THE WILD TIMES, FINAL DAYS and LAST RECORDINGS of ALEXI LAIHO 1979-2020

FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH HIS BODOM AFTER MIDNIGHT BANDMATES DANIEL FREYBERG AND MITJA TOIVONEN, PLUS FORMER CHILDREN OF BODOM GUITARIST ROOPE LATVALA.

- JON WIEDERHORN 

THE LAST THING CHILDREN of Bodom/Bodom After Dark frontman Alexi Laiho ever wanted to do is disappoint fans. That’s why he refused to cancel any shows in late 2009 after the band’s tour bus took a hard turn and he fell out of his tour bus bunk in the middle of the night and crashed to the ground, breaking his clavicle and a rib. The next day, Laiho was in agony, but he gutted it out and played the show. Two nights later, at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, he again persevered, but he was visibly angry that he wasn’t at the top of his game.

“I gotta tell you something, man,” he said before Bodom played “Hellhounds on my Trail.” “I fucking apologize. I can’t fuckin’ move and I can’t fuckin’ sing and I’m fuckin’ just standing here like a fuckin’ idiot, so try to bear with me, alright?”

Energized by Laiho’s bravery and tenacity, the crowd cheered, which, perhaps, raised his spirits and he summoned the strength to make it through the rest of the gig. Laiho grit his teeth night after night, and with the help of some heavy painkillers he made it to the eleventh gig of the No Fear tour with Lamb of God and Municipal Waste. That’s when his body fought back.

Two songs into the set, as Bodom played “Hate Me!,” Laiho hunched over and noticeably favored his side. The band started the third song, but Laiho was in too much agony to keep playing. He angrily flung his Jackson and stormed offstage. “I think my rib was sticking into one of my muscles,” he later told this writer. “I felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife into my lungs and my heart. So I just couldn’t keep going.”