Alexi Laiho Biography

Alexi Laiho also known as Alexi “Wildchild” Laiho (birth name; Markku Uula Aleksi Laiho) is a Finnish guitarist, composer and vocalist born on 8th April 1979 in Espoo, Finland. He is the lead guitarist, lead vocalist and founding member of the melodic death metal band ‘Children of Bodom’.

In 2004 he was ranked number 96 out of 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time by Guitar World. Guitar World magazine has also ranked him as one of the 50 fastest guitarists in the world. In addition, Roadrunner Records ranked Laiho at #41 out of 50 of The Greatest Metal Frontmen of All Time.

Alexi Laiho Kylähullut

In 2004 together with Tonmi Lillman (ex-Sinergy) and Vesa Jokinen 69er (from Klamydia) they founded a band called Kylähullut which was created for merely for the entertainment of the musicians, and takes a carefree approach to their music. The band’s discography includes two EP’s, and two full-length albums.

Alexi Laiho Height

Alexi Laiho’s height is 1.73 meters.

Alexi Laiho Children of Bodom

In 1993 Alexi Laiho together with Jaska Raatikainen formed an extreme metal band known as ‘Children of Bodom’. The consists of Alexi Laiho (Lead vocals, guitar), Janne Wirman (keyboards), Henkka Seppälä (bass), Jaska Raatikainen (drums) and Daniel Freyberg (guitar).

‘Children of Bodom’ played at the 2008 Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards. There, Laiho also received the Dimebag Award for “Best Shredder,” and he performed a track off of Bodom’s 2008’s album, Blooddrunk. Laiho appears on Canadian thrash metal outfit Annihilator’s 2007 album, Metal, as a guest, performing a guitar solo on the song “Downright Dominate.”

In spring of 2009, Children of Bodom was forced to drop out of their North American “No Fear Energy Tour” when Laiho broke his wrist after falling out of his bunk, when the tour bus took a sharp turn on April 26, 2009, after the show in Palladium Ballroom, Dallas TX. Laiho originally planned to continue touring despite his injury, but was forced to cancel the last six dates when any efforts to alleviate the pain failed.

On 3 July 2012 Children of Bodom announced on their Facebook page that they had to cancel two European shows because Laiho had been taken to the hospital. The band released this statement: “It is with great regret that we are forced to cancel tonight’s show in Oslo as well as tomorrow night’s show in Malmö. Alexi was rushed to the Oslo hospital earlier this evening with extreme stomach pain. The doctors in the emergency unit checked him and while we are still waiting for a diagnosis, they made clear that he will not be able to perform within the next 48 hours. We apologize to all our fans who have bought tickets to these shows – we will try to reschedule both Oslo and Malmö at the earliest possibility. Keep your fingers crossed with us that Alexi will get well again soon!”

On 5 July 2012 the band followed up with another update from their Facebook page: “This is not an easy letter for us to write. Alexi is suffering from a serious infection. He is still in hospital in Oslo under supervision of the doctors and we don’t know yet when they will release him. We have no choice other than canceling Ruisrock in Turku on Saturday as well. This is a very bitter pill for us to swallow. We had decided to do only two festivals in our homeland this summer to make it real special, and now this. We hope that we will be able to make up for this very soon. To all our fans who had been looking forward to rock with us at Ruisrock this weekend, take our apologies and enjoy the festival. In our spirits, we will be there, too.”

Alexi Laiho Guitar

In January 2003 ESP Guitars announced a line of Alexi Laiho Signature Models. The US version guitars are a slightly different shape than what Alexi usually plays, as the SV shape is a copyrighted Jackson shape. So to avoid a lawsuit, ESP made the bottom horn slightly larger and also put in a cut-away to get to the higher frets. Another difference is the use of solid black or yellow pinstripes on the paint finish instead of his traditional pinstriped design which lies on the bevels of the guitar.

The guitar comes in two finishes: black with yellow stripe and white with black stripe. The guitar has a neck-thru 25.5” design, using a 3-pc unfinished maple neck with a 24-fret ebony fingerboard and pearl sawtooth inlays, although Alexi does not actually use these in live shows.

The ESP Alexi includes white binding on neck and head, the ESP custom shop version comes with a natural maple neck while the LTD is painted, and it comes with professional-quality components including a Floyd Rose original tremolo, Gotoh tuners, Schaller straplocks and a single Seymour Duncan AHB-1 in the bridge position, (or an EMG HZ H4 humbucker). Alexi’s personal guitars, as well as Custom shop, Standard, and the models made for the US market are equipped with an MM-04 preamp.

There are seven ESP models that he actually uses (custom shop models are mostly seen in Japan)

1. Scythe (available in Standard version, Custom Shop Version and US version) white with black pinstripes and Scythe inlays, Chrome hardware

2. Arrow Head (Alexi’s first ESP signature) (Only available in Custom Shop version) Black with solid yellow pinstripes very much like the US Alexi and the Alexi 600 but with pearl Arrow Head inlays, Gold hardware

3. Sawtooth (Custom Shop Version) Black with luminous pinstripes and luminous sawtooth inlays (Standard Version) Black with white pinstripes and pearl sawtooth inlays both the CS and STD version are available in chrome or gold hardware

4. Katakana (originally there were 10 made for the Finnish market, now available in a STD version) Black with yellow pinstripes 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 frets with pearl sawtooth inlays katakana (Japanese letter) inlays in the 12 fret which spelled “Alexi”, gold hardware with larger cutaway, frets 21–24 scalloped.

5. Pink Sawtooth (STD&CS) Black with Pink pinstripes pink sawtooth inlays frets 20–24 scalloped, black hardware with larger cutaway

6. Blacky (STD&CS&USA) Matte black with gloss black pinstripes black pearl sawtooth inlays, frets 20–24 scalloped, black nickel hardware with larger cutaway

7. Greeny – Matte black, light green pinstripes and green skeleton.

Note: The 2010 version of Scythe, Sawtooth, and Arrow Head has the larger cutaway like the Pink Sawtooths

Alexi Laiho Wife/ Alexi Laiho  Partner

In February 2002 he married Kim Goss during a private ceremony in Finland. Kim is an American singer and keyboardist, best known as front woman and co-founder of the Finnish metal band Sinergy. Before getting married they had dated for four years. In 2004 they separated, but still remain close friends.

Alexi Laiho Kelli Wright

In 2015 he began dating Kelli Wright, an Australian Public Relations Manager, they got engaged in September 2016 before tieing the knot in December 2017 in a private ceremony in Australia.

Alexi Laiho Net Worth

Alexi Laiho is a Finnish singer, composer and guitarist who has a net worth of $6 million. Alexi Laiho has earned his net worth as lead guitarist and lead vocalist for melodic death metal band Children of Bodom, and the guitarist for Sinergy and Kylähullut.

Alexi Laiho Tattoos

He has the letters “COBHC” (Children of Bodom Hate Crew) tattooed on his left hand and “HATE” tattooed on his right hand as an homage to Ozzy Osbourne, who has a similar tattoo with the letters O-Z-Z-Y, except that it is on the left hand.

Alexi Laiho Twitter

Tweets by AlexiLaihoCOBHC

Alexi Laiho Songs Children Of Bodom Hatebreeder

Hatebreeder is the second studio album by Finnish metal band Children of Bodom. The “Deluxe Edition” was released in 2005 with bonus material. Hatebreeder was also re-released in 2008.

Track listing

All tracks written by Alexi Laiho, except where noted.

Children Of Bodom Songs

Studio albums

• Something Wild (1997)
• Hatebreeder (1999)
• Follow the Reaper (2000)
• Hate Crew Deathroll (2003)
• Are You Dead Yet? (2005)
• Blooddrunk (2008)
• Relentless Reckless Forever (2011)
• Halo of Blood (2013)
• I Worship Chaos (2015)

Children Of Bodom Covers

Skeletons in the Closet is the first compilation cover album by the Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom, released on September 22, 2009 through Spinefarm Records. The album only contains four unreleased covers for the songs “Hell Is for Children”, “Antisocial”, “War Inside My Head”, and “Waiting”, but the previously released songs are remixed and new details can be heard. The Japanese edition is pressed in SHM-CD format.

Track listing

European version

US version

Japanese version

Charts

Children Of Bodom Setlist

To get all their setlist and concerts click here

Children Of Bodom Facebook

Alex Laiho Interview

AllMusic: When you decide it’s time to make a new record, is that more exciting or stressful?

Alexi Laiho: It’s both nerve-racking and exciting, for sure, that’s definitely the hardest and the most difficult part in the whole playing in a band bit. It’s the hardest thing, writing a new album is the hardest thing in life, basically. That’s why I really need to shut everything out so I can concentrate on the music and make sure that I don’t think too much and so everything comes out naturally.

AllMusic: How do you shut things out?

Alexi Laiho: I think I’ve just learned how to do it over the years. I’ve always been good with blocking things out of my head, I’ve always had a knack for it. So what I do is I just really try not to think of anything like what we should sound like or plan what the new sound would be like or just think about stuff like what the fans expect or what they want to hear or are they going to like this or that, I don’t think about any of that stuff, I just go and do it and hope for the best.

AllMusic: How easily do songs tend to come to you?

Alexi Laiho: I can come up with an idea while I’m driving a car or doing laundry or whatever, so I get inspired all the time by so many different things. Then sometimes if I don’t have anything, you just sit down with a guitar and start playing and see what happens, sometimes I just play for hours and hours without getting anything out of it, really, as far as music goes. Then all of the sudden I’d find myself repeating the same thing over and over and say, “Oh, there’s a riff,” and I start working on that and once I get the first riff of the song, then that always makes things easier. When you don’t have anything and you start from scratch, that’s always the hardest part.

AllMusic: If you’re really not worried about expectations, do you think you could get away with making a record without guitar solos?

Alexi Laiho: Probably not. People ask me, “How come there are less guitar solos on this one than any of the other albums,” and I don’t know, nobody seems too upset about it. My answer is that this time around we just did what serves the music, and as a guitar player, I want to do the same thing. If the song is perfect as it is already, why would you want to force a guitar solo part in there? I don’t want the guitar solo to be a necessity, it needs to be something that serves the music. To me, that makes sense.

AllMusic: Some of the tracks on the newer album that stand out the most are the slower, more elegant songs. Are those more fun to write?

Alexi Laiho: Definitely, it’s pretty hard, too. “All For Nothing,” that was definitely one of the most challenging songs in the history of the band, because it’s so different and so peculiar, as far as anything else we’ve done before. It was definitely a pain in the ass to put it together, but once we did, we were like, “This is actually pretty awesome,” so we just went for it. And it seems to be a lot of people’s favorite, which makes me really happy. It’s so different and it was a big challenge to make it work. It’s good to do stuff like that, not to stay in your comfort zone and to try new things, but you also have to be careful with that, too. I don’t want to experiment on records, I want to experiment on my own time. When you’re making a record, you don’t mess around with it.

AllMusic: The closing track on the album also jumped out at me. What sort of special thought goes into choosing the final song on an album?

Alexi Laiho: That’s always been very important for us, not only just the tracklisting, but especially the closing song. You need to leave a certain type of feeling, you need to leave people hungry. No matter what happens if you go two songs back, that doesn’t matter at this point, something really awesome has to happen at the very end of the album. So that’s kind of the old school way of thinking, it seems that a lot of young kids don’t listen to records like that anymore, and I’m not going to start complaining about that, but to me, the tracklisting and the closing song, it’s still very important.

AllMusic: A lot of your lyrics are about finding inner strength. What are some songs by other artists that give you that feeling?

Alexi Laiho: There’s a zillion songs like that, today I was listening to the opening track on Slipknot’s Iowa, “People = Shit,” and a song like that, when I wake up and I just can’t get myself out of the bed, I’d put that album on. I listen to music constantly and I change what I listen to, but that song, and the new Slayer, Repentless, the title track, that’s a good wake-up song, too, it just makes you want to get out of bed and rage.

AllMusic: You swear quite a bit onstage. Do you think you swear more when you’re speaking in Finnish or in English?

Alexi Laiho: I use a lot of cuss words in both. When I speak Finnish, there’s a lot of cursing, too, especially when I get riled up. I’m pretty riled up when I’m onstage all the time, so that’s got a lot to do with it. It’s just the way I talk. I really have a hard time doing certain interviews, like when people tell you that you can’t curse, I don’t know how to express myself anymore.

AllMusic: How early on did you learn English?

Alexi Laiho: Finnish is my first language, then I learned Swedish and in third grade of elementary we start learning English. But before that you’d hear it in movies and music and all that, so a lot of the kids know English before they start learning it in school.

AllMusic: And when the band got going it was always obvious that you’d sing in English.

Alexi Laiho: Oh hell yeah. We didn’t even discuss that subject, of course it had to be in English. Singing in Finnish, a rock band or a metal band singing in Finnish, I know they exist, but in my book, it’s just not an option. It would not feel natural at all.

AllMusic: After nine albums, have you decided what your favorite part is about being in a band?

Alexi Laiho: It’s all about playing live and touring, that’s what the band is all about, really. Honestly, at the end of the day, that’s the reason why we make records, so that we can go back on tour and play live. It’s hard to describe, we’ve been on the road since we were 17 and 18, nonstop, that’s the way we grew up. That’s a very natural life for us, and even though some of the guys have kids now, we still haven’t slowed down one bit. If anything we tour now more than we did before. Everybody still loves playing live, so that’s the best part of it for sure.

Source: allmusic.com

Alexi Laiho News

Children of Bodom’s Alexi Laiho on no longer drinking while on tour: ‘I Can’t Deal With The Hangovers Anymore’

Updated On: 13th January 2018
Source: http://www.blabbermouth.net

CHILDREN OF BODOM vocalist/guitarist Alexi Laiho recently spoke with “The Wanderers” podcast. The full conversation can be heard below (interview starts at the 3:25 mark). A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):

On the band’s recently completed “20 Years Down & Dirty” tour, which saw the group perform older material from its catalog:

Alexi Laiho: “First of all, we already did a tour supporting the latest album, ‘I Worship Chaos’, and we just sort of came up with the idea — or the management did – that it’s been 20 years since the first album came out, so this might be something cool to do. We decided to do it in Europe, and it turned out real good, actually, so then we wanted to do it in the U.S. as well. That’s about it — it’s just something different, and you can tell that the crowd likes it too, because we’re playing tunes off the first and second album that we have not played either ever or in 15 years or whatever.”

On the origins of the group’s guitar- and keyboard-driven sound:

Alexi Laiho: “That sort of happened by accident, when we came up with that sound. [We] sort of mixed the ’80s-type of keyboard sound with into the metal guitar sound. It just happened. I think that it’s because we just had so many influences that are all blended in together.”

On the close-knit nature of the Finnish metal scene:

Alexi Laiho: “We’ve toured with a lot of Finnish bands like AMORPHIS and ENSIFERUM. It’s a small country, and most of them are from the Helsinki area. There’s only, like, five million people living in the country, and metal in general, it’s definitely more mainstream [than] it is in any other country that I’ve actually ever been in.”

On whether the group has toned down its partying over the years:

Alexi Laiho: “I still drink, but not when I’m on the road. I can have a beer or two every now and then, but I can’t deal with the hangovers anymore and, like, hop on stage. When you’re getting older, the hangovers get so fucking bad, at least personally. I guess it’s different for everybody, but I just want to lie on the couch and do fucking nothing. It really started to suck, and then you had to, like, throw back a couple of shots — not to get drunk, but just to keep an even keel and feel normal. That’s just not good. I just decided that I’d rather feel awesome on stage and cut back on the partying. When I put it that way, it’s either one or the other. Of course, I choose the music. We had a lot of fun, that’s for sure. It’s just that when it gets to the point where you hit the stage and you’re basically just trying not to die [laughs], it’s like, ‘Wait a minute — what am I doing here? I’m not really enjoying playing live anymore,’ which before that was, like, my favorite thing to do. All of a sudden, it’s, like, the last thing I want to do because I’m so hung over. That’s when you sort of realize that your priorities are just a little fucked up. It’s not a big deal — not for me, anyway. I just cut back on the booze, and you feel better and you’ve got more energy onstage and you’re actually enjoying yourself. When I get off the road, that’s when I open a beer and finally get drunk. It’s funny, because for a lot of people, it’s the other way around – they take it easy when they’re back home, and when they hit the road, that’s when they go crazy. For me, it’s the other way.”

On the group’s upcoming plans:

Alexi Laiho: “We’re actually working on a new album as we speak. I actually started writing [last] summer, and started working on a couple of tunes. I think we’ve got, like, four or five new songs ready. We’re going to hit the studio in March. Basically, it’s just a ton of touring, start writing again, hit the studio, the road again. That’s just what we do.”

On the direction of the new album:

Alexi Laiho: “None of that is ever planned, or none of that is ever conscious. It just happens. At least for me, the only way to make music is just not to think — just, like, get it out and hope for the best, hope that people like it.”