Cryptic Rock recently caught up with Children Of Bodom on tour for a career spanning interview. An excerpt is available below:

CR: The signature of Children of Bodom has always been the mix of styles ranging from Black to Death Metal and Symphonic elements. Bottom-line, the band has certainly developed their own style. Tell us a little bit about how the band has developed this identity.

Alexi Laiho: "It’s been mostly just natural development. We never sat down and talked about it. We never talked about what we should sound like, we never planned it, not even in the very beginning. Everything that came out just came out naturally. It’s many little things put together, such as certain keyboard sounds. Not only the sounds, but also the way the keyboards are played, and the same applies to the guitars. I do have a pretty recognizable sound, but it’s not just the amp or the actual sound, it’s also the way it’s played.Then there is the vocals, and of course the music. All those things combined, that’s what Children of Bodom is. Like I said, it was never planned or engineered that way to happen. I think how it shaped up into the form that it’s in right now, we just grew up with all the different styles of music. We are still very open-minded. For example, with Metal, I still love Poison, but I still love Darkthrone, I love Fleetwood Mac, and I fucking love Mayhem and everything in between. That helped us a whole lot, all of us have been musically open-minded."

CR: Children of Bodom always do interesting covers. You should cover Dokken’s “Dream Warriors.” 

Alexi Laiho: "Believe it or not, I have thought about that a couple of times actually. That is also the very first time I heard Dokken, in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987). I was a kid, and remember my parents said, 'You can’t watch that shit,' but my friend and I found it on VHS and watched it. The end credits, I thought it was the coolest songs, and after the credits rolled and they mentioned who it was, I remember that. It is an awesome song, maybe one day we will cover it."

For the complete interview go to this location.

Children Of Bodom's debut album, Something Wild, was released 20 years ago and thus the mighty Hate Crew were born. Finland's melodic death superstars will take to the road in 2017 to celebrate 20 years of life in the form of a mind blowing classic setlist.

For an entire month, Children Of Bodom will bring their reaper sound over Europe, so make sure to catch them on one of the dates listed below. Tickets will go on sale on December 14th.

Alexi Laiho recently told OC Weekly: “I don’t know yet if we’re going to play the whole album or probably just a lot of rare songs from it we never play live. We might do a mix of our first two albums. It will be weird, it will be a trip but fans will dig it. I am thinking instead of playing a whole album, we will play the most obscure tracks.”

Tour dates:

March
8 - Capitol - Hannover, Germany
9 - Longhorn - Stuttgart, Germany
10 - Den Atelier - Luxembourg, Luxembourg
11 - Academy 2 - Manchester, England
12 - Shepherd’s Bush Empire - London, England
14 - Le Cargo - Caen, France
15 - L’Echonova - Vannes, France
16 - La Nef - Angouleme, France
17 - Disney - Le File 7 - Magny-Le-Hongre, France
18 - Le Metaphone - Oignie, France
20 - Komplex - Zurich, Switzerland
21 - Theaterfabrik - Munich, Germany
22 - Live Club - Milan, Italy
23 - Tvornica Kulture - Zagreb, Croatia
25 - Arena - Vienna, Austria
26 - Strasse E - Dresden, Germany
27 - Astra - Berlin, Germany
30 - Pustervik - Gothenburg, Sweden

April
1 - Pumpehuset - Copenhagen, Denmark
2 - KB - Malmö, Sweden
3 - Rockefeller - Oslo, Norway
4 - Debaser Strand - Stockholm, Sweden

Children Of Bodom recently released a special lyric video for the song "My Bodom (I Am The Only One)”, taken from the band's latest studio album, I Worship Chaos. On October 20th, fans were encouraged via social media to submit photos of themselves with the band for a chance to be in an upcoming video. Over 300 photos were selected to be featured in the "My Bodom (I Am The Only One)" lyric video.

Alexi Laiho comments, "This is the coolest and my favourite lyric video by far because we actually had a chance to include COB fans from all over the globe in it. It’s the least we can do to show our gratitude, love and appreciation of the madness they bless us with night after night. I can’t wait to play the song live on the upcoming tours!"