Bodom, on the other hand, took a few years to break through. We thought if we were lucky we’d sell a few hundred copies, but 10 years after, it actually sold gold.”įinnish metal was in the middle of a renaissance in the late 90s, with bands such as HIM, Sonata Arctica, Apocalyptica and Nightwish emerging from the scene. “When the recording was done, Alexi printed the master CD and wrote on it: ‘The future gold-selling album,’” laughs Henkka. “I’m not exaggerating here we were very sure that this would be something that would not fall into anybody’s taste.”Īlexi didn’t share his concerns. “We really liked what we were doing, but at the same time we were like, ‘What are we? What is this music?” remembers ex-Children Of Bodom bassist Henkka Seppälä. I could just kick anybody’s ass, and I was appreciated for that.” I was definitely the best guitar player around. “We’re talking about a really small underground metal circuit. “There was a lot of pressure to conform, but I just didn’t care about that,” Alexi recalled. It was fun, frantic and the sound of a guitarist doing exactly what he wanted: a defiant middle finger to trend and fashion that refused to be to be defined by the limitations of any one scene. Among it all, Bodom’s debut, Something Wild, landed like a blast from an atomic bomb – an adrenaline-fuelled explosion of frenzied solos, epic keys and boisterous choruses. Back then, extreme metal was a straight-laced, deadly serious affair while, over in the mainstream, post-grunge was where personality went to die, and there was no space for overt and intricate virtuosity among nu metal’s blunt-force posturing. But by 1997, the band had changed their name to Children Of Bodom, signed to Spinefarm Records and unleashed themselves on a metal scene that didn’t know what the hell to make of them. In 1993, he formed Inearthed with school friend and drummer Jaska Raatikainen. We heard Chidren Of Bodom and we were like, ‘Holy shit, what is this?’ It sounded like Yngwie Malmsteen on speed. “I got a job and everything, but all I did was just concentrate on playing, practising, writing music.” He formed his first band aged 14, and a year later, with the blessing of his parents, had dropped out of school. He’s like, ‘That’s guitar.’ And I was like, ‘That’s what I wanna do.’ No bullshit.”īorn to musical parents who played myriad instruments, by the time he was 11, when his dad bought him his first guitar, Alexi had developed an obsession with 80s hair metal and a love for guitarists such as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. “I heard the riff, and I’m like, ‘That’s so awesome.’ I thought it was the best thing ever. “I went up to my dad, like, ‘What is that?’” he told EMP Live TV. Growing up in the city of Espoo, a short drive from Finland’s capital Helsinki, Alexi was just four when he heard his dad blasting Dire Straits and immediately realised his calling in life. I felt all his personality oozing out of every solo that he played onstage.” “Sometimes you might not know someone personally, but you feel like you know them through listening to their guitar playing.
“There are some guitar players who treat playing guitar like a sport, and Alexi had that speed and that accuracy, but he also had such a voice to his guitar playing,” says Svalbard singer and guitarist, Serena Cherry.
Black and power metal, melodeath, classical, thrash… he glued it altogether with batshit fast solos and a ‘fuck you’ attitude that inspired a whole generation of would-be players. With Children Of Bodom, Alexi threw together genre combinations that had never been attempted before. He was a visionary who opened the door for melody and flamboyance to infiltrate the darkest, most extreme corners of metal. In 2008, he won the coveted Dimebag Darrell Shredder Award at Metal Hammer’s Golden Gods, and the following year he was voted Best Metal Guitarist by the readers of Guitar World – but he was more than just a rip-your- face-off shredder. “He was like the big brother I never had.”īut first and foremost, Alexi will go down in metal’s history books as a modern guitar hero. “His art was brutal and aggressive, but that was just one side of that furious, big-hearted tender guy,” says Reckless Love frontman Olli Herman, who played with Alexi in glam rock tribute act The Local Band. Those who knew him describe him as a softly spoken, gentle soul with a reckless, spontaneous side, the ‘Wildchild’ who out-partied everyone around him.
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“Mine said ‘Ghostface Dylla’ on the back, and his said ‘Eazy-A, Original Gangsta 358’ – the country code for Finland.” “My favourite memory is probably the time we got these ridiculous Ali G- style tracksuits custom airbrushed for the 70,000 Tons Of Metal cruise to prank the karaoke night,” adds ex-GWAR member and costume designer, Kim Dylla.
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