CHILDREN OF BODOM - Some Hate Is Gonna Roll! Page 2
By Martin Popoff

Er, what about the keyboards? "Yeah, right. Yes, we manage to combine really heavy guitars and drums with this clean and nice, well - not necessarily nice sound - but in a way, beautiful sounding keyboards. That can make a pretty good combination."

"The tone is pretty negative, lyrically; I can tell you that right away," continues Laiho. "It's always been the same thing. It's all pretty much reality-based stuff, bad feelings, being pissed-off, being depressed. Actually, there are only two tracks that are Lake Bodom murder-related, that thing that happened, and that's just purely fictional class B horror movie stuff. Otherwise it's just all reality. And for me, that's the best source of inspiration you can have, bad feelings. And the good thing about it is that you never run out; there's always going to be shit going on (laughs)."

Speaking of shit going on, post-album, Children Of Bodom was rocked by the departure of guitarist Alexander Kuoppala. What gives? "What happened was that, he told me he was sick of touring," explains Laiho. "But it's the same old story pretty much. He hooked up with this chick and before you know it, he quits the band. He wants to be a family man and that's it. There's definitely no bad blood between us or anything like that, but it is pretty hard on us that he actually quit. Because he was a really important part of the band. And it was also really weird that he actually did it. He would've been the last one from my point of view to do it, because he was a diehard rock guy, because he didn't give a f**k about anything before that. And then suddenly he made a quick 180 degree turn."

Did he have a backup plan in terms of work? Did he have a career simmering in the background?

"No (laughs). I don't know, dude, I mean, that's what I was asking him. And he said he didn't know. But at least he knows what he doesn't want to do (laughs). So I'm wondering what the hell he's going to do. In a way, I'm kind of worried about it but it was his choice. The thing is, Children Of Bodom always had a steady line-up; that's something we considered our thing; that's how it should be. So right now, because we don't want to cancel any gigs or anything, we don't really have enough time to sit down and really think about who we could actually take into the band as a steady member, so there's going to be this guitar player from Sinergy, Roope Latvala, he's going to replace Alexander for the rest of the year."

CHILDREN OF BODOM - Some Hate Is Gonna Roll! Page 3