CHILDREN OF BODOM To Record New Album Next Summer

CHILDREN OF BODOM fan site Scythes of Bodom has posted the second part of its recent interview with COB guitarist/vocalist Alexi Laiho. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Scythes of Bodom: "Are You Dead Yet?" — it's been one year since the album was released. What are your thoughts on the album now? Are you still satisfied with it? Is there anything you would do different?

Alexi: I am actually pretty fucking glad that I am still satisfied with it, song wise and… it's just that I'm not happy with the guitar sound and that's bugging the fucking shit out of me, really. But I think that I played my best leads ever on that album, which I'm obviously happy about it, you know? I wasn't happy with the guitar sound but otherwise I totally dig that album.

Scythes of Bodom: When you listen to METALLICA's first and and fifth album and compare them, it almost sounds like two different bands. Do you think similar when you would compare your first and fifth album?

Alexi: Well… if we're gonna put "Kill 'Em All" and "St. Anger" on the same table…

Scythes of Bodom: No, I meant the "Black" album.

Alexi: Ah, you mean Black album, right. Actually I can't totally agree with you because I can actually hear it. I mean obviously it's totally different but I think that… well, with CHILDREN OF BODOM when you put in "Something Wild" and then put in "Are You Dead Yet?", you can hear that it's the same band definitely because there are certain elements that are the same, like the guitars, the keyboards and the vocals, even though the vocals have changed pretty much but when I'm listening to it, it sounds like the same band.

Scythes of Bodom: In the other interview, you also told me that you wanted to re-record vocals and guitar leads for "Trashed, Lost & Strungout" for the album. Is there a reason why you changed your mind?

Alexi: Did I tell you that?

Scythes of Bodom: Yeah, you told me that.

Alexi: Hmm… I don't know. I was having a bad day or something like that. (laughs) Oh yeah, I actually remember the vocal thing that I wanted to do and maybe I wanted to re-record the solo for "Trashed, Lost & Strungout". Because I think the solo on "Knuckleduster" is like one of the best solos that I've ever done in my fucking life and the solo of "Trashed" on the same EP isn't as strong as the other one. Anyway, there was no re-recording of the guitars but as far as the vocals, I was thinking that... when you compare "Are You Dead Yet?" with "Trashed" as far as the vocals, "Are You Dead Yet?" is so much fucking better, so that's why I was thinking about it.

Scythes of Bodom: By the way, did you realize that next year it's ten years since you released your debut album? A long time. Unfortuantely there were only two songs from this album ("Deadnight Warrior" and "Lake Bodom") which you played in the last years and you didn't play the other songs anymore since 1999 or 2000. Once I suggested to do a live medley of these songs and maybe you could do that as anniversary next year, maybe on a festival. Maybe as tribute to your past.

Alexi: Well, I can tell you that we're gonna have a big fucking party with business people involved, close friends and stuff like that. We're gonna rent… well, I don't wanna say too much but we're gonna have a big fucking party because it's ten years of existence which is just insane. Ten years ago, I would have never ever expected that it would last so long and I can tell you that we're gonna play there but not like more than five songs or whatever and there's gonna be other bands playing there as well. But mostly it's just… party and drinking.

Scythes of Bodom: When you left IMPALED NAZARENE a few years ago, I heard that you promised them to write a new song for their album "Absence Of War" in 2000 but they didn't use it. What happened to the song?

Alexi: I really don't remember, man. I do remember that me and Mika, the singer, talked about it. The thing that I'm still fucking proud of is that I wrote two songs for their album "Nihil", where I played on, and they still play those songs and only those two from that album. So I think that is pretty fucking cool because I'm an old fucking IMPALED NAZARENE fan to the bone, I just love them. The fact that I have the right to make music for them is cool because I know exactly what that band is all about. But I don't really remember what happened with the song I wrote for the "Absence" album. Hopefully for the next one, though. I'd like to make one. I mean, I know that I could. When I had just joined the band, Mika told me that the song "Zero Tolerance" and the other called "Cogito Ergo Sum", the first track from the "Nihil" album, sound more like IMPALED than any of the other tracks and I just was like "Oh shit, man. Thank you. That's pretty nice."

Scythes of Bodom: Can you give us a preview of what's happening next in the CHILDREN OF BODOM camp? I heard your plans for the next year include the writing of new songs in the first months of 2007 and release the album in fall.

Alexi: Yeah, if everything goes as planned, that's what's gonna happen. We're gonna continue touring until Christmas, so we go home right before Christmas and the boys wanna take a month off, which I need as well, you know? Everybody needs a fucking rest because it's been a long fucking tour. But during that vacation, I'm gonna start working at new riffs and stuff like that. So I think at the end of January, we start rehearsing and jamming with the new riffs, working on the new material and stuff like that. The plan is that we're supposed to hit the studio either in June or July, so that the album will come out some time in fall 2007 which would be exactly a two-year gap between "Are You Dead Yet?" and the next one.

Scythes of Bodom: Do you already have some song ideas ready, maybe a whole song or just a few riffs?

Alexi: Well, I have riffs and stuff like that, riffs and melodies but I try to keep them in my head because I can, you know? I know that it works for a lot of people but writing and touring at the same time just doesn't work for me, like right now. It's not my thing. I wanna concentrate on the whole touring thing because the enviroment is so… it just doesn't work for me as far as writing a new song, it's so hectic. I love playing live, I love touring, I love when everything is messed up, people are fucking crazy and drunk all the time. I mean, that's what we do and that's what it is supposed to be and I like it. You do your fucking job every single night which we do and always did. After that, it's time to go home and pick up your goddamn axe and hook it up with the 4-tracker and start writing, you know? That's pretty much it. But I got a lot of shit in my head, though and I even wrote something down when I was on vacation. I went up to Lapland, in the northern part of Finland and rented a cabin. I just needed to get away from everything and everybody. So I shut down my phone and went to the cabin. I went up there which was really good.

Scythes of Bodom: You said that you can write the best songs when you're angry, pissed off and in a bad mood. If we take a look at the happenings of CHILDREN OF BODOM in the year 2006, it doesn't look like there is much to be angry about…

Alexi: Oh, not the public… (laughs) I don't know, there's always… I mean I am a totally fucking different person from when I was 18, you know? I was angry at the world, I hated everybody, I didn't care about anything, I was suicidal, I was fucking depressed… I was a fucking bad human being. So obviously compared to that time, I'm a totally different person but still I… (pause) I just go through a lot of bad shit in my head all the time, though, I just do it and I can't help it. That's the way it is. In a way it's funny. Somebody very close to me told me this and I started thinking about it. I was like "Yeah, this is true…" So when it's time writing new songs, it's like you're always looking for trouble. Somehow I always get myself into some fucking shit that makes me either angry or depressed and I think that on some level, subconsciously I look for trouble to get a subject to write about or something like that. Just to get that feeling that everything is fucked up. I know it sounds kinda weird…

Read the entire second part of the interview at this location.