Alexi Laiho Interview - Chaos Ridden Years DVD
February 2nd, 2007
I was just surfing a bit and came across this Alexi Laiho interview from January 25th, 2007. It looks like Children of Bodom have just released a new live DVD called Chaos Ridden Years: Stockholm Knockout Live (2006) so Modern Guitars Magazine sat down with Alexi to talk about everything metal.
I have been a huge Children of Bodom fan for about 2 years now. They are one of the many great metal bands that have come out of Eastern Europe over the past few years. Alexi’s call to fame was his amazing playing style and his unique vocals. Although, in the interview he admits he didn’t choose to be singer, he was “stuck with it”. He credits a lot of his technique to virtuoso Steve Vai and living metal legend Zakk Wylde. Personally I love the guy for his ability to play in such harmony with the bands keyboardist Janne Wirman.
Modern Guitars gives a few paragraphs of background on Children of Bodom for those of you who aren’t familiar with the group. After that you can listen to a stream of the song Living Dead Beat off the band’s latest album Are You Dead Yet?. Then the author, Brian D. Holland dives right into the interview.
In the interview I found it interesting to hear what Alexi had to say about Yngwie Malmsteen:
I read somewhere that although you’ve been a huge fan of Yngwie Malmsteen, you’ve since gotten away from him and his style of playing.
Alexi: Yeah, well, Yngwie is Yngwie. I mean, what can you say? He’s fuckin’ bad ass, and that’s like stating the obvious. I was more into that neo-classical guitar thing when I was younger. Yeah, I was a huge Yngwie fan. You can hear that influence, especially on the first two albums. At that time, in Europe, there were so many guitar players, you know, Yngwie-copies running around everywhere. They all wanted to be like Yngwie and sound like Yngwie. It kind of pissed me off, you know. I didn’t want to be one of them. So I kind of turned off to that whole style of playing and decided it wasn’t going to be my thing. That’s Yngwie’ thing. He’s one of the greatest ever. End of story.
I just that it was funny… seems like over there Yngwie is like Jimi Hendrix or Zakk Wylde is here, everybody wants to be them.
Anyway, this was a great read for me and I’ll be excited to pick up the new DVD. Check out the whole interview for yourself.
Source: Alexi Laiho Interview at Modern Guitars Magazine
tagged alexi laiho and children of bodom
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