CHILDREN OF BODOM Mainman Defends Band's Decision To Cover BRITNEY SPEARS

MetalUnderground.com recently conducted an interview with CHILDREN OF BODOM mainman Alexi Laiho. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

MetalUnderground.com: How did Kimberly Goss [SINERGY] come [end up] writing the lyrics to "Bastards of Bodom"?

Alexi: "Towards the end of the recording process, you know, recording my vocals, I didn't have lyrics for three songs, so I was like super fucking stressed out already, you know. After the recording, I was like 'Dude, I'm going to have to take a couple of days off and write lyrics for…' it might have been four songs, actually. So what I did, I was sitting in my apartment, you know, drinking whiskey and writing lyrics for days in a row. I just happened to be talking to Kimberly on the phone and I was telling her… I was like, you know, bitching about the whole thing. I was kinda like, 'Yeah, fuck, I gotta write these fucking lyrics. Blah blah blah.' And she was like, 'Well, I can help you out with that if you'd like.' I was like, 'If you can, that'd be really cool.' And she ended up writing the lyrics, which I think was a really cool thing. Like I said, I was really stressed out already. She was helping me out with that."

MetalUnderground.com: What's it like to be working with your new guitarist, Roope Latvala?

Alexi: "It's going really good. As a guitar player, he's a lot better than [previous guitarist] Alexander was, definitely. You know, as a person, he really fits in. Actually, that's why we were saying all the time [that] he was a session member when he first joined. We wanted to make sure he was the right person for the band. I mean, for us it's so important that we find a guy we can get along with. We don't fight or we don't, like, get sick of each other. We always get along and everything. So that came as really important. The wrong kind of person could fucking ruin everything, you know. He's the right guy, definitely."

MetalUnderground.com: About your BRITNEY SPEARS cover, I know it's a joke and all, but why did you have to do something as horrible as "Oops I Did It Again"?

Alexi: "[Laughs.] Apart from it being obviously a joke anyway, it was the fact that we just had to pick something that definitely surprised and, you know, even shocked people. We had done like … Okay, first we did, like, the RAMONES cover and then we did stuff like BILLY IDOL. And then we did ANDREW WK. You know, after doing ANDREW WK, it's like I don’t know where we can go anymore. We're like fucked, so we'll like do something really crazy like BRITNEY SPEARS or whatever. I think it turned out to be a really cool cover though."

MetalUnderground.com: Do you know what Britney thinks of your cover?

Alexi: "I don't think she's even aware of the fact that, you know, there's some fucking crazy metal band out there covering her. I would definitely want to hear what she would think if she ever heard it. She'd hate it."

MetalUnderground.com: There are many people who were like, "I'm so disappointed in CHILDREN OF BODOM for doing a BRITNEY SPEARS cover. I have lost all my respect for them." Was that the kind of reaction you were expecting?

Alexi: "Yeah, definitely. It was actually one of the reasons why we did that as well. It's very entertaining for us to read that kind of shit. You know, how people take it so fucking seriously. Like, 'My god, these guys are not true metal anymore because they covered BRITNEY SPEARS.' 'I just fucking threw all my CHILDREN OF BODOM CDs out the window and I just burnt all my shirts.' 'These guys are so not metal anymore.' Dude, you're fucking telling me I'm not metal? You're fucking insane, that's for sure. Like I said, you know all these people who take metal so fucking seriously, take bands so seriously, I think it's plain funny. You know, just to read these kinds of reactions, like I said, is entertainment definitely."

Read the entire interview at MetalUnderground.com.