Ex-Children Of Bodom musicians reveal what really ended the band: “Alexi fell into addictions so bad that he could not overcome them”

The music world was deeply saddened when Alexi Laiho, lead guitarist and renowned virtuoso of Finnish metal greats Children Of Bodom, passed away at the end of 2020.

Now Helsingin-Sanomat has published a comprehensive article, in which Jaska Raatikainen, Henkka Seppälä and Janne Wirman were interviewed.

For the first time, the trio will be able to share their feelings about Alexi Laiho’s death and their own views on why Children Of Bodom’s career was cut short.

The article says that the root cause of the band’s break-up was Laiho’s substance abuse problem, which killed him just a year after the band’s break-up on 29th of December 2020. Laiho was reportedly drinking heavily and it was also reflected in his behaviour.

“I told Alexi that you don’t usually drink starting at breakfast before a gig, and now you don’t even warm up with the guitar before going on stage like you always do”, Raatikainen recalls.

The band was initially on the verge of breaking up during its last tour of Russia, but the tour was completed.

“Laiho was hitting the bottle like back in 2008”, the trio recalls.

“His hands were shaking for two days, but the gigs in Moscow and St Petersburg went pretty well.”

In addition, as reported in the media, Laiho had sold his share of the company to his bandmates. In practice, this meant that Laiho lost the rights to the band’s name and to the merchandise – he kept his share of the royalties, of course.

You can read the article in full here.