Henkka Seppälä (Children of Bodom)
March 2008
Your previous album Are You Dead Yet? was quite different in style. How was it received?
It's hard to say because I'm not really reading reviews but I think the media reception was very good. At least in the Finnish media it was surprisingly good. As far as the fans it's even more hard to say because there's a lot of fans that liked it but like the older stuff better. On the other hand we made a lot of new fans that think all our best songs are from that album.
Weren't you afraid of losing fans with the style of that album?
We didn't know it's gonna be different and actually I don't see it that different from the other albums. I think it's the same stuff that we've always done. We always do our things the same way and we never tried to change so for us it's pretty much like the same.
Yeah but that album is more aggressive and less melodic...
Yeah, more aggressive, that's true. But we never think about it when we write the songs, we just play how we feel the best.
And are you satisfied with that album if you look back?
I think there's a couple of weak songs on there that I don't like but I like the sound and the atmosphere of the album and I think one of our best songs are also on that album so I'm happy with it. But since we have a new album out now it doesn't seem to be interesting anymore.
As far as I know that became your best selling record...
Yeah, I think so too. I think all our albums have been outselling the one before, so there's a good tendency about the sells. We hope to continue that with our new album.
You might not agree with me here either but I find the new album more melodic and catchier than Are You Dead Yet? was...
It definitely wasn't intentional. Like I said we always do things the same way and the songs just come out different ways. And I don't see it more melodic or more aggressive or more catchy but yeah, I have a different point of view because I'm an insider and I can understand that people from the outside can have different opinions about it. So I'm glad to hear that.
Due to Alexi's unfortunate accident you had more time to prepare for the new album. Did you use that time mainly for composing or just relaxing?
Because he couldn't play we could pretty much do our own things. He spent the most time working on the album as he had a lot of brainstorming in his mind about compositions. But the rest of us pretty much were doing our own life waiting for him to be fit to play again.
Was it a bad thing to sit out nearly a year or you needed some break anyway?
It was good. It definitely wasn't bad. Of course we have prepared to start composing at a certain point and it was a little disappointing that we had to postpone it for two months. But it was good in the end because we've been touring so much and of course there's never enough holiday.
Last year you gave out some working titles from the new album. One of them was Trabant.
Yeah. (Laughs) That became LoBodomy. We named it after how the drums start on the album. It sounds like "trabant, trabant". There's no special meaning about it, it's just how the drum sounds.
How do you come up with working titles?
When we rehearse and we have lots of different songs you just have to come up with different names for different songs and usually they just come like that. It also happens often that we have several working titles for the same song.
You also posted a tracklist on your website and it had a song called Roundtrip to Hell and Back. Is it on the album with a different title or you skipped that?
It's with a different title but I'm not sure which one is it. We didn't skip it. Alexi had a lot of ideas for the song titles and he was very late on deciding what the titles are gonna be. I'm still a little bit confused of what is what. I know them better with the working titles. (Laughs)
You re-recorded which was already released on a compilation CD last year. How does it differ from the original?
I don't think there's any changes when it comes to the music and the songwriting but the song is much much better now because we weren't happy with how the song sounded on the first release. I'm glad we decided to make it again.
How many songs you have recorded overall during the recording process?
We recorded 13 songs but that includes all the cover versions that were meant for bonus tracks on different versions of the album in different areas so I think all of them will be released pretty soon. One of them will be for Japan, one will only be on the European digipak and one for the American version.
So die-hard Children of Bodom fans have to pay a lot to collect them all...
(Laughs) If they want all the songs then I guess so.
There are some very interesting picks among the cover tunes.
Yeah. The first idea was very easy. It was Kenny Rogers' song Just Dropped In. We are fans of The Big Lebowski movie and that song is in that movie. It's a great song and we thought coving it would be a funny idea. Then the next song was also from the same movie, the Creedence Clearwater Revival cover Lookin' Out My Back Door. It's just a great song and we had so much fun starting playing it because it's so different from our style. I think it's one of the best covers we've ever done. Then we decided to do War Inside My Head from Suicidal Tendencies because we love the band and we never did anything from them. And then we did Ghost Riders In The Sky from Stan Jones. That's just an old tune that we used to play during soundchecks and this time we decided to record the whole thing and it became a really nice version as well.
Alexi didn't really pay much attention to the lyrics of his songs in the past. How is it these days?
When he had his injury he was really frustrated and then he had time and he was working on the lyrics during that period. I think this time some of the lyrics are much more personal than ever before. This time he had more time to do the lyrics, that's for sure, so he's more prepared with that.
Are there any songs on the album that you like more than the others?
I like Blooddrunk, that's one of the best songs we've ever done. I can't really explain why... it has some sort of a weird and different kind of atmosphere than the other Children of Bodom songs. maybe that's because it's very aggressive but very slow at the same time. It's a weird combination.
What do you think would be the best song to perform live?
Hmm... I think that could be Hellhounds On My Trail. It's really fast and it's really a rough one to play. I think if we manage to get it somehow in a good condition live then it's gonna work great.
So you basically mentioned the two songs you made a video for...
Yeah, that's true. We made videos for these two songs. The shooting was very good. We flew to Berlin and we shot the first video in an old Soviet army base, which is like a little town outside Berlin. It was abandoned when the Soviet soldiers left East Germany. It is a very creepy place. And the other video we shot in the studio in Berlin. I think both videos ended up being really cool. We had a lot of fun but of course video shootings are always really hard for the bands because these are long days without any sleep and you have to play things over and over and over again. It's kind of hard but I think it turned out well.
Do you get a lot of TV and radio airplay in Finland?
No, not at all. There's one commercial rock radio and sometimes we get played there but I think we're really too extreme for them. There's not really any music channels. MTV Finland has Headbanger's Ball and I think that's the only place where you can get to see these videos.
Is the album title Blooddrunk from Alexi?
Yeah. He chose it after the song on the album, which has a very personal lyrics. He's telling about his problems when he was young when he was frustrated and he was full of anger and he somehow got satisfaction of hurting himself. That time he was calling himself Blooddrunk because he always needed to do things like cutting himself. It's quite sad and depressing stuff but in the end it's kind of positive because he got away with it and he found different ways for satisfaction. For example by composing hard and aggressive riffs that gets the same feeling out of that.
You mentioned about the different versions of the album that will see the light soon. One of them will come out with a bonus DVD. What's on it?
The videos will be on there and the making ofs as well. Then there'll be more footage from the studio and the recording session.
Also there are talks about the reissues of the first three albums. What should we know about that?
Yeah, I think the first three albums are gonna be reissued but I don't really know anything more about that. I just heard the same news that they will be reissued very soon but I don't know any of the details.
Do you think you could add some bonus materials to these reissues?
Yeah, I think we could but I don't really know what material would it be because we don't have any old material from those days that haven't been released yet. And maybe we can just put on the Japanese bonus tracks on the worldwide release now because it's been a long time since they were released anyway. We'll see.
You're going to participate on the Gigantour in April. What do you expect from that?
We have very high expectations. (Laughs) I think it's gonna be a great tour. Megadeth was one of my biggest influences. They were one of the first bands I started playing when I picked up my guitar. I have no less than very very high expectations about the tour and I hope I'm not gonna be disappointed. It's a long one and we play big halls together with great bands.
You already played together with In Flames but how about the support acts? Do you know them?
I don't even know them. I know their names but I never heard their music. Actually I have to check them out before we get on that tour. And I'm gonna see them every night on that tour anyway.
The next one I should better ask from Alexi but what is the current status of Sinergy?
(Laughs) Their status is idle. They have all the material recorded except for some guitars and vocals for the upcoming album so they nearly have a new album ready. It's just takes time to get to the studio to finish it and find someone to release it. It's a little sad because they almost finished the album but everybody just forgot about it as everybody is doing something else.
Are you and the other guys involved in other side projects at the moment?
No, not really. Janne is still doing his Warmen stuff but that's the only thing really. And he doesn't do that so often either so everybody is just hanging out. (Laughs)
Alexi was asked to be a cornerman at a wrestling competition in last December. How come?
This wrestler guy lives in Finland and they just met somewhere a couple of years ago and I think he just invited Alexi to do it as a friendly thing.
Would you be interested in writing a sport song like a few other bands did already?
It's a funny idea. I think that sounds cool, it would be funny and I think it would work for wrestling to write a song like that.
Or maybe ice hockey...
Yeah, definitely. The band Sentenced already composed a hockey song for their local team.