ChartAttack.com recently conducted an interview with Children Of Bodom bassist Henkka Seppala. A few excerpts from the chat follow:
On opening for SLAYER on this summer's Unholy Alliance tour:
"When we heard we were able to go open for SLAYER, it was like a dream come true. When we saw the billing, with LAMB OF GOD and MASTODON, we were like, 'What the fuck?' This is the best tour this year, probably. It's been even better than we thought, with a lot of people, and everybody in the crew in the touring party is really cool."
The tour recently stopped in Toronto, where the band found fans going as crazy for them as they were for the headliners. "The Canadian shows, in Toronto and Montreal, were amazing for us," says Seppala.
"We know the eastern part of Canada is always great for us. It's just really nice to come back over and over again and realize that there's all these fans, than to go back home, where I always feel they've seen us too many times back there. It's always nice to see people go crazy."
Though Children Of Bodom are used to headlining in Europe, they like having to work to win over new fans. "I think it's very interesting," ponders Seppala.
"It helps get things more interesting, and it would be boring if you're always headlining, headlining, headlining. It's fun to go and get back in a good way to play in front of people who have never heard of you. It's a challenge.
"On this tour, since most of the people haven't really heard about us in most areas, when we get on stage it's kind of like we have to show the people what we are. Instead of just playing the hit songs, it's more showing them what Children Of Bodom are all about."
On the prospects of his group's genre
"It's great to see how big metal can be nowadays and still be true to itself. Take a look at LAMB OF GOD, who sell 250,000 albums or whatever. That's a lot of records. But when you go to see them live, they're fucking metal and they're fucking brutal. That's one of the things that makes me really happy about modern metal. It makes me happy that you can be really big even though you're still doing real metal, and with no compromises."
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