really well done and showed the band playing outside at night at -15 degress Celsius. In early 1998 the album was released in different countries through Nuclear Blast, Toys Factory and some other small labels. In late spring the next album of Thy Serpent should be released but Alexi didn’t appear on that album because he left the band to concentrate with 100 % on Children Of Bodom. Actually he just played a couple of rehearsals with the band.

Breeding hate across Europe...

Then came the first real tour for the guys. They just played some single shows in Finland before that time. “Something Wild” was released in Europe on February 2nd and right after that a Nuclear Blast tour started on March 3rd. Children Of Bodom were playing on that tour together with Disbelief, Crack Up, Night In Gales, Agathodaimon, Covenant, Hypocrisy and Benediction.
Unfortunately Janne couldn’t join the band on tour because of his final exams he had at that time. He was replaced by the female keyboard player Erna Siikavirta, who was actually a classical pianist. But she only played keyboards for this tour. Janne was still in the band. The tour was quite successful and the guys (and the girl) opened up for the bigger bands but they already had some fans and got more and more on each gig. In the meantime “Something Wild” sold over 5,000 copies in Finland and more than 12,000 copies in the rest of the world.

Later that year Children Of Bodom went to the Astia-studios to record two new songs in a session called “Sodomy At Lake Bodom”. One of them was simply entitled “Children Of Bodom” and the other one was called “Towards Dead End”. The title song of the band was released on a single together with songs from two other Spinefarm bands (Cryhavoc and Wizzard). The single was so successful that it went to the pole position of the Finnish charts and went gold some time later. It stayed there for eight weeks. The other new song exclusively appeared on the Finnish compilation CDs Helldorado and Spinetingler.

In August 1998 the Wacken Open Air in Germany was calling. This time Janne was able to join the other guys. The band played a great show and impressed more and more people with their unique style. Some time after the release of “Something Wild” the band didn’t like the songs from that album very much anymore and so they took the two new songs into their set to avoid playing other songs from the first album. At the beginning of September Children Of Bodom and the Finnish Nuclear Metal band Impaled Nazarene played one show in Russia. On this gig the band exclusively played a third new song called “Forevermore” which should be later known as the song “Downfall”. After the show Alexi was asked to join ImpNaz as lead guitar player and he agreed. But he told the band that Children Of Bodom were his priority and that he couldn’t join Impaled Nazarene at all gigs.

After that another Nuclear Blast tour followed in September and Children Of Bodom played again on all shows. This was the second European tour to promote the band’s first album. Children Of Bodom got a higher place in the billing and they played their new song “Towards Dead End” like they also did at some summer festivals. But the same problem happened like in the first tour: Janne couldn’t tour with the rest of the band because of something school related. A replacement for him was found in Kimberly Goss. The band knew her from the Dimmu Borgir gig in 1997. Kimberly played keyboards at that time for Dimmu Borgir who were very impressed by Children Of Bodom by the way. Alexi and Kimberly liked each other so much that they even went together under the shower on the European tour ;-). However Alexi also found time to join Sinergy (band of Kimberly) and record the first Sinergy album called “Beware The Heavens” with the band in October and November as lead guitar player.

Something Wild has survived…

This was a busy and eventfully year for the band but the guys also found time to write new songs (ok, only Alexi) and to record their next album again in the Astia-studios in December 1998 until January 1999. Before that the band recorded five of their new songs as demo songs in the middle of 1998. The studio time was very stressful because many problems occurred: The drumheads were old and not of a good size, there were problems with the drumsticks and guitar picks and no music shop was near. Besides this little problems which constrained the recordings, some guys still had to go to school. On some days there was a high pressure in the studio because Alexi made a lot of lyrical and arrangement changes and there were some days were the band had nothing to do. The two previously released songs were re-recorded together with seven new songs and two cover songs. One of them was from the Finnish band Stone which was called “No Commands” and the other one was a cover of the W.A.S.P. classic “Hellion” which was never released anywhere because the band didn’t like their version. The new cover artwork for this album was also done by Graham French and it showed the Reaper in green. First Children Of Bodom thought about entitling the album “Towards Dead End”, but soon they thought that “Hatebreeder” would fit much better as name for it. Two weeks before the release date of the album in Finland, the song “Downfall” was released on a single together with the Stone cover. The first 1,000 copies included a special Children Of Bodom necklace. Children Of Bodom also did a video for this song which was again directed by Mika Lindberg. Some months later the album was released worldwide and entered the charts in many countries. Many people say that Children Of Bodom developed their style with this album which is the perfect combination of speed, aggression and melodies.

The Warhearts attack Tokyo…

Before their third European tour the band got a great offer to play some shows in Japan in July together with Sinergy and In Flames. Alexi had to play with Children Of Bodom and Sinergy on one evening! All shows were sold out with 1,500 people and the audience was fantastic. It was the idea of Spinefarm to record the Children Of Bodom shows. After the shows were mixed Children Of Bodom listened to it and they thought it was really good. So they agreed that a limited live album under the name Tokyo Warhearts should be released in October. It was a special box with 10 photocards to give everybody an impression of Children Of Bodom in Japan. The cover artwork (the Reaper fighting against Godzilla) was made by Ville Pirinen. Actually this box set was never released in Japan. In Japan it was released in a special CD jewelcase with thick booklet and bonus booklet. Every band can sound good on their studio albums but this almost legendary live album proved that Children Of Bodom are a very tight live band because there were no overdubs on this album. Later that year in September, Children Of Bodom toured with Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames through Europe again.


Also in September, Alexi entered with his third band Impaled Nazarene the Astia-studios to record their next piece of noise called Nihil. Alexi wrote two songs for this album and he played all solos. It’s not surprising that this Impaled Nazarene album contains the best solos. In December Children Of Bodom went to the Astia-studios to record new cover songs (this time “Don’t Stop At The Top” (Scorpions) and “Waiting” (King Diamond)). In January and February Sinergy recorded their second album with Alexi as only original member besides Kimberly Goss. At the end of February in the year 2000 Children Of Bodom recorded a new song which was released on the single “Hate Me!” with a new cover of the W.A.S.P. song “Hellion” also in the Astia-studios which was a lot better than the previous recording from 1999. The single was released in May and so successful that it went platinum. The cover artwork was made by the known Finnish comic drawer Tomi Laurén. In July the band showed up on the Finnish festivals Tuska Open Air and Ilosaari Rock where they also played their new song. Alexi is the main song writer in Children Of Bodom but Janne also had some great abilities in writing music. The songs he created didn’t fit in the music of Children Of Bodom. It was more progressvie instrumental Power Metal. In the middle of 2000 he released his first solo album under the name Warmen.

Into the Abyss…

The new album should be already recorded in April but the band pushed it back to August when they decided to go to Sweden to record their third album in Peter Tägtgren's (Hypocrisy/Pain; producer of almost every important Black/Death Metal albums in the late 90s) legendary Abyss studios to prevent of having this typical clean Finnish sound on their next album and to get something fresh. Before this the band played one show in Montreal in Canada (where poor Ale fell from stage) and after that Children Of Bodom made their first U.S. appearance ever on the famous Milwaukee Metalfest XIV. The band was in the studio from August to September and worked on 6 days in the week from 9 a.m. to 18 p.m.. Again all songs were written by Alexi who was under a lot of pressure to write songs that hold the high standard of the Hatebreeder album and it is known that the third album of each band means “make it or break it”. Peter Tägtgren gave the band some precious hints about new keyboard sounds and ways to use the vocals but he did let the guys decide which of their recorded takes were good and which not. Eight new Children Of Bodom songs were recorded (“Kissing The Shadows” was written in the studio by the way), “Hate Me!” was re-recorded and Children Of Bodom did a cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Shot In The Dark”. In the free time in the studio, the guys invented a game called “Asphalt Annihilation” and right after the recordings Children Of Bodom made a video for the song “Everytime I Die” which was recorded by Tuukka Temonen in the Finnish town Tampere. After the band had many different titles for the new album, they decided to call it “Follow The Reaper” and it was released on October 30th in Finland with the Scorpions cover as bonus. The rest of the world had to wait until January 22nd in the next year to know the true promise of it. The new version of “Hellion” was chosen as bonus for the European version. A Reaper in blue who was drawn by the Finnish artist Sami Saramäki adored the third album of Children Of Bodom. In September and October Alexi and Jaska joined Sinergy for their second European tour. After that Children Of Bodom played some shows in their home country in December and wanted to join Morbid Angel and Hypocrisy on the X-Mass festival tour through Europe also in December. But the band cancelled this tour because their friends of Hypocrisy decided to leave this package and the new album wasn’t released yet.

Led By The Reaper…

Before the album got released through Nuclear Blast in 2001, it was mixed again and some small details were changed. After the world wide release of the third album the band prepared for their biggest tour up to date. It was a double headliner tour together with Primal Fear and Sacred Steel as support through Europe. The tour was called “Nuclear Fire/Led By The Reaper tour”. Although Children Of Bodom were announced as a headliner, they only got 60 minutes playing time and Primal Fear got 90 minutes. But the reactions of the crowd told who the real headliner and better band was… After two months the tour ended and Children Of Bodom prepared themselves to go back to Japan. Again this was a triumph for the band. Before that Children Of Bodom visited Korea and played a superb gig which was also shown on the Korean TV! A USA tour was planned for April but it was cancelled because Jaska and Henkka were busy with their school at that time.

In May Children Of Bodom and Impaled Nazarene played in Greece and Alexi had to play two sets with his bands. Later that year Alexi was so busy with Children Of Bodom and Sinergy that he decided to quit Impaled (well, ImpNaz say that Alexi was fired). However, Impaled Nazarene were very important to Alexi as Sinergy and Children Of Bodom were. Also in May Jaska found time to play drums for the Progressive Metal band Virtuocity which released their album in 2002. In the middle of 2001 the band entered the Astia studios again to record two cover songs by Slayer (“Silent Scream”) and Iron Maiden (“Aces High”) which showed again that Children Of Bodom really like to do cover songs especially of Heavy Metal classics from the 80s. After the Asia tour Children Of Bodom did eight gigs in South America called “Machete Up Your Ass/Tour Of Terror”. On October 13th Children Of Bodom played at the Polish Mystic Festival (which can be seen on the self titled DVD) and on October 17th a dream came true for the 5 guys: In Italy they opened up for Slayer and played before an enormous crowd. In December some gigs were played in Finland again and then the band decided to have a little break and to recover. Well, all except Alexi who was very busy with Sinergy. He recorded the third album with the band in August/September and played some smaller gigs. In the meantime Janne played keyboards for the solo-debut of the Stratovarius singer Timo Kotipelto and recorded his second Warmen album “Beyond Abilities” which was released in 2002.

The Reaper wants more... much more...

On March 1st in the new year of 2002, Alexi joined a number of veteran Finnish Metal musicians in a one-off Death cover band called Evil Chucks, which performed a tribute gig in Finland to the memory of Death Metal legend Chuck Schuldiner. Finally it was time to record a new single which the band did in the Astia-studios It featured the brand new song “You’re Better Off Dead!” and the cover song “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” by the Ramones and should be released on July 1st. But the release date had to be changed for several times because Children Of Bodom were looking for a new record deal. After three albums with Spinefarm the band wanted something new. But in the end they got something new and something familiar when they finally decided to stay with Spinefarm (which were bought by the major-label Universal). Children Of Bodom didn’t lengthen the licence-deal with Nuclear Blast, so Spinefarm cared about the releases in Finland and Universal about the releases in the rest of Europe and Japan for all following albums through some own companies. The single was released on September 17th in Finland and it went to the top of the Finnish charts immediately and went also gold like the three others. After that Children Of Bodom played on three European Metal festivals (Dynamo, Wacken and Metaldayz). They played another new song on these festivals called “Needled 24/7”. After the Abyss studio was closed and Peter Tägtgren only wanted to produce bands which were friends of him (which Children Of Bodom are without a doubt), the schedule was very full and the band didn’t want to wait very long. Since Tägtgren also wanted to get portions of the album sales and didn’t incite the band enough as producer, Children Of Bodom decided to go back to the Astia studios in August to record with the challenging producer and friend Anssi Kippo the long awaited fourth studio album. The studio time was more relaxed than before. Since “Your’re Better Off Dead was already recorded in the Astia-studios, the band decided that they didn’t have to record it again but just to mix the single version again for the album. Actually the band wanted to record a cover version of the Alice Cooper song “He's Back (The Man Behind The Mask)” as bonus track but the result sounded too awful in their ears, so they didn't use their version. The nine songs on the album were rawer and more brutal than before and the band doubled the guitar riffs for the first time and also used down tuned guitars in two songs.



In September Children Of Bodom played a short gig on the annual birthday party of Spinefarm at the Spinefeast festival in Finland (with other bands like Throne Of Chaos, Ensiferum, Norther, Kalmah and Moonsorrow). After the gig some unknown piece of shit stole both of Alexi’s famous custom shop Randy Rhoads Jackson guitars (the ones with the Wild Child and Stone stickers on it) which never appeared again. In October a DVD called “Passage To The Reaper” was released in the Japanese guitar magazine “Young Guitar Magazine”. It was recorded when Sinergy toured in Japan in the middle of 2002 and it showed Alexi demonstrating some exercises and his playing style. In November and December Alexi joined Sinergy on their third European tour and Jaska played drums for the album of the Finnish Dark Metal band Evemaster where he already began to record some drum tracks in July in 2001.

Children don't kill…

On January 7th the waiting was over: The new album entitled “Hate Crew Deathroll” was officially released in Finland. Again the Reaper appeared on the album cover which was red again and done by Sami Saramäki. Five days after the release, the album could be found on the top of the Finnish album charts where it stayed for three weeks. It was the first album with such extreme vocals which made it to the pole position. Two different album versions were released in Finland: A copy-protected 10 track version (with the Slayer cover “Silent Scream” as bonus track and an internet-videolink) and a normal 9 track version. The rest of the world had to wait three months longer for the release. This time a video was shot for the impressive opener “Needled 24/7” which the band was very disappointed with because the director decided about everything in it without asking the band members and he came up with strange ideas like circus tents, ballerinas and ugly freaks.

On January 13th Children Of Bodom went into the Headline Studio in Tampere to record the cover song “Latomeri” which was originally done by the Finnish Punk legend Klamydia. At first only Ale should play with Klamydia but then he asked their singer if the whole band could play the song because they played it very often just for fun in their rehearsal room and the singer agreed. It seemed that Children Of Bodom never get tired of playing live. The dates for their first European headlining tour were already scheduled and the band opened up for Rob Halford during their short Japan visit in February where the band got a load of new fans. A dream came true for Alexi: He joined the band of the Metal God in the last gig of the Hate Crew Deathroll 2003 Japan tour, to play the Judas Priest classic "Living After Midnight" in an almost 15-minutes version, later the other guys of Children Of Bodom joined the band to do the backing vocals. But there also happened some nice things in Finland during that time: In March Hate Crew Deathroll sold over 15,000 times which brought the band their first golden album.

The Hate Crew Rolling Over Europe…

Before the European tour kicked off, Children Of Bodom played their second show in the USA on March 14th at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Texas. After that gig, the successful mini tour and the golden record, the band did a small Finland tour (with changing support bands: Norther, Moonsorrow, Omnium Gatherum and Mannhai) to promote their new album in their home country. Children Of Bodom teamed up with Soilwork from Sweden and Shadows Fall from the USA as support bands for the “Hate Crew Rolling Over Europe 2003” tour after the album was released on March 10th. Before that the 7” picture-vinyl-only single “Needled 24/7” was released with “Silent Scream” as B-side on February 3rd through Spinefarm and Children Of Bodom played at the memorial gig of Finntroll’s guitar player Somniun after his sudden death.

The whole European tour was a huge success. Almost all shows were completely sold out. Children Of Bodom played a 90-minutes headlining best of show with a guitar vs. keyboard duel and also a drum solo. A huge Reaper from the album cover was used as backdrop and Children Of Bodom also had a fantastic light show combined with an elaborate laser show. Right before the beginning of the tour Alexi, Ale and Henkka got their new endorsement deals with ESP and each of them got two brand new guitars (basses) for this tour. Jaska also got a new endorsement deal with Pearl drums. The three bands made an appearance at the Norwegian Inferno festival during that tour. Shadows Fall couldn’t play the last dates of the tour because of their own tour which started at that time, so the German Black Metal band Suidakra opened up.

Already in April there were rumours that Children Of Bodom would team up with Dimmu Borgir, Nevermore and Hypocrisy for a North America tour in November and December which were finally confirmed in July. Now it was time for the open air festival season and Children Of Bodom played on the Hungarian Summer Rocks festival in June and they finally returned to the Finnish Tuska festival on July 12th.

Follow The Hate Crew...

On July 14th there was big shock for all fans: Children Of Bodom’s management and the record company spread the info that Ale left the band because he didn’t enjoy the touring anymore. The Tuska festival was his goodbye show to his Finnish fans. Some days later it was confirmed by Alexi himself who wrote a few words about Ale’s departure when he was in Oslo to co-produce the new album of the Norwegian Heavy Metal band Griffin. This was a very sad time for all fans of Children Of Bodom. Together in this line-up they broke rules and made history. Many people needed days to realize what happened and then they worried about the future of Children Of Bodom because the guys said that the band would quit if one of the members would leave. But another Japan tour and the North America tour were booked and many people were waiting to see the band, so the remaining four guys knew that they had to finish the Hate Crew Deathroll world tour. Alexi’s words were: CHILDREN OF BODOM AIN’T READY TO FUCKING DIE YET! Until the end of the year Children Of Bodom continued with a new man. They were looking for a new guitar player and Alexi was very interested in Kai Nergaard who plays guitar in the band Griffin but in the end it didn’t happen. Two weeks were left until the next gig in Moscow and the band was in a hurry because they said that no gigs would have to be cancelled. So there was only one man who could learn all of the Children Of Bodom songs in that time. It wasn’t a new face for the people of the Children Of Bodom camp and many fans: The new man was Roope Latvala, Alexi’s idol and band member in Sinergy. He made his debut in Moscow and also played one week later at the German Summer Breeze festival with the band.

In September a Best Of album was released in Japan through Toy’s Factory. The album called “Bestbreeder - From 1997 - 2000” was the fourth album which Children Of Bodom had to release due to their licensing deal with the Japanese label. It contained songs from the first three album plus the brand new cover song “Rebel Yell” (originally released by Billy Idol) which was recorded at Janne’s Beyond Abilities studios by the remaining four guys. On September 5th Children Of Bodom returned to Japan with Soilwork as support band to play longer concerts than in February. The band also included a triple-solo duel between Alexi, Janne and Roope who is known for his awesome guitar playing skills. But the Japan tour got a bad start: After the first show in Osaka, Alexi couldn’t play the following show in Nagoya because he suffered on a really bad muscle cramp in his upper body and so it was too painful to sing or to play. After the four other guys apologized in front of the crowd, the show was cancelled. Luckily Alexi recovered quickly and could play the remaining dates. After the end of this successful tour, the band decided to film a new video for another song of the current album. It was the band’s favourite song “Sixpounder” and for the fans it was a big surprise and pleasure to see Ale appearing in this video. This second video of “Hate Crew Deathroll” was also as promotion for the coming USA tour. Also in September, a new DVD of the Japanese “Young Guitar Magazine” was released which showed Alexi again demonstrating some exercises and song parts. It got the name “Reap And Roll Licks”. Later that month Janne went into the studio with Timo Kotipelto to record keyboard tracks for his second solo album and after a fierce label bidding war the Children found parents in Century Media Records when they officially signed an U.S. deal for Hate Crew Deathroll. It was released on September 23rd and it was time that the new album got published in the USA through a big label after the three previous albums sold over 40,000 times in North America in the past years.

Sharpening scythes for the USA...

On November 7th Children Of Bodom headed towards the USA for their first tour with the three other bands. Roope was endorsed by ESP, too and got two new guitars for the tour. The tour had 30 dates and Children Of Bodom played after Hypocrisy and before Nevermore and Dimmu Borgir (remember the tour in 98 where Hypocrisy were the headliner and they would also have played after Children Of Bodom in the X-Mass festivals in 2000). Although the band had a very short playing time and could only play six songs, the American fans went crazy in every city they played. On November 14th all bands appeared at the New Jersey Metal and Hardcore Fest where over 70 bands played. Unfortunately the whole band caught a flew and in Minneapolis Alexi was feeling so bad that the show had to be cancelled. Luckily it was the only show and everybody got well again and Children Of Bodom could end this tour successful.



In February the band was nominated for several important Finnish music awards and won the prize which represents the export of Finnish music. Henkka and Janne were present and picked up the prize. Besides that, the band won the usual polls of the Metal magazines in categories such as best guitar player, best keyboard player and also hit high positions in all other categories. Jaska used his small free time to help his friends from Evemaster to re-record their first album Lacrimae Mundi in the Astia studios. The original version featured a cheap drum computer but Evemaster wanted a real professional drummer for the new recordings and so it wasn’t surprising that they asked Jaska to play more active and original and innovative drumming. Alexi used his free time to form a new punk project under the name Kyllähullut with Tonmi Lilmann (ex-To/Die/For, ex-Sinergy) and Vasku Jokinen (Klamydia). The trio recorded four punk songs in the spirit of Motörhead for an EP which was released later in April.



In March Alexi and Jaska were judges at a Finnish competition for young musicians and new bands and decided the bands for the semi final. After that all 5 guys entered the good old Astia studios again to record the two new songs with the names “Trashed, Lost & Strungout” and “Knuckleduster” and two cover songs (“She Is Beautiful” by Andrew W.K. and “Bed Of Nails” by Alice Cooper) for an EP which was planned to be released later that year. Jaska wrote a studio diary and commented the recordings in his own words. One day after the last recording day, Alexi and Roope flew over to Germany to appear at the huge music fair Musikmesse in Frankfurt where the guys promoted their ESP guitars and gave an autograph session. Besides Alexi and Roope there were musicians of other known Metal bands but the amount of people was twice as big when Alexi and Roope appeared. Also in March Alexi and Roope entered Janne’s Beyond Abilities studio to record guitar tracks for the fourth Sinergy album.



Just on around April 1st there were news in the Finnish media that the lake Bodom mystery got solved. After over 40 years the police arrested a 64-year old man who was suspected to be the cold-hearted killer because they got new hints from DNA tests which were made. But the big shock was still to come after the police revealed the identity of the suspect: It was nobody else than Nils Gustafsson, the only survivor of the bloody happening! The band was also very surprised about that but took it with humour in the end as Alexi dedicated Bodom-themed songs to Nils Gustfsson in live concerts.

Bodom Terror over the USA…

In April Children Of Bodom teamed up with Iced Earth and the Swedish band Evergrey to tour the USA once again after lots of people demanded for that. Iced Earth was the headliner and Everygrey were the opening act which shows again that Children of Bodom’s unique style of Metal allows them to tour with nearly every band from all existing Metal genres. The USA tour in April was sold out very quickly before each show and Children Of Bodom were an important part in making this possible. There were some similarities to the first European tour where the band did two full length tours to promote the same album. Despite the fact that Children Of Bodom got a ridiculous playing time of 45 minutes and not much space on stage from the headliner, the tour was very successful for the band and their fanbase in the USA grew a lot once more. During the tour on April 23rd Alexi had the possibility to meet Andrew W.K. who is a big fan of the Bodom boys and since Children Of Bodom covered their song “She Is Beautiful”, Alexi just asked Andrew to play that song with his band live on stage. Of course Andrew didn’t disagree and Alexi ended up with Andrew’s band on stage playing some funny Party Metal. Also on this tour, Alexi had had the chance to meet one of his idols: The legendary Zakk Wlyde who was a big influence for Alexi. He met Zakk in a bar and Zakk had only nice words for Alexi. The tour was sometimes very hard because sometimes the band had to play in venues which couldn’t even offer cold showers or food and water.



In May Alexi was again featured in the Japanese Young Guitar Magazine and this time a full book was dedicated only to Alexi. This special issue full of notes and tabs for three songs, galleries of his guitars, drawings of the specifications of his equipment and also a special CD with playing examples is the ideal magazine for all young guitar players who call Alexi their idol. When the band was back at home, they shot a new video for the song “Trashed, Lost & Strungout” in Sweden with the famous director Patric Ullaeus who directed a lot of other elaborate Metal clips with special effects for bands like Dimmu Borgir, In Flames, Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil, Tiamat, Mnemic, Passenger and others.

Shitfaced, Lost and Fucked Up…

The band appeared on nearly every big and important European Metal Festival this summer. It is a kind of tradition for the band to play an unreleased song at the summer festivals every two years. In 2004 the band decided to play their new song “Trashed, Lost & Strungout” at the Finnish Sauna Open Air festival and at the Sweden Rock festival in June. But only a few days after the festivals the new song appeared as bootleg in the internet and the band didn’t want that this should happen again and so they dropped the song from their setlist. But even without this strong new song Children Of Bodom played a setlist full of classics and reached new people at the festivals. The highlight of the festivals was definitely the huge and one and only Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The whole show was filmed by multiple cameras and was shown on huge monitor screen besides the stage where the people could see great close ups of the band members. The band even gained the record of the most crowdsurfers ever on a show at Wacken. One day before Janne played keyboards for the Kotipelto gig who played also at Wacken like two years ago.



After that the band headed to South America to play there again after 3 years. The guys played the known songs which they played since 2003 but in a different order on the setlist. At the end of August “Trashed, Lost & Strungout” was released as single version with the Andrew W.K. cover song in Finland and at that time the band did a small 4-date tour in Finland where the shows were filmed professionally. Again the guys played a song for their Finnish people which they didn’t play for a couple of years. The classic “Warheart” was only played on this short tour in their home country. In October “Trashed, Lost & Strungout” was released as EP with the two other recorded tracks and even as EP/DVD which featured a lot of extra stuff like the two latest videos, 5.1 mixes of the songs and much more. Also in October the band did the incredible thing to play their third USA tour in 10 months to promote the same album! You can really say that Children Of Bodom are hard workers to get more known in the US. This time the band went on tour with Lamb Of God and Fear Factory and again it was no problem to tour with bands from a different Metal genre. There were high expectations to the third tour and the band showed once again that they could fulfill them. In fact the band was convinced that the third of the tours was the best so far. In one night Alexi got hurt while he was jumping out of the windows of the tourbus - of course lots of alcohol were involved. But luckily he didn't get any serious insults and could play all other shows, although he suffered from pain at a few gigs. The last 2 shows in the USA and Canada were something very special because during the tour the decision was made that Children Of Bodom would be popular enough to play a show as headliner. Two dates were added at the end of the tour due to the big demand. Lots of people came to both shows and in parts they were even sold out. Together with local support bands, Children Of Bodom played extended sets in the cities from which Montreal made a big impression which the band wouldn't forget for a long time.


Bodomed 24/7...

In addition to hi monthly column "Thrash Course", Alexi was featured on the CD-ROM of the November issue of the Guitar World magazine where he presented some songs. In the meantime the "Trashed, Lost & Strungout" single got gold in Finland and could be found on number 1 in the single charts for several weeks. Right after that Alexi and the rest of Kylähullut found time to go to the studio for one week to record a whole album full of punk songs. Furthermore the songwriting process of the next Children Of Bodom album started but since no song was written at the time, the band had to cancel their plan of recording the album at the end of the year. Instead the band decided to go studio Hästholmen in Helsinki in March to record the album with producer Miko Karmila. The band had enough time to write new songs and work on them in their rehearsal place.

When the whole Metal world got shocked on December 8th by the murder of Dimebag Darrell also Children Of Bodom were concerned and Alexi and Roope immediately agreed to play on a memorial concert for Dimebag which took place on January 15th in 2005. In December Alexi and Jaska appeared in 5 episodes of Finnish TV show "Buusteri" where they weren't doing anything special but just answering stupid questions. But the guys proved that they have a great sense of humour. Also in December, Walhalla, one of Roope's many bands started a comeback where he played guitar under the name Trooper Latvala.

At the end of December something very unpleasant happened: Alexi broke his right arm when he was falling from the roof of a car and landed right on his wrist. He also smashed very hard on the ground with the right side of his face. Of course (too much) alcohol was involved at this accident. After Alexi got checked in the hospital he got a cast which he had to carry for several weeks. Of course this threw back the songwriting process of the new album as well as additional recordings of the next Sinergy album. Alexi also wasn't able to play on Dimebag's memorial show. That's why Roope had to appear there without him. Nonetheless Alexi travelled to the States to pay a visit at the huge music fai NAMM where he met many friends and musicians. During this visit another of Alexi's dreams came true: He got the opportunity to pose with his two idols Steve Vai and Zakk Wylde on the cover of the March issue of Guitar World. Furthermore Alexi appeared one more time on the cover of the Young Guitar Magazins and he and Roope appeared at the Finnish Metal Expo where they presented their guitars. In the mean time the first album of Alexi's punk band Kylähullut was released under the name "Turpa Täynnä".

In February a new Alexi Signature guitar, "Sawtooth RV-398AL", was offered for sale and all Children Of Bodom albums were re-released on vinyl. The studio date of the new album was pushed back to April. Before that Alexi again appeared on the German music fair Musikmesse to promote his guitars.


Knuckleduster In Your Face...

Children Of Bodom's festival tour started in the middle of May. The first show was at the German Rock Hard Festival. The band even stopped the work on their recordings whereas the biggest amount was already done. The show was something very special: It was the first show after a half year and also the first one after Alexi's fracture of the arm. The band also presented the live premieres of the song Knuckleduster, as well as the brand new song "In Your Face" which will appear on the new album that got the name "Are You Dead Yet?". Jaska put three demo songs of his new project Gashouse Garden in the internet. He already formed this band in 2003 with Kristian Ranta from Norther. In June the new Warmen single "Somebody's Watching Me" was released. Nobody else than Alexi Laiho did vocals for this cover song. One month later the full album "Accept The Fact" was released which Janne always recorded when he had a bit time in the last months.

Also in 2005 Alexi did one live guest appearance of one of his favourite bands: Alexi joined Sebastian Bach on stage to play the Skid Row classic "Youth Gone Wild" on guitar and also doing vocals.


Not Dead Yet...




There weren’t any line-up changes in Children Of Bodom for many years and the guys became also very good friends. The band had a covenant that if somebody of the members would leave the band, then it wouldn’t be Children Of Bodom anymore. That’s why they said that they would split up if this would happen someday. After it really happened the band was shocked. But they knew they had to finish their world tour and did it for the fans. In this time the band dealt with Ale’s departure and could cope with it better and they thought about the future of Children Of Bodom a lot. They got over it in that time and found out that they have the strength to continue with Children of Bodom and even want to record the next album at the end of 2004. The band won’t stop at the top but continue with their success. Until now they sold over 500,000 albums worldwide and they will stay on the winning road.

All current fans of Children Of Bodom (and the new ones which get convinced with the strong new album) can be very lucky that they can experience a band like Children Of Bodom now. There were a lot of good bands in the past which started putting out bad albums, but the band known as the Hate Crew is now better than ever before.

To be continued…

Written by Zarok, (c) 2005 by Scythes-Of-Bodom.com