Alexi Laiho (born Markku Uula Aleksi Laiho) on 8 April 1979 in Espoo, Finland. He showed virtuosic signs at an early age, learning to play violin at five and listening primarily to classical music as a youth. His parents even told him that he was singing before he could talk.
“It’s a little weird, I know, I was 10 years old and watching MTV when the video for Steve Vai’s For the Love of God from the Passion and Warfare album came on. That was the moment I knew I had to start playing. Not only did it blow me away, it also opened up a whole new world for me.”
As Laiho’s interest in music shifted from classical to glam metal and shred, his parents were fully onboard with his transformation; his father even bought Alexi his first guitar when he was 11, a white Tokai Stratocaster. “A good guitar,” Laiho stated later. “Every day I’d run home from school and play it until my parents would almost have to physically knock me out to get me to sleep.” Laiho took his obsession with the guitar to new heights while in high school, ultimately cutting classes to stay home and woodshed and teach himself heavy metal and shred techniques from instructional videos.
“Something had to be sacrificed; for me it was school,” he said. “I didn’t care. I didn’t have any interest in what my teachers were telling me, and my mom knew I wasn’t going to graduate high school anyway. She helped me succeed in the thing that interested me.”
While in high school, Laiho became friends with Jaska Raatikainen, who played drums, and together they jammed and formed the basis for what would become Inearthed and ultimately in 1993 Children of Bodom.
Inearthed released a trio of demo tapes in the mid Nineties and gained some local notoriety playing clubs in Finland before inking what Laiho described as “the shittiest contract ever” with a Belgian record label. While under contract with the Belgian label, the thoroughly more high-profile Spinefarm Records took an interest in Inearthed and offered to sign the group to a more desirable contract. In order to squirm out of their deal with the Belgians, Laiho and company told the label that Inearthed had broken up and would be unable to deliver an album. Now that they were free agents, the group was able to “reform” under the new name Children of Bodom and sign with Spinefarm. The signing with Spinefarm brought about some immediate and significant changes for Laiho and his Children of Bodom bandmates.
The band issued its debut album, Something Wild, in November 1997 and embarked on tours to support the record that succeeded in increasing the group’s popularity outside their home base. One particular tour with headliners Hypocrisy and Covenant also exposed Laiho and friends to the untamed rock and roll lifestyle that Laiho had seen on MTV as a youth.
“We’d never been anywhere with free booze before,” said Laiho. “That was great! We were riding on the bus with the other bands – it was a huge bus – and just having a great time. They accepted us very quickly, once they could see that we knew how to play and how to party.”
In the years that followed the release of Something Wild, Children of Bodom grew in popularity and became one of the underground’s leading purveyors of melodic death metal, thanks largely to the frantic power riffing and blindingly fast lead runs Laiho churned out on any of the sharp-angled ESP guitars he typically brandished onstage and in the studio.
Such albums as Hate Crew Deathroll (2003), Are You Dead Yet? (2005), Blooddrunk (2008) and Relentless Reckless Forever (2011) made Children of Bodom a household name in extreme-metal circles and brought Laiho the international acclaim he had longed for. If there was a downside to Children of Bodom attaining global success, it was that it afforded Laiho the opportunity to engage in self-destructive behavior, which took a tremendous toll on the gifted young ace and yes, ultimately took his life.
Laiho’s career spanned roughly 25 years, and during much of that time the guitarist was in a constant battle against drugs, alcohol and depression, all of which contributed to too many frightening episodes, trips to the hospital and broken bones for the Nordic neoclassicist.
In late 1998, a 19-year-old Laiho attempted suicide by ingesting a lethal combination of 30 tranquilizers and a few shots of whiskey. “A friend found me on the floor and brought me to the hospital. I wasn’t in a good place,” said the guitarist in 2005. Unfortunately for Laiho – who was also prone to cutting around this time – the suicide attempt was merely the beginning. “I was just feeling worse and worse,” he said. “Finally, a couple years after the pills, I had a complete mental breakdown and ended up in a hospital for a week. It was my third time. It was the worst I’d ever felt in my life.”
Laiho received widespread acclaim for his guitar work. In 2004 he was ranked #96 out of 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time by Guitar World. Guitar World magazine has also ranked him as one of the 50 fastest guitarists in the world. In addition, Roadrunner Records ranked Laiho at #41 out of 50 of The Greatest Metal Frontmen of All Time. Furthermore, Total Guitar conducted a public voting poll to determine the greatest metal guitarist of all time; Laiho was voted #1 out of 20 metal guitarists, with over 20% of the vote.
In 2004, Laiho founded a side-project called Kylähullut, which was assembled together with Tonmi Lillman (ex-Sinergy) and Vesa Jokinen 69er (from Klamydia). The band was created merely for the entertainment of the musicians, and takes a carefree approach to their music. The band’s discography includes two EP’s, and two full-length albums. He was not only known as the lead guitarist and lead vocalist and founding member of Children of Bodom, but was also the guitarist for Sinergy, The Local Band, and Bodom After Midnight, which he formed just prior to his death in 2020. Laiho had previously played with Thy Serpent and Impaled Nazarene on occasion, as well as Warmen and Hypocrisy.
Laiho appears on Canadian thrash metal outfit Annihilator‘s 2007 album, Metal, as a guest, performing a guitar solo on the song “Downright Dominate.”
Children of Bodom played at the 2008 Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards. There, Laiho also received the Dimebag Award for “Best Shredder,” and he performed a track off of Bodom’s 2008’s album, Blooddrunk.
In spring of 2009, Children of Bodom was forced to drop out of their North American “No Fear Energy Tour” when Laiho broke his wrist after falling out of his bunk, when the tour bus took a sharp turn on 26 April 2009, after the show in Palladium Ballroom, Dallas TX. Laiho originally planned to continue touring despite his injury, but was forced to cancel the last six dates when any efforts to alleviate the pain failed.
On 3 July 2012 Children of Bodom had to cancel two European shows because Laiho had been taken to the hospital. Two days later the band followed up with another update: “This is not an easy letter for us to write. Alexi is suffering from a serious infection. He is still in hospital in Oslo under supervision of the doctors and we don’t know yet when they will release him. Laiho realized that his body was reacting to all the abuse, plus was not able to change course.
On 15 December 2019 Children of Bodom played their last show at the Icehall in Helsinki, dubbed “A Chapter Called Children of Bodom.” This followed the announcement in November that after this show, all members of the band except Laiho and guitarist Daniel Freyberg had quit. Following their departure, it was revealed that due to legal reasons, Laiho would need permission from his former band mates to continue using the Children of Bodom name.
In March 2020, Laiho and Freyberg officially announced their new band, Bodom After Midnight, named after the second track from the album Follow the Reaper. This officially marked the end of Children of Bodom.
In January 2021, it was announced that Alexi Laiho died on 29 December 2020 of long-term health complications, leaving behind a few songs recorded with Bodom After Midnight to be published posthumously. He was only 41 years old.
Endorsements, Tributes and Awards
• In January 2003 ESP Guitars announced a line of Alexi Laiho Signature Models.
• Children Of Bodom is one of Finland’s best-selling artists, with a total of more than 2 million records sold in their native country of Finland alone, regularly topping the Finnish Charts every time they put out a new album. Their albums have also charted in the top 10 regularly in a number of European & Scandinavian countries. Worldwide, they have a number of platinum (1 million albums sold) & multi-platinum (more than 2 million albums sold) selling albums to their name with their third album being the first to achieve platinum status. They have also seen a number of their albums enter the US Billboard Charts a number of times.
• Apart from numerous awards & honors (not music-related as well) & a number of national awards, he received a Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award in the category of Dimebag Darrell Shredder Award in 2008, was named ‘World’s Best Guitarist’ in 2006 by Revolver Magazine & the ‘World’s Fastest Shredder’ title in 2006 by Guitar World Magazine.
