Children of Bodom Frontman Alexi Laiho Talks 15th Anniversary Tour and More

Children of Bodom frontman Alexi Laiho was a guest on Full Metal Jackie's radio show over the weekend. He talked about the band's current 15th anniversary tour, taking part in a Finnish cooking show and more. If you missed Jackie's show, check out her full interview with Alexi Laiho below:

The 15th Anniversary tour is now under way, when you look back on your entire career for an anniversary tour what stands out most that you never realized before?

Well there’s a lot of things that happened, a lot of things that I never really stopped to think about during these last 15 years. Obviously, the first time we got the record contract that was kind of like the biggest deal in my life and certain little things like the first time we went to Japan and the first headlining tour in the U.S. and a bunch of little things that might not sound like a big deal. I could go on and on.

Do you feel like it sort of happened quickly in terms of your level of success here and notoriety and showing up on 'Guitar World' magazine and things like that?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said I really haven’t had that much time to stop and think about everything that’s happened but sometimes you’re like, “Wait a minute, did I just do that, was I just on the cover of Guitar World with Zakk Wylde and Steve Vai? Really, me?” I mean that’s pretty awesome right?

Were you giddy that day when that photo shoot happened? I kind of remembered seeing behind the scenes photos, I can’t even imagine as a fan of those guys what it must have been like for you.

Well I was trying not to, I think I did a pretty good job too. [Laughs] The thing is that those two dudes are definitely like my ultimate guitar heroes and the guys that I grew up listening too when I was a kid and I still do. Both of them were really cool and we just hung out it was really comfortable to hang out with them.

Does being made more aware of your entire history, being this is a 15th anniversary tour, does it make you rethink the direction of what the band does next?

Usually I really try not to think about stuff like that. I like to keep it spontaneous and before I start writing music I don’t really sit down and think about what we should sound like. I just grab the guitar and see what happens. That’s always been the method that’s worked for me anyway.

Tell me about something you did recently, you were part of a Finnish cooking show?

[Laughs] Yeah that’s very true, I know it sounds pretty messed up but it was a lot of fun. Basically the whole concept of the show is that this guy who is a famous chef in Finland he visits Fins who live outside of Finland somewhat famous or known people. He came out to L.A. to see me and he taught me how to cook and we hung out and we had cocktails and stuff like that. I don’t know how to cook, I can make us some sandwiches but that’s it. [Laughs] He taught me some stuff so it was definitely a lot of fun.

Will we in the states get a chance to see that at some point or is this Finnish only?

It’s only in Finland.

You guys have always been known to do some crazy cover tunes which crack me up every time I do a Metal cover special I play the Britney Spears cover because I can’t get enough of it, it’s so good. Tell me what a bunch of Finnish guys like about a 1985 electro-pop song by Eddie Murphy, no less to want to cover ‘Party All the Time.’

That was another moment of not knowing what to do, after you cover Britney and what not, there’s no way you can top that but I think we actually kind of did. Somebody came up with the idea of covering that Eddie Murphy song because for some reason during that recording session, that song was always around and we would drink and hang out and that was on the party CD or mix CD and someone came up with the beautiful idea of covering that song and we were like, “What dude? What the hell, we’ll see if we can pull it off.” I think it turned out pretty good, I mean as long as you have a sense of humor otherwise you’re just going to hate it.

What is going on in terms of plans for the next Bodom album, is there some kind of a timeline or are you guys working or writing anything so far?

Right now we’re in between tours but we’re going to keep going until next fall so we’re going to do this U.S. tour and then we got a bunch of European festivals throughout the summer and as far as I know I think we’re going to start writing new stuff sometime this autumn. I already have written something but basically I really don’t write while I’m touring, it’s just kind of the wrong kind of environment for me writing. When you’re surrounded by psycho drunks just screaming 24/7 [laughs].

Are you talking about us or your bandmates?

[Laughs] Of course not you, just the bandmates. [Laughs]

Next week, Full Metal Jackie will have Mark "Barney" Greenway of Napalm Death on her show. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.