CHILDREN OF BODOM Frontman: 'We Never Talk About What We Should Sound Like'

May 19, 2013

Beyond The Watch recently conducted an interview with guitarist/vocalist Alexi Laiho of Finnish metallers CHILDREN OF BODOM. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Beyond The Watch: You guys are set to release your eighth studio album, "Halo Of Blood" (via Nuclear Blast on June 11). Can you tell us a little bit about the record and what went into the making of the album?

Alexi: I started writing, I think, last September maybe, when we got off the road. I took a month off or something and I started writing and then we went hit the studio late December and the whole thing was mixed and mastered by the end of February.

Beyond The Watch: You guys seem to have reverted back to some familiar old sounds that have a very "Hate Crew Deathroll" vibe. Was it your goal to try and bring your sound back to that era of CHILDREN OF BODOM? Especially having Mikko Karmila as your recording engineer on "Halo Of Blood" (who worked on "Hatebreeder", "Follow The Reaper", "Hate Crew Deathroll")?

Alexi: No, actually we never actually plan stuff ahead. We never talk about what we should sound like or what we should do next. When I start writing music, I just clear my head let go of everything and just kind of let it flow. To me, it's the only way to write music — just let everything come out spontaneously; that's how you keep it fresh and genuine. 'Cause I think that it needs to sound that it came straight from your heart as opposed to trying to please everyone.

Beyond The Watch: How does "Halo Of Blood" compare to CHILDREN OF BODOM's discography? What's different about this new album compared to the rest?

Alexi: I would say it's more diverse, 'cause it's got the old-school CHILDREN OF BODOM vibe, but also a lot of new shit in it too. Some songs are very different from anything we have done in the past, like the title track — that's the fastest song in the history of the band — and we got a track like "Dead Man's Hand On You", which is the slowest song we've ever done. It's different on almost every single level from anything we've done before. So there's stuff like that in there that makes it different. Diversity, you know.

Read the entire interview from Beyond The Watch.

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