In an exclusive interview , the original members of Children of Bodom spoke for the first time about the circumstances that led to the band's breakup in December 2019.
At the time, it was officially announced that Janne Wirman , Jaska Raatikainen , and Henkka Seppala had left Children of Bodom for "family reasons," but now the trio have reunited for a joint interview and told a different version of the story.
According to the three former members, the real reason they left the band was the behavior of vocalist Alexi Laiho . Alexi was facing serious problems with alcohol and substance abuse, which directly altered his mood and actions. After an argument with one of his bandmates, he allegedly threatened to fire the other two in a series of emails sent while intoxicated.
“I told Alexi that normally you don’t drink from breakfast onwards before doing a show,” Raatikainen comments. “And he wasn’t even warming up with his guitar before going on stage like he usually did.”
Children of Bodom's manager reportedly had to intervene in the situation and was allegedly threatened with dismissal by Laiho, as were the other band members. Later, the vocalist reportedly apologized and stopped drinking during the final shows of the tour.
The band, however, had already been facing some problems since 2018, when Alexi said he was resigning via email due to his dissatisfaction with the payment they were receiving. The situation was resolved at the request of the vocalist himself, who agreed to make one more album with Children of Bodom and go ahead with a farewell tour. In 2019, however, Laiho allegedly tried to legally register the name Children of Bodom in his own name, which displeased the other members.
After the turbulent events on tour, the band reportedly informed their organizer that they had broken up, but some shows in Finland were still to be performed. The solution they found was to fulfill a long-standing wish of Alexi Laiho and buy out his share of their Limited Liability Partnership agreement, paying the vocalist for his royalties, record sales, and performances. In this way, Alexi relinquished his rights to the band's name, and Children of Bodom could run the business as they saw fit.
Alexi Laiho died a year later, in December 2020, due to alcohol-induced degeneration of the connective tissue of the liver and pancreas. Before his death, he still reunited with his Children of Bodom colleagues for a campaign to make personalized masks in response to COVID-19 and began recording an EP for his side project, Bodom After Midnight .
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