Ask Children Of Bodom founder and frontman Alexi Laiho how he got the nickname ‘Wildchild’, and indeed, why he’s still using it at the ripe old age of 33, and he sniggers and says, “Actually I don’t use it these days, and it doesn’t appear on our album covers any more, but some people still call me that. I guess I’ve had a few crazy times over the past few years.” You could say that.
The career trajectory of Finnish fivesome Children Of Bodom has been a rollercoaster ride, but it hardly compares to the life experience of Alexi himself, who has been through more broken bones and bottles of Jägermeister than most of us would encounter in three lifetimes. How he’s made it this far is a mystery to us. COB, now one of Finland’s bestselling metal bands and a Europe-wide force as well as in the UK and America, have humble roots at their high school in the tedious Helsinki district of Espoo, whose name is about the most amusing thing about the place.
“Espoo is boring in every single way,” says Alexi, looking back at the band’s early days. “It’s just another suburb of Helsinki: there’s nothing there, and nothing to do, so you have to find things to do. For me it was playing guitar and skateboarding.
Most of us went to the same school in Espoo: me and our drummer Jaska [ ] started playing together when we were about 12 years old. Then a bass player called Samuli Miettinen joined us and we started playing covers – crappy versions of and songs. We didn.
