CHILDREN OF BODOM's JANNE WIRMAN Confirms Plans For More 'Celebration Of Music' Concerts In 2027: 'It's Gonna Continue'

This past February, members of legendary Finnish metal band CHILDREN OF BODOM played two shows celebrating the group's music at the Tavastia club in Helsinki. The concerts, dubbed "Children Of Bodom – A Celebration Of Music", featured original CHILDREN OF BODOM members, bassist Henkka Seppälä, keyboardist Janne Wirman, drummer Jaska Raatikainen and early guitarist Alexander Kuoppala, along with longtime friend Samy Elbanna, known from the band LOST SOCIETY, paying tribute to CHILDREN OF BODOM guitarist/vocalist and main songwriter Alexi Laiho, who passed away on December 29, 2020 in his home in Helsinki, Finland. He died of alcohol-induced degeneration of the liver and pancreas connective tissue. Furthermore, Laiho had a cocktail of painkillers, opioids and insomnia medication in his system. He had suffered from long-term health issues leading up to his death.

In a new interview with Ed Hack of This Day In Metal, Wirman was asked why now was the right time for the CHILDREN OF BODOM to regroup and honor Laiho in this way. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've gotten some requests and we've said 'no' to everything. But then this one guy, who is now our booking agent, from Austria, Dominik, he contacted us and he was convincing enough. Like, 'Guys, I have so many requests for BODOM shows.' And we replied to him politely that we don't have a band. We just have three guys and a legacy. And he goes, like, 'Can I come to Helsinki and meet you?' We were, like, 'Okay, fine.' And this guy flies to Helsinki and we meet him for dinner. He turns out to be a super-nice guy, someone we could work with."

He continued: "Back in the day, BODOM, it was such a tight family. Everyone needed to kind of fit in — like a manager, booking agent, we always kind of needed to know these guys, that they really fit to the picture. So this guy kind of was very convincing. And this was a couple of years ago. And then we started thinking, like, 'Okay, well, if we ever gonna play any shows, how are we gonna approach it? And then we hired our old manager Steve [Davis] back, 'cause Steve is a mastermind and a genius in his own really fucked up way. And he said that, 'Guys, how we are gonna do this is that we're gonna celebrate the music, 'cause that's what we have — we have the music.' And then that's how we started unraveling. And, yeah, that's where we are right now."

Regarding Elbanna's performance at the two shows CHILDREN OF BODOM played at the Tavastia, Wirman said: "Dude, he was on fire. And he was so well practiced already when we had our first like band practice. Three months prior, four months prior to the shows, when we started practicing, he already knew everything, and I was just starting to remember, like, 'How the fuck was this again?' So he was so well prepared, so well practiced. He's a young and enthusiastic little kid, and I love him. And he's been practicing a lot. I think it takes a lot of practice for someone to be able to pull off everything that Alexi put on those albums. I think his performance was flawless. All the guitar solos, all the guitar leads were just perfect.

"Of course, we all know how fucking talented Alexi was, but that was something we were always in awe of, how he could play the most complex riff and then sing at the same time or shout or whatever," Janne continued. "And I know there were some parts that were really difficult for Samy, but he pulled it off. I don't even know, and I cannot even understand how much he had to have been practicing."

Asked what is was like for him personally to perform the CHILDREN OF BODOM music again after so long, Janne said: "I had no idea [what to expect]. No one could have predicted… We had been rehearsing for months, and, like I said, I think Samy was the most confident player at the rehearsals. He was doing fine all the time, and I was still finding my way around the BODOM songs. And then I knew that we're gonna do this video installation [to present to the audience at the beginning of the show], and then Alexi is gonna speak and there's gonna be all these photos and whatever. So going on stage the first night, I really had no idea if I'm gonna start crying. Is the whole audience gonna be crying when we go out? Literally from the moment we went on stage, we were all panicking back there, like, 'What the fuck is gonna happen?' And the crowd was kind of quiet during the video installation, which I understand, 'cause you wanna hear the dialogue. So the first 15 seconds I walked on stage, I had no idea what's gonna fucking happen, but then I see the immediate crowd reaction to the music, and then I knew, like, 'Fuck, this is gonna be a good time.' And it was a good time."

Elaborating on the musical chemistry between all the musicians who were on stage those two nights, Janne said:  "I tried to kind of describe it as that something magical happened. 'Cause no one knew what was gonna happen the first night. It could have been falling apart, and we could all just been crying and, like, 'Why the fuck are we here?' So something truly magical happened in terms also [of] how tight the band was. 'Cause, if I'm honest, some of the rehearsals were not tight at all. So it was the crowd reaction. And sometimes you need that. And when the crowd makes you do your best, that's when it's beautiful."

Wirman also addressed the possibility of further live performances in celebration of CHILDREN OF BODOM's music and Laiho. He said: "It was a very special event, and we knew that two nights was not gonna be enough kind of to feed the [fan interest]. We knew that a lot of people are gonna be asking for tickets. And I also panicked the last minute — I told the management, like, 'Why don't we extend this?' But that's how we had originally planned it — just two nights, and that's it."

Asked point blank if there is chance that we haven't seen the last of CHILDREN OF BODOM's live shows, Janne said: "Yes, there is. I mean, we said that next year the celebration is gonna continue, so it's gonna continue."

The official CHILDREN OF BODOM book was published in August 2025 via the London, U.K.-based publisher Rocket 88. The book tells the story of the Finnish melodic death metal pioneers as an oral history in which Seppälä, Wirman, Raatikainen and Kuoppala plus other former members, their friends and colleagues recall the 30-plus-year history of their career. For the first time, members of the band tell the story of CHILDREN OF BODOM in their own words. Henkka, Janne and Jaska recall the founding of the band with Laiho and the struggles, adventures and triumphs they experienced in the more than 30 years that followed. Drawing on personal memories and new interviews with the band conducted by Finnish best-selling author and longtime friend of the band Timo Isoaho, the official CHILDREN OF BODOM book tells the whole story, warts and all, of the groundbreaking melodic death metal band.

In December 2023, Seppälä and Wirman hosted a listening party for CHILDREN OF BODOM's latest live album, "A Chapter Called... Children Of Bodom (Final Show In Helsinki Ice Hall 2019)", at the Bodom Bar & Sauna in Espoo, Finland. The LP, which was recorded at CHILDREN OF BODOM's final concert on December 15, 2019 at the Black Box in Helsinki Ice Hall in Helsinki, Finland, was made available via Spinefarm. During the question-and-answer portion of the event, Wirman and Seppälä discussed their mindset going into CHILDREN OF BODOM's final concert, which took place a year before Laiho passed away. Janne said: "I felt a sense of relief onstage [at the final concert] 'cause I was very tired of Alexi's problems and constant problems with one guy. And then this guy who was our best friend and who wrote all the music, all of a sudden from 2016 on, just became someone I didn't recognize anymore. He was a different person, and he was so overcome with his disease and problems and it got to the point in 2019 we decided that this can't go on anymore. And then this was the last show. It was short notice, and we [originally] had so much better plans for how to say goodbye to all the international fans, how to do a proper farewell around-the-world tour [during 2020-2022] and whatever. But now, something we did not know, was [that] the pandemic [would happen], obviously, and that would have canceled all of those plans anyway."

Added Henkka: "So it was kind of, like, in a way we are lucky that we had this confrontation within the band that made us decide to drop [the group] earlier than we were supposed to and have this final show that was recorded. Because if you would have kept on the original plan with Alexi that let's do a farewell tour until 2022, I think it was, so then the pandemic would have ruined everything. And we probably would have never had this kind of last proper souvenir."

Asked if it ever entered their minds that they could take a long break away from each other and then maybe regroup at a later date, Henkka quipped: "That would have been like a mature way of dealing with it." Janne said: "Our manager at the time, Steve, did ask me that, at the eve of the last show, Steve asked me that, 'Are you ever gonna play with Alexi again?' And I said, 'I would only [play with him] if he would seek help and become fully sober.' And I knew that wasn't an option, that he had decided at that point, unfortunately, that he's just gonna die by his addictions, which is horrible. And it's very sad, but I knew him well enough that there was no way that he's gonna get better. And then that's why somehow it was also a relief for me at the last show. I realized that I need to let go."

Added Henkka: "The problems were pretty bad — I mean, within the band, all the relations. And I don't think anybody could see a future anymore. So [putting the band to rest] was the only option at the time. I'm sure that Steve, our manager, had some hopes of a reunion show within some years, of course, because he's a businessman [laughs], but it didn't even cross my mind at that time."

Continued Janne: "That's why I said that at the time I said that I will never play again with Alexi, 'cause I knew that he will not get sober, he will not get help for his problems. And then it would've been a totally different opinion. If somehow any of us would've felt that, 'Okay, Alexi is gonna get help. He's gonna get better,' all of us would've been, like, 'Okay, fine. Let's give him a couple of years and then let's get back together.' But that was not foreseeable at the time."

Added Henkka: "At the time it was, it was an impossible point."

In a July 2023 interview with BLABBERMOUTH.NET, Wirman opened up about the string of events that led to the band's 2019 demise and the deterioration of Laiho's health.

"Alexi's downfall started in 2016," Janne said. "I don't know what caused him to do that. He told me but didn't tell anyone else in the band — he made sure no one else was in the room — and told me, 'Dude, from now on, I'm going to drink until I die.' I said, 'Fuck, man. You can't say that to me.' He said it another time in 2018. I knew that was what he was doing — he said he wouldn't take any help for his medical issues. He was going to keep drinking. That's what he did, which is fucking crazy."

Janne continued: "A lot of people who haven't had a family friend or work buddy or someone who is sick with alcoholism, a lot of people don't understand you cannot help the person who doesn't want help. He had decided he didn't want help and would keep drinking until he died. That's what he did."

Wirmen then detailed BODOM's final years, beset by infighting largely stemming from Laiho's substance abuse issues. "The last years were pretty bad," he said. "There was a lot of bullshit. It's so crazy because he was in such a good place a couple of years before. He was happy about being sober and on tour, and the shows were good. I don't know what happened to him. Something pushed him over the edge where he decided, 'Fuck it. I'm going to keep drinking.'"

Alexi's ashes were buried in December 2021 — nearly a year after his tragic passing. He was laid to rest at the Malmi Cemetery, a large cemetery located in the Malmi district in Helsinki, Finland.

Alexi and Jaska founded CHILDREN OF BODOM in 1993, and the band was one of the most internationally acclaimed metal acts in Finland up until their very last farewell concert. In 2020, Alexi put together BODOM AFTER MIDNIGHT, which recorded three songs and shot one music video, all of which were released posthumously.

Besides CHILDREN OF BODOM, Laiho had played in such acts as WARMEN, SINERGY, KYLÄHULLUT and THE LOCAL BAND. Awarded with a Metal Hammer Golden God and several other international prizes, the guitarist was also the main star, leading a group of one hundred guitar players at the Helsinki Festival in 2015 in "100 Guitars From Hel" — a massive concert piece he composed.

In 2022, Wirman, Raatikainen and Seppälä discussed publicly for the first time the circumstances that led to the band's split and ultimately Laiho's death. In an interview with Finland's Helsingin Sanomat, the three surviving members of CHILDREN OF BODOM said the real reason for the band's breakup was not that they wanted to stop touring in order to spend more time with their families, which is how Laiho explained it to Helsingin Sanomat in November 2019. Instead, what caused the group to split was Laiho's substance abuse, and that is also what eventually killed him a year after they went their separate ways.

Laiho's addiction began to take a serious toll on CHILDREN OF BODOM in 2008, when the band was the support act on a SLIPKNOT tour. In the ensuing years, Laiho promised his bandmates that he would not drink on the road anymore. Although he kept his word for a few years, Alexi "went into a tailspin again in 2016," according to Wirman. Laiho, who had a substantial income as COB's main songwriter (all other income, from gigs to merchandise, was split equally),repeatedly complained that his income was declining and threatened to pull himself out of the limited liability company, AA & Sewira Consulting Oy, he and the other members formed in 2003.

After CHILDREN OF BODOM's manager brought up Laiho's substance abuse at a business meeting in New York in early 2019, Alexi refused to go into rehabilitation but did agree to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with diabetes, and he began taking medication to treat the condition.

In the summer of 2019, Laiho filed an application with the Finnish Patent And Registration Office to register the CHILDREN OF BODOM name to Laiho. This infuriated his bandmates who saw this as an attempt to hijack the name and brand that was controlled by the group's LLC.

During CHILDREN OF BODOM's tour of Russia in October 2019, Laiho "was hitting the bottle like back in 2008," his bandmates told Helsingin Sanomat.

"I told Alexi that you don't usually drink starting at breakfast before a gig, and now you don't even warm up with the guitar before going on stage like you always do," Raatikainen recalled.

Laiho later apologized and stopped drinking for the last concerts of the tour. "His hands were shaking for two days, but the gigs in Moscow and St Petersburg went pretty well," Raatikainen said.

Raatikainen, Seppälä and Wirman decided to go with Alexi's wish from a few years back and buy him out of the LLC. Laiho retained the rights to his music and was paid royalties on performances and record sales as before, but sold his part of the LLC that owns the name of the band and the merchandising rights.

According to the trio, Alexi was sober for CHILDREN OF BODOM's entire final tour of Finland in December 2019 and he "exchanged cordial messages" with them even after the start of the pandemic.

Alexi's sister Anna Laiho told Helsingin Sanomat that the three surviving members of CHILDREN OF BODOM "have the full support of our family."

Anna, Alexi's Australian wife Kelli Wright-Laiho and a few close friends attempted to get him professional help in the fall of 2020, but he refused.

"At heart, he was a warm and caring person, always ready to help others. But he had his demons, and he wanted to fight those alone", Alexi's sister said. "He wanted to make his own choices. For better or worse."