Back in the day I played with Alexander in a cover band for a while. We did weddings and parties. Ale played the trumpet, but he could play pretty much anything, he is that musical. I had no idea he was a bloody guitar titan, he never mentioned it. Until one day he asked if he could try my ESP telecaster out and shredded the shit out of it. I was absolutely devastated, took me a while to be able to pick the thing up, knowing that there is a virtuoso guitarist in the band goofing in the horn section. Once our keyboard player missed a ferry on a wedding gig and the wedding waltz was a piano piece. Ale took the notes and played it prima vista. Never bothered to mention he could play the piano too. But I suppose that was just him being Alexander. Never made a fuss about himself. He was there to have fun and enjoy music. I wish him and Thyrargo all the best!

@Ramon-gg3bd

8 ай бұрын

Lovely story, thanks for sharing :)

Co-wrote some of the greatest death metal music of all time, but now (and for years) works with special needs kids? This guy is amazing, and deserves so much respect. Really.

Holy fuck! I never thought I would ever hear a word from this guy! The original guitarist of COB in the greatest era of COB!

So nice to hear from him. I would also love to see an interview with Roope

@humppa5

3 жыл бұрын

I was exactly thinking the same thing when I heard him. 🤘🏻

@NarviMusic

3 жыл бұрын

@@humppa5 Yeah, would be nice to hear the story from his point of view. And I mean, it's Roope, who wouldn't want to see that guy, we all miss him, would be interesting to know what he is up to nowadays

@NorgGrimm

3 жыл бұрын

@@NarviMusic Roope became a heavy drinker after getting kicked out of CoB.

@prehistoricgentlemanbird9131

3 жыл бұрын

@@NorgGrimm didn’t become a heavy drinker. He always was a heavy drinker which resulted in him being booted from CoB.

@lkkfkKJK

3 жыл бұрын

I got to play with Ale few weeks back, an awesome experiense

Seeing Alexander doing well is honestly the best thing this year

@al69420

11 ай бұрын

I know right brother. I hope you are doing well too my friend. Only love \m/

Wow So many years without knowing anything about him, important guitarist in a great era of bodom.

@Ballovirta

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah he was a great guitarist and had some awesome leads/solos on something wild

@MrT1o9P9i2

3 жыл бұрын

COB did their best albums with him imo

@Ballovirta

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrT1o9P9i2 totally agree with you 🎸

@KevinGsWK

3 жыл бұрын

Ikr? The only recent thing about him was a decade ago

@benthomas8765

3 жыл бұрын

BEST era of bodom

Alexander sounds like a super standup guy. There has never been a lot of content focusing on him from his time in the band, and hearing how he carries himself in this interview is amazing from a fan's perspective. I'm happy more has been brought to light!

@oxtoxes

3 жыл бұрын

@RGGuy4Laiho roope was a better guitarist tho just check out sinergy for example

@melgibsonfan9082

3 жыл бұрын

The quality of CRY's was garbage all around. Roope was a monster in Sinergy and the few rare videos you can find online where he plays by himself.

@melgibsonfan9082

3 жыл бұрын

@RGGuy4Laiho I saw them live 5 times before that DVD was made and never once heard that awful tone. I love the band but their live recordings later on sounded muddy to me. Alexi and Roope both sounded like sloppy drunks around 2010 onward. Sinergy was perfect form.

@oxtoxes

3 жыл бұрын

@RGGuy4Laiho i was talking about technique as well. But I agree, they didnt play that clean later on because practise was replaced by something else 🍻

@simonarsenault3298

3 жыл бұрын

Roope was great too! But for cob. I prefered Alexanders. Roopes slopiness might come from the fact he was rly a drunk

THANKS ALEXANDER. BODOM'S FIRST FOUR ALBUMS ARE PURE GOLD.

@laurentdupont-gagnon7889

2 жыл бұрын

they are all gold!

@BLACKDIVISION1

9 ай бұрын

And so are AYDY and BD only that they have other style and production. That has started with the HCDR.

Wow, he looks like a really good man with a clear mind. So sorry for Alexi, Rope and all those rock/metal musicians with alchol issues. Alexander shows that you can be a great musician, then teach, do side projects, have a family and basically make all the choices you want in your life. Just don't be stupid, don't drink your life away.

Dude is very humble and down to earth and yet a straight up legend

@reappear89

2 жыл бұрын

If you still haven´t realised ,those features are in his blood. He is a finn goddamitt.

This guy was on the best bodom albums

This interview is pure gold. We, the ones who were there listening to those guys, 20+ years ago, have been waiting for his real reasons to leave the band. It was said that quit the band due to his family things, but it is better to hear it coming out of his mouth, instead of reading the same thing on the media. So, congratulations for this.

Guys I'm still devastated that alexi is gone. If you're hurt too, I love you okay?

@sebastiansiemaszko1976

3 жыл бұрын

:///

@evanhayes5891

3 жыл бұрын

Prove your love to me.

Alexander is a teacher at my school

What a pleasant man. Anyone that works with special needs kids is a hero in my eyes. So humble

What a great interview. Alexander is a legend. And good job by the interviewer to actually let Alexander speak instead of interrupting him the whole time (that pretty much annoys me with most of the interviewers).

@kaaoszine_virallinen

3 жыл бұрын

It is also a lot about the interviewed person. If he replies in a way that there is short pause after each sentence it is something really fucking hard to know when he actually stops replying to a question and when he wants to continue answering it. :D In this case it was easy as he replied and then when he had said what he had to say he stopped and let me ask the next one. It is not always the interviewers fault really as some people are just hard to read :D

@TrulyStucker

3 жыл бұрын

@@kaaoszine_virallinen great job on that interview, please consider making one with Roope. In case he is available.

Alexander is very humble. Great player.

Legend. Responsible for a few of the great metal albums of the late 90's / early 00's. Hope he's happy and healthy and can't wait to see this interview.

Alexander seems like a cool guy and I understand his decision to leave. A real legend

Oh my actual god..... Alexander fucking Kuoppala! i have MISSED you dude!! You were the secret ingredient that made Bodom RULE. You left a dent that couldn't be filled. Thank you SO MUCH for this interview i've often wondered about how you're doing. that final Tuska gig was one of the greatest things i've ever witnessed. i LOVE that you still have/use the Hatecrew guitar. REALLY looking forward to hearing Thyrargo!! ♥

What a dude. Thank you, Alexander.

Never thought I’d see this. It’s amazing after all this time

@danieleizaga3589

3 жыл бұрын

Right ? LOVE this guy

Its beyond legendary how Alexi was able to learn so fast and accomplish so many music abilities so so fast!! its talent that God put in him and his incredible dedication to the guitar. VERY RARE type of individual RIP King Laiho ... just wow

Alexi had his own style and sound. I could recognize his sound/technique out of thousand other guitarists. He was absolute unique. R.I.P. Nice interview.

Thanks Alexander! Alexi maybe smile watching this interview in heaven:)

Such a humble guy! Really interesting stories as well

I'm a big fan of the Bodom era that contained this mans guitar work. Saw them live in London when I was 16, my first proper metal gig, and it blew my mind.

@Rockersrule1011

3 жыл бұрын

I also saw them on their 20 Years Down And Dirty tour in London in 2017. Best gig I've ever been too! Mainly because they played mostly songs from their first 3 albums. The cherry on top was playing Towards Dead End as the final song.

Alexander is a nice guy, amazing guitarist and a person who seems to understand the simple meanings of life. Cheers from Brasil!

Man it is good to see Alex. The band wasn’t the same when he left, the albums up to when Alex left the band are some of my all-time favorite metal albums. I don’t know if he was just the lucky charm or something, but the difference between Hate.Crew and Are You Dead Yet? was like the end of an era for me. I hope Alex is doing well

@cky2k3

9 ай бұрын

It was blood drunk that ruined it for me until i heard 'Morrigan" & the album I worship chaos! The following album Hex is good as well, subliminal messaging on Alexi's fate seems riddled within tho, and Halo of Blood i skipped and found that it was also ok when i went back. But the album 'Follow the reaper' and previous are the Best by far!! Kissing the Shadows is still some of the most melodic craziness ive ever heard from a guitarist!! While being some of the smoothest, most precise, effortless, and fastest notes in a riff, chorus, solo, and outro that I've ever heard executed in one song!! The entire song is shredding riffs as if solo'ing for the entire song at your absolute limits! The back and forth solo between guitar and synth is a masterpiece, and the outro solo is insane

@Ramon-gg3bd

8 ай бұрын

Fully agree, those first 8 years were their absolute best. I lost interest in them after Alexander left. Maybe he kept the band grounded?

Interview with roope!

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

Lets see if that happens. =)

@MightyALX

3 жыл бұрын

Yes!

@RobboElRobbo

3 жыл бұрын

please!!

@jpnou8454

3 жыл бұрын

Totally!!

Yesterday watched this and really happy and proud Alexander doing well and kudos and thank you Alexander for being kind to those people with disabilities to give something from your end so that they can enjoy life ❤️ heart of gold and hope to see you more often with music you may have upcoming

Sooo nice to know about you Alexander! We are a lot who totally comprehend as Henkka the reason why you left the band. Keep doing good stuff!

Very interesting to hear why he left CoB. I always wondered why he did that, but his reason is completely understandable. Respect to him for going his own way, and thanks for doing the interview in english! Will absolutely check out his band when they release an EP.

5:10 years ago I was talking to the guys from Impaled Nazarene about Alexi Laiho and they pretty much said word for word what Alexander said, that Alexi just lived for music, that he totally dedicated himself to that. Good interview btw.

Great man and true legend. Thanks for the music Alex.

Alexander, thank you so much for all the things you did for the band!

In 1997-2003 was best albums COB

Such a nice guy and interview! KaaosTV always bringing out the best.

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks dude. 😊🤘

Respect to the interviewer for doing such an organic job of directing the interview back and forth between Alexander's non-COB work and his history with the band!

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks dude. 😊🤘

He is a stand-up dude. Never actually have heard him talk before. Also, super appreciative with them talking english. They are super good at talking too haha

Alexander sounds like a real chill dude..awesome interview & RIP Alexi..

KaaosTV, I hope you know that this interview is a real treat for us long time CoB-fans.Thank you very much!

Great interview! The first four albums were definitely my favourites!

Amazing to finally hear from this guy! In my opinion, Alexander is the most iconic rhythm guitarist in COB, having featured on all of their classic and best albums. He was part of COB at their peak and was such a great fit. Alexander clearly had a very close connection with Alexi and I think it hit hard when he left. Probably also had something to do with the band's decline...

@craigwoudstra2932

2 жыл бұрын

Decline? Who are you

He’s sounds super kind and a nice guy glad he’s doing great 👍

Its so great to see an interview with Alexander. We dont see him in interveiws and he seems like a very cool guy

He was on all my favorite Bodom albums!

I've been waiting for a Kuoppala interview for 16 years or so :D a CoB fan since 2000

I was at a COB concert during their Hate Crew Deathroll days and Alexander was great, he stayed after the show, giving autographs and taking photos even after all the other band members left. :D Thank you for the interview and good luck with your projects!

Nice to hear from him! Alexander seems to be a really nice guy!

Early era COB with Alex was their best work - legendary/ groundbreaking. They peaked with Hate Crew Deathroll, if not Hatebreeder🤘

That was great to watch. He is such a nice guy. Good he said what was him leaving about. Oh, and I will check Thyrargo when it's out. It is heartbreaking his band will not meet CoB / BaM at some stage.

Thank you for this interview! CoB's first 3 albums are such classics! They were the last "new" metal band that I fell in love with when they came out!

@opusamens

Жыл бұрын

Same! I got to know the band with Hatebreeder and loved it immediately. But I stopped listening to it after Hatecrew Deathrow

this interview was so important to my life

The fans still love Alex! Man! Keep making music, ill keep listening bro! Ppl sometimes don’t realize, you can love your job, but family is always first.

Holy shit I never thought I'd see him in recent years. 😮 Good to see he's doing well.

Alexander seems like such a great bloke, I'm always curious about projects he's been in. Can't wait to hear Thyrargo. Greetings from Australia!

An important man. A crucial piece in the Bodom magic puzzle. Was good to see this interview.

ROOPE LATVALA INTERVIEW!

@ilikevideos4868

3 жыл бұрын

YES PLEASE

@ironbar5786

3 жыл бұрын

yeeeeeeesss

@michaelk4896

3 жыл бұрын

Needs to happen!

@atteljas

3 жыл бұрын

Alexander is brilliant to be interviewed. Roope isnt as outspoken. Also after Bodom he has been laying low which we should respect. Also main focus on Roope would be why he wasnt in the Bodom, which would most likely be hard for him. Remember when he came out late 80s he was first metal guitar superhero and he was influence on Laiho.

@ryssijussi1

3 жыл бұрын

I hope Roope is doing well, he is a hell of a guitarist but also a thirsty one.

Alexander played on the best albums !

Another great player !!! - awesome to here from Alexander !!!!!

What a GREAT interview! Really respect Alexander, and agree with some of the comments on here. A lot has come to light hearing what actually happened.

Such a great interview from such an influential guitarist. It seems most people never mention him when talking about COB and attention is always on Alexi, but Alexander played some of the meanest and tightest rhythm guitars in all of metal music for those four albums he was there. And the fact that the music quality declined after he left says a lot about how strong the musical collaboration was between him and Alexi and how it made all their music that much better. Thyrargo is also awesome and brutal, so I hope to hear more from Alexander in the future.

Much respect for this guy. COB will live on!

​Yeah! I've been waiting for news about him for so long! Thank you for this!

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

I was also interested about what he is doing musically so I reached out and he said he would love to do it so we made it happen. 😊🤘

@DevanArya

3 жыл бұрын

@@chaoszine I would love to see an interview with Latvala as well, that would be really great!

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

@@DevanArya lets see if that would be doable at some point. Dont have direct contact to him so its a bit more trickier to organize than this was. =)

@hellrazzer23

3 жыл бұрын

@@chaoszine Can you interview Jaska too? He's known Alexi since they were teens.

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

@@hellrazzer23 there will be time for that when his new band will release new music for sure. 😊

Alexander is such a cool guy, thanks for doing an interview with him! And also thanks KaaosTV for making content also in English - I understand enough Finnish to be able to watch interviews with my fav Finnish musicians in their mother tongue but this way I can also share this stuff with my friends who don't speak it at all, so thank you for that :)

Such a down to earth dude, it's really cool listening him talk about Bodom years.

Looking at Alexander you suddenly realise how old you are... we have almost the same age.

@gulanhem9495

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I know. Nearly 2/3 of life already gone and many weak and possibly painful years ahead of you lol

@gocsa

3 жыл бұрын

You can take MUCH better care of yourself than Alexander though...

The best Bodom Years were when Alexander was in the Band... i remember as it was yesterday when i saw "Something Wild" in the NEW Releases Section in our local record store and i grabbed the cd and gave it a listen... instant fell in love... Something Wild/Hatebreeder/Follow The Reaper/Hate crew Deathroll - The big 4!

Arto is such an excellent interviewer.

He seems like a nice guy and his English is excellent to be based in Finland. I hope he catches up with the other member when he has the chance before something like what happened to Alexi happens to any of them.We never know what is waiting around the corner

100% will be supporting Alexander and Thyrargo. Dudes a legend.

This guy and Alexi made beautiful music together!

@Underp4ntz_Gaming_Channel

Жыл бұрын

Roope and Alexi were the duo... sadly they backstabbed him. Alexi only got so much credit is because he also was the singer.

@nfrankiksa4596

10 ай бұрын

nope he was the main writer, even in sinergy. Don't talk nonsense @@Underp4ntz_Gaming_Channel

I loved the fact that you guys uploaded this interview. I have been waiting for years to hear Alexander's side of the story. I have a great appreciation for Alexander because COB with him was when I started listening to the band.

Good to hear about him 👌🏻

@chaoszine

3 жыл бұрын

He was part of in my opinion the best albums the band put out. They are all great though but I consider first 4 the best. 😊

fantastic interview, thanks so much for this!

I wasn’t a big COB fan but when I first started playing guitar like 12 years ago Alexi came across my KZread radar and I remember watching all these videos of him showing how to play his songs and just thinking fuck man this dude is an amazing guitarist and after some digging around I realized how young he was when he recorded some of the stuff. The world lost and amazing musician.

Absolutely loved this. Thanks for this interview.

Thanks for this interview, his guitar work in the early Bodom albums is amazing

That was a great interview, thank you for this!!

Really enjoy hearing that strong Finnish accent in both Alexander and the interviewer. It's a very distinctive accent and my roommate (also from Finland) has it.

@franknada8235

3 жыл бұрын

Finnish language has somewhat limited types of sounds, but also such that aren't used in English. The sounds are very clearly pronounced (drunkards&fast talkers the exception), unlike in English in so many cases. A Finnish person would need to "reprogram" his wiring of strong and dominantly guttural sounds (less tongue action) to a very different kind of fast but _relaxed_ tongue action and sounds coming more from the front of the mouth. Many Finns have even difficult to pronounce a B which is soft and relaxed (they pronounce it as P), G (->becomes K), D (becoming T).... and the R is strong so the soft variations of R are difficult. Finnish language has connections to the proto-Indian languages and other surprising languages too.

Glad you finally made an interview of him been a fan since the late 90’s

Thank you so much for this interview!! It was lovely to hear from Alexander! KaaosTV always has the best interviews.

thank you so much for posting this, great interview

wow. i had no idea alexander is as cool cat as he is! such a good dude. and damn great guitarist! i wish i could get guitar lessons with him some day, i wanna play their songs so bad! he is really musically talented too. grear interview!

A true artist. Honest with himself, with the band, with the fan.

Wow finally interview with Alexander! I have waited 7 years for this! All the best to Alexander.

Great interview! Thanks for this!!!

Great to see and hear Ale. Thanks for the interview!

Thank you for this interview KaaosTV, any fans at any doubt would appreciate this. Alexander the Great 🖤

Thanks for the interview, it's really good to see and know about Alexander.

Great interview!! Thanks so much to everyone involved!

This was a great interview! I'm so glad that we got to hear from Alexander. Thank you for this!

Thanks for this great interview !

Such a nice snd humble guy. Thank you!

That was the interview I wanted and the interview I needed

Thank you for the interview in English, very interesting interview i have seen a lot from your channel, always great!!!

Such a kind guy, thank you so much for your words

It is so good to hear Alexander explaining the reasons why he left. I can totally understand his situation at that point. He seems to be like a super nice guy. If I ever meet him, I will thank him for those epic albums he made with COB, you definitely can tell the passion the whole band felt at that time. If the passion goes away, you must stop. There are other ways to enjoy music. That is the most honest thing you can do.

Such legend. Children of bodom has one of the best music ever written

@Greycurls_95

Жыл бұрын

You’re right män! 😏 !

@timothywheeler671

11 ай бұрын

it's an interesting act