CHILDREN OF BODOM Frontman Says SLIPKNOT 'Definitely Rocks'

CHILDREN OF BODOM fan site Scythes Of Bodom recently conducted an interview with the group's vocalist/guitarist Alexi Laiho. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Scythes Of Bodom: Only in 2008 — OK maybe also in the last years — it seems to be possible that you can tour with a band like SLIPKNOT. In 2000 you once said that you don't like this nu-metal stuff but at that time you haven't really checked them out and now you dig them a lot and are on tour with them.

Alexi: Yeah, it's true. In the past I said stuff like that but at that time I never heard a song from them [SLIPKNOT] so I just said that they would sound like LIMP BIZKIT and other crap like that but when I actually heard them, it blew me away. It was the most aggressive stuff I've ever heard — well, not ever, but at least in the last years. When you see them on stage pulling off their show, you just feel the energy these guys create. Also, the new album is full of that. They definitely rock.

Scythes Of Bodom: Any message to the [people accusing you of selling out]?

Alexi: It's always the same. There are always people who have a problem when you're doing something new and tour with other bands they don't like for some reason. But we wanna move on, we always wanted to move on, so this is something completely natural for us. It was the same when we covered BRITNEY [SPEARS] a few years ago. People started to hate our band for that but that's OK for me.

Scythes Of Bodom: How's the audience on this tour?

Alexi: It's been diverse but for the most part it has been really good. But there have also been a couple of shows that... for example, today the crowd wasn't that awesome but in Paris or Oslo it was fucking killer. The thing is, when we are playing these sorts of venues, it's a fact that most of the people don't even know who the fuck you are and then you go out there and convince them that you fucking rock. That's that we're trying to do and at the end of the show, when you see all the way to the back that the crowd is moving and they're raising their hands, then you know that you did good job.

Scythes Of Bodom: Did you ever had to stop a song when something crazy happened in the audience?

Alexi: Yeah, we did at least once. There is one time I remember... it was in Millvale in the States and the crowd went fucking nuts and then they broke the barricades. Dude, I'm always watching the front row because I don't want anybody to get hurt. If some people look like they're gonna fucking die, then I grab a bottle of water and hand it to them, even in the middle of a song or a guitar solo. But there I couldn't see shit and the security guards came to me and said, "Dude, you're gonna fucking stop right now." And I was like "What the fuck happened?" The people broke down the goddamn barricade and we had to have a five-minute break. But my point was that we care about the people, even though it isn't our mistake.

Scythes Of Bodom: I heard that you once punched somebody in the audience during the "Follow The Reaper" tour because he was beating up a kid. Do you remember that?

Alexi: Oh yeah, yeah... I do... and I would still do it if I have to but fortunately I didn't have to do that in many years. I remember that there was this huge fucking biker dude and I saw him beating the shit out of a kid who was lying on the floor. I mean, you shouldn't beat up anybody who's on the floor but this was a fucking kid and he was this big biker dude. When I saw that I stopped playing and I kicked him in the head, at least a couple of times. I just had to because somebody just had to do something. There wasn't much security and they didn't give a fuck. So yeah, I kicked the motherfucker in the head a couple of times and then he stopped. After the show the kid came up to me and he had a broken nose, his head was swollen and stuff like that and he said "Thank you so much because this dude would have killed me." That's just something that made me fucking happy. Well, not the fact that he got beat up but that I could stop it.

Read the entire interview from Scythes Of Bodom.