CHILDREN OF BODOM frontman Alexi Laiho is featured in a new interview with Anthony Morgan at Metal Forces Magazine. An excerpt from the story is available below:

September 2003 heralded fourth platter Hate Crew Deathroll. “I think that was the album which really had the sound of Children Of Bodom for the first time,” Alexi exalts. “It sounds like we knew what we were doing, and song wise in general it’s really strong. Also, it seemed to be the album that broke us through. During that album, we also started concentrating on the American market as well which was a whole new world for us. The album actually gave us a chance to do something like that though, which obviously was a good thing. Hate Crew Deathroll is definitely one of my favourite Children Of Bodom albums.”

Hate Crew Deathroll was the last Children Of Bodom album to feature guitarist Alexander Kuoppala. “It was a weird case in every way,” the frontman muses. “He was there since 1995; he was so dedicated as a musician, and was a crazy metalhead. All of a sudden, he basically met some chick just overnight. He decided that he wanted to become a family man, quit the band, and just leave all his friends. I looked at him, and said ‘You’re not the first one to play rock ’n’ roll who has a kid, so what’s your fucking problem?’ He said ‘I just don’t wanna do this anymore,’ and then the guy just disappeared. It was strange, but I guess shit like that happens. It definitely sucked, but you can’t really stop and cry about it too much. You’ve just gotta move on, which we did. We found Roope (Latvala) to play guitar, and he’s a bit better guitar player anyway. At the end of the day, it was a good deal for us.”

Alexi had performed alongside Roope Latvala (STONE / ex-WALTARI) in the power metal group SINERGY, both featuring on the Nuclear Blast-released albums To Hell And Back (August 2000) and Suicide By My Side (February 2002). “I had played with him for a couple of years already, like you said,” he acknowledges. “Everybody knew him already, so we knew that he would be cool and would get along with everybody. As a guitar player he’s fucking amazing, he really is. He happened to be there at the moment when Alexander told us that he was gonna bail. We didn’t really know what to do and we had all these shows coming up, important tours and what not. It just seemed that we didn’t really have time to train or find somebody new, but then Roope kind of offered to do the rest of the shows for the rest of the year. We were like ‘Yeah, okay. That’s cool.’ He just kind of stuck around and before we knew it, he’d been around forever. After a year of touring, you sure as hell really get to know somebody and whether they’re a person you can actually live with or not (laughs). He turned out to be a dude that everybody gets along with.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.

On May 22nd, Children Of Bodom released Holiday At Lake Bodom (15 Years Of Wasted Youth), a very special CD+DVD career retrospective in celebration of the band's 15th Anniversary. The album spotlights specially selected tracks from every one of the band's albums (1997's Something Wild, 1999's Hatebreeder, 2000's Follow The Reaper, 2003's Hate Crew Deathroll, 2005's Are You Dead Yet?, 2008's Blooddrunk and 2011's Relentless Reckless Forever), plus two newly-recorded, and undeniably fun, cover songs (‘I’m Shipping Up To Boston’ by DROPKICK MURPHYS and ‘Jessie’s Girl’ by RICK SPRINGFIELD), plus detailed liner notes penned by the members of COB themselves.

The CD track listing for Holiday at Lake Bodom (15 Years of Wasted Youth) is as follows:

'Hate Crew Deathroll'

'Shovel Knockout'

'Hate Me'

'Everytime I Die'

'Needled 24/7'

'I'm Shipping Up To Boston' (*previously unreleased)

'Sixpounder'

'Warheart'

'Roundtrip To Hell And Back'

'Trashed, Lost & Strungout'

'Living Dead Beat'

'Deadnight Warrior'

'Blooddrunk'

'Follow The Reaper'

'Are You Dead Yet?'

'Silent Night, Bodom Night'

'Jessie’s Girl' (*previously unreleased)

'In Your Face'

'Angels Don’t Kill'

'Downfall'

A cover of the Dropkick Murphys song 'I'm Shipping Up To Boston' is available below:

The DVD portion of the package will include "candid touring and backstage footage from around the world”, plus the never-before-seen music video for Relentless Reckless Forever's 'Shovel Knockout'.

"15 Years of Wasted Youth is the sound of Children Of Bodom working hard, partying hard, being relentless and stubborn," says the band's superstar guitarist / vocalist Alexi Laiho. “We went through many brick walls to get to where we are, and after seven studio albums, two live albums, non-stop touring, bleeding and breaking a lot of bones, I think we are justified in putting this album out. Let the music speak for itself. You have been warned."