Former CHILDREN OF BODOM Members To Launch Bar And Band Museum

Three former members of CHILDREN OF BODOM — Jaska Raatikainen (drums),Henri "Henkka T. Blacksmith" Seppälä (bass) and Janne Wirman (keyboards) — have announced plans to open their own bar and a band museum. In addition to serving as an "unholy concoction of a hard rock café and a dive bar," Bodom Bar & Sauna will offer visitors a chance to experience the Finnish sauna culture, which is considered an integral part of the lives of the majority of the Finnish population.

Earlier today, Raatikainen, Seppälä and Wirman released the following statement via the CHILDREN OF BODOM social media: "We toured actively from 1998 until 2019. We have visited a bar in almost every town we ever played in. From Hard Rock Café Tokyo to a dive bar in the outskirts of Milwaukee. Everything from the legendary Rainbow Bar and Grill in West Hollywood to the Crobar in London UK.

"Almost everyone in our profession dreams of opening their own bar at some point and we were no exception. When the active career of COB was already coming to an end we started looking into it a bit more seriously. We had a warehouse full of memorabilia and we thought that a lot of people would want to see some of this stuff that used to be and still was very meaningful to us and the career of the band.

"A thought of a museum felt a bit foreign but an idea of a bar that works as a museum displaying our gear and memorabilia seemed quite natural at this point. We had almost given up on this dream when the power duo of Jykä Peltonen and Kimmo Helistö emerged and were ready to provide us with their know how in the matter. Together we will build this unholy concoction of hard rock café and dive bar with a lot of BODOM in it. The new HQ of COB will combine a museum and a bar but also include the possibility to experience the Finnish sauna culture. Situated naturally in Espoo only a stone's throw away where the band started their career.

"Bodom Bar & Sauna is being built in Espoo into a location with easy access to a Metro station. The establishment will also include three saunas. There will be no entry fee to the Bar and no age limit. There will be a fee for the sauna experience. We will open the Bar on 10.11.22".

Former CHILDREN OF BODOM frontman Alexi 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.

Alexi and Raatikainen 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 December of 2019. In 2020, Alexi put together BODOM AFTER MIDNIGHT, which recorded three songs and shot one music video, all of which were released posthumously.

Earlier this year, Raatikainen, Seppälä and Wirman (keyboards) discussed publicly for the first time the circumstances that led to CHILDREN OF BODOM'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.