Children Of Bodom’s surviving members recently joined an interview with Metal Hammer to discuss the final days of their late bandmate, Alexi Laiho. COB keyboardist Janne Wirman explained that he realized the decline in Alexi’s health and tried to help him. However, the late vocalist refused to get any help from his bandmates. Wirman detailed Laiho’s final days in the interview reported by Guitar.com:
“He was always a skinny guy, but now he’d lost so much weight he looked like a skeleton. He’d attempt to play guitars, but he couldn’t play at all. We didn’t know what the f*ck to do.”
During the interview, bassist Henkka Seppälä also revealed they actually had an intervention during the ‘Hexed’ tour in 2019 to save Alexi. However, their plans failed since the vocalist got furious and refused to receive their help. Seppälä recalled:
“We had a kind of intervention at the end of the [Hexed] tour, and Alexi got so mad at us. We told him things couldn’t go on like that. He was in such bad shape that our tour manager had to have every city’s morgue number, just in case we woke up and found him dead in his bunk.”
Laiho passed away in 2020 at the age of 41. The official cause of his death was reported as alcohol-induced degeneration of the liver and pancreas connective tissue. His widow, Kimberly Goss, revealed that he had a cocktail of painkillers, opioids, and insomnia medication in his system.
Alexi Laiho Also Had A Foreshadowing About His Passing
Janne Wirman was not the only one who realized Alexi’s way of life would eventually bring him death. In a previous interview with Blabbermouth, Wirman revealed a private conversation he had with Laiho. Apparently, Alexi told his bandmate he was planning to drink until he died. Janne shared the late vocalist’s depressing confession in the interview by stating:
“Alexi’s downfall started in 2016. I don’t know what caused him to do that. He told me but didn’t tell anyone else in the band — he made sure no one else was in the room — and told me, ‘Dude, from now on, I’m going to drink until I die.’ I said, ‘F*ck, man. You can’t say that to me.’”
Children Of Bodom played their final show in 2019. Prior to his death in 2020, Alexi Laiho decided to found a new band, Bodom After Midnight, with Daniel Freyberg. However, after Alexi’s passing, Freyberg decided not to continue Bodom After Midnight.
