Alexi Laiho was the frontman and lead guitarist for the Finnish metal band Children of Bodom. His nickname was “Wild Child,” a moniker he wasn’t quite ready to outgrow. On January 4, 2021, it was announced he passed away the previous week. The world of heavy metal is mourning the loss of such a virtuoso. Also, that’s a final nail in the coffin of the year 2020.
Alexi was only 41 years old; I just turned 40 myself. It’s a stark reminder of mortality when a person your age, whom you’ve admired your entire adult life, dies.
The Other Big Four
During the 1980s, a group of major thrash metal bands were grouped together and dubbed “The Big Four.” The bands were Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. If you’re reading this article, you’re more than likely familiar with those bands and the name “The Big Four.” They were my introduction to metal music in high school, starting with Metallica’s Black Album and Megadeth’s Youthinasia.
When I got to college in 1999, MP3s were rapidly becoming the new format for music. But even before the likes of Napster and other file sharing applications, you could find MP3s available on web sites. Downloading those files was just as illegal as obtaining them from a file sharing service, but without those web sites I would never have discovered a whole new world of metal. My first exposure to bands like System of a Down came from these days of downloading music on my college’s speedy internet connection.
The biggest influence on my musical tastes came from a set of bands I dubbed my personal “Big Four”. In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy, and Children of Bodom introduced me to the extreme forms of metal. The bands were the originators of the sub-genre melodic death metal. Just finding out there were genres within metal was new to me at the time. The music from these bands married the melodic guitar riffs from bands like Metallica with the harsh screaming vocals from death metal. I instantly fell in love with these four bands, in particular Children of Bodom.
Follow the Reaper
For the past two decades, Children of Bodom has been one of my favorite bands. The first songs I heard were “Hate Me” and “Every Time I Die” from the album Follow the Reaper. Both songs really spoke to my college self. The lyric “I don’t give a fuck if you hate me!” summed up my non-conformist attitude. Then I got to songs like “Mask of Sanity,” with its opening riff sounding like something out of Castlevania, and “Bodom After Midnight”, with its shouted choruses, and I was completely hooked. Even the band’s name, a reference to the Bodom Lake murders, intrigued my morbid curiosity.
I followed Children of Bodom every since. They were one of those bands I bought each new album without needing to hear a single song. Over the course of twenty five years Alexi and company released 12 albums (including a live album and a covers album), releasing a new one every other year. None of their albums are overly long, usually containing ten songs and a total duration of about 40 minutes. But there was never a wasted song. And each song was a relatively quick blast of non-stop guitars, keyboards, and screaming.
Children of Bodom was one of the few bands I saw multiple times in concert. Any time they toured I wanted to see them perform. I never went to a huge number of concerts and have all but sworn off ever attending another one in my “old” age. I would have loved another chance to see one of my favorite bands play live again, though.
I hadn’t followed the band as closely since having kids, which limited my ability to attend events of any kind as well when I could crank harder metal music. Around the time of Halo of Blood I started losing track of music in general, but I always managed to find out when a new Bodom album was released even if it didn’t get as much play time. Sadly, I didn’t know the band broke up in 2019 and Alexi lost the rights to the band’s name. Those albums from 2001 to 2011, though, will always have a special place in my heart and memories.
Children of Boredom
Not everyone shared my high esteem for Alexi and Children of Bodom. A quick web search will uncover plenty of vitriol against the band and its music. On one occasion, after a friend attended the same concert as me, I asked online what she thought of Children of Bodom. She and her friends were not impressed, calling them “Children of Boredom” and claiming all the songs sounded the same. I bit my tongue to avoid spitting back that I felt the same way about their vaunted Death Angel.
That was one of my most impressionable moments of social media interaction. Rather than immediately respond with spite I stepped back and acknowledged its perfectly fine for people to have differing opinions, especially on something as subjective as music. I had not yet started down my path to Taoism. But this incident was one of my first successful attempts at non-attachment. In particular, I learned not to carry a grudge and just go with the flow rather than pick fights.
Every Time I Die
One thing I learned from the articles in the wake of Alexi’s death was he attempted suicide in the 1990s. Obviously that would have been a shame to lose such a talented musician before he even had a chance to start. In an interview with Metal Hammer, he talked about battling depression and seeing a therapist. It’s little wonder that Alexi wrote lyrics like those in the chorus of “Every Time I Die”:
Another night, another demise,
Every Time I Die
Cadaverous wind blowing cold as ice
I’ll let the wind blow out the light
Cause its gets more painful every time i die.
Many people decry metal for its dark themes, especially its obsession with death. I’ve had a few conversations where I had to justify why I listened to songs like Slayer’s “Angel of Death”. What those people don’t understand is how cathartic metal can be. The rhythm and melody of the music create an atmosphere of release, while the lyrics dissect the dark corners most people try to deny. But by delving into those topics, you can better understand them. It can help to know you’re not alone with feeling the way you feel. It’s basically the same reason people listen to schmaltzy break-up songs when a relationship ends.
Listening to extreme songs can provide a lot of relief when faced with extreme emotions. When I found out one of my closest and longest friends was in jail for distributing child pornography, I had a wave of disdain and hatred wash over me. In an instant, I totally cut off one of my oldest friendships. It was all the more sickening since my young son was close to my ex-friend’s apparent tastes. My first reaction was to get in my car and crank up the song “Are You Dead Yet?”
Enemy, take one good look at me
Are You Dead Yet?
Eradicate what you will always be
Your tainted flesh, polluted soul
Through a mirror I behold
Throw a punch, shards bleed on the floor
Tearing me apart but I don’t care any more
Should I regret or ask myself
Are you dead yet?
In reality, the lyrics to that song are about self reflection, about taking a look in the mirror and hating what you see. I guess in the moment I kind of hated myself for being friends with a person that could partake in something so terrible. But I was also directing the hatred of the song toward my ex-friend. That actually helped me through my initial shock. And that’s a moment I’m thankful for a musician like Alexi.
Oops… I Did It Again
Alexi might have had some mental health issues and his music could be quite dark and aggressive. But he also had a fun side. Nothing illustrates that better than Children of Bodom covering the Britney Spears song “Oops… I Did It Again.” The transposition of such a pop song to the world of guitars and harsh vocals was comedy gold. But, oddly, it also worked. And the band sounded like it was having fun, even recreating the inane dialogue during the song’s bridge.
That song eventually wound up on an album of covers, Skeletons in the Closet. The title, presumably, is a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that many of the songs are campy for a metal band. Among the covers of Slayer, Sepultura, and Iron Maiden, there are covers of Billy Idol, Pat Benatar, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Even the cover of The Ramones is done with extra humor on top of the original.
Relentless Reckless Forever
The metal world lost a truly unique individual with the passing of Alexi Laiho. I lost a personal favorite musician and gained another reminder of my own mortality.
R.I.P. Alexi Laiho.
