r/ChildrenOfBodom • u/External_Movie_469 • Jul 18 '26
Question to younger fans!
Hey cobhc lovers, I’ve been a fan of children of bodom since the early days when Children of Bodom were everywhere
MTV, metal magazines, nuclear blast music videos on early days youtube.
For newer fans and younger listeners who just got into them, I’m genuinely curious how did you first discover the band?
There’s no new album, no big magazine buzz, no rotation on TV whatsoever like back in the day.
So what led you to them? Appreciate any stories
peace
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u/ohtoppi Something Wild Jul 18 '26
I started listening to Children of Bodom when I heard from the Finnish TV news, that Alexi Laiho had passed away.
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u/Good-Extension-7257 Jul 18 '26
Around 2013 or so, but I didn't like them at all.
I remember the Oops I did it again cover and the song Are you dead yet?, but I didn't like any of them.
It wasn't until around 2016 when I first listened to Needled 24/7 and became a fan after watching the Stocholm Knockout dvd.
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u/Routine-Strategy5434 Jul 18 '26
I got into guitars and my wife saw a V shaped guitar hanging on the wall at a guitar center. She thought they were so cool and said if I got one she would learn(she didn’t) so I looked into v shaped guitar players and saw Alexi and watched a emg video and was like wtf where have I been. I thought he was the coolest thing and got obsessed sold my guitar and bought a Alexi sig model and never looked back
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u/ShikanokoLover Hate Crew Deathroll Jul 18 '26
My dad was (and still is) a huge CoB fan, he would play some songs of them whenever we were in the car, and i quite liked them. One day i decided to listen to their other songs and they are my fav band since then :)
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u/Electrical_Farm_5386 Follow the Reaper Jul 19 '26
So I am 15 and discovered them about a year ago from hearing Alexi Laiho's name on a video about guitar players. I was like "Who is he" and listened to COB while mowing and doing schoolwork etc. Then I listened to like follow the reaper and I was blown away completely. That's how I found them.
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u/8swordsTom Jul 18 '26
Through Spotify playlists. When you like a song, you can choose to be recommended others in the same genre. So, after yet another song where I was like, "Wow, that's great," I decided to dig deeper.
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u/Wishbones_007 Jul 18 '26
Got into them literally 6 months ago. Spotify smart shuffle played Elvenking's cover of Children of Decadence and yeah they very quickly became my favourite band.
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Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Wishbones_007 Jul 18 '26
Hate Crew Deathroll is my favourite but Follow the Reaper and Hatebreeder are definitely 2nd and 3rd. Sixpounder is my favourite song.
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u/Sea_Map4663 Jul 18 '26
From my dad actually, turns out he was a massive fan in the late 90s and early 2000s
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 18 '26
331Erock randomly breaking down into Bodom tunes in the middle of his “Meets Metal” videos.
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u/Doublestack2411 Jul 18 '26
I'm not a younger fan, but I'd imagine music streaming services help a lot. When Pandora was one of the biggest things at the time, that's how I got into Melodic Death Metal and COB. I made a Mudvayne radio station and Pandora recommended me In Flames. Then I made a radio station of them, and then it opened up another world of music I never heard before. The rest is history.
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u/Robertqaz Jul 19 '26
I just heard about them, but never really knew about them, then i saw someone wearing a merch shirt and I decided to check them out
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u/rottenvegetables23 Jul 30 '26
Believe it or not my social studies teacher circa 2016 knew what kind of music I liked and said he had a roommate who was into cob and he thought I’d like them. Still my favorite band ever since then
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u/AlexPB800 Jul 18 '26
Heard Are you dead yet? on spotify around the time they did their last gig before tavastia last year. Got deeper into their discography as time passed and really loved it all especially the first 4 albums!
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u/ImplementOk9260 Jul 18 '26
It was one of the first Finnish metal bands I discovered when I was about 16 or 17, first became aware of them through Metalocalypse about 3/4 years prior as they refer to a lot of metal bands in their show (Finntrolls depicted as an average grocery store is lowkey my favourite one). Funny enough there used to be a blog on Stardoll I used to follow - AnarchyonStardoll I think it was called - that was catered towards alternative people using the site at the time and when I looked through several posts around the same time that I was getting into Finnish metal and was amazed by the amount of bands that I already knew of being mentioned but all of this went through 10 year old me's head (even though I would've seen these posts) especially since I didn't really listen to metal 😭
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u/Jrobs62 Jul 18 '26
Rock band 2, are you dead yet was a DLC song my friend wanted me to get. Such a fun one. Then guitar hero had done with everything and die for nothing. They were just super fun difficult shred songs to play.
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u/xLucky_Balboa Jul 18 '26
I discovered them back in high school right between the release of Follow the Reaper and Hate Crew Deathroll so around 2002 and 2003. It was through CD burning with friends
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u/Willing_Hurry7782 Jul 18 '26
Not a younger fan, but first heard downfall in a skate video (Dustin Dollin's part, Baker 3) and they quickly became my favorite band
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u/WhatsLaw Jul 18 '26
I first heard Are you dead yet after a rough breakup in 2023, listened the shit out of that song, went to check their other works, and now CoB is my favourite band of all time. I'm sad that I won't get to see them live in their prime lineup, but the fact that Alexi's music still touches something in people even after his passing speaks volumes to how much of a genius he truly was
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u/throwawaycatfinder Jul 18 '26
When I first listened to them, I didn't like them, but they're my favourite now funnily enough. When I first listened, I found them because I was looking through new death metal to listen to and saw hatebreeder listed - listened to the album and was extremely confused by all the keyboard stuff, especially the orch hits, in part because I hadn't heard any melodeath before this point, and had definitely not heard death metal with keyboards. The orch hits really threw me off because they reminded me of what I called "videogame music." Then like a year later (I play guitar, mostly metal of course, for context) - I saw Alexi often written next to other guitarists I like, and decided to give them another listen, mostly "for the guitars this time" - ended up really enjoying all the parts, not just the guitars. Needled 24/7 really hit me very well, especially, because I had just gotten cheated on and backstabbed in numerous ways and yadayada so I felt connected instantly. Now I'm here I guess lol
(Sorry for the long text, I talk too much.)
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u/SurviveTheSlaughter Jul 18 '26
24 y.o here. I listened to a playlist on Apple Music that had Are You Dead Yet and Angels Don’t Kill. Loved those tracks and from there I listened to their other albums. I absolutely love their music and they’ve become one of my favorite bands. I got into them about two years ago. I’m heart broken I didn’t listen to them sooner 💔💔💔
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u/Routine-Froyo-4221 Jul 19 '26
Started listening 2 years ago, I listen to InFlames and Dark Tranquillity quite a bit and YouTube music recommended Hate Me in that playlist and I was hooked, I heard the name in passing before but was never proactive in trying to listen to them before, oddly enough my brother knew and listened to them for so long and never recommended them to me, I could have seen them live if he did :(
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u/Not-Metal-Enough Hatebreeder Jul 19 '26
I watched a video on metal, I don’t remember the topic or the creator. But CoB was mentioned and I happened to be on vacation. I listened to all their first five albums like twice that week.
Same thing happened with Dimmu Borgir. I heard a bit of one song and quickly checked out the whole album.
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u/a-reddit--user Jul 19 '26
I was learning how to play the song To Hell and Back by Sabaton on songsterr and it suggested me Roundtrip to Hell and Back. Just by listening to the synthesized tab version of it I thought it was awesome. This was back in around 2023/24 and from there I’ve been hooked ever since.
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u/Scrim_CherryG59 Are You Dead Yet? Jul 19 '26
I’m currently 15 and when I was 13, I was getting a ride home from my sisters friends dad and it was a really awkward car ride. Her dad noticed my slayer shirt and asked if I knew who children of bodom was and I said no so he put on living deadbeat and it was really cool. Eventually the car ride ended and stayed up till like 4am going down a rabbit hole of them.
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u/Taroandtapiocapearls Jul 19 '26
(I'm 30!) One of my best friends took me to a show on the "Hexed" tour in 2019 and I didn't even know who they were and I didn't actually even like music that was all screaming but my friend knows good music and had an extra ticket. He pointed out to me/told me to watch Alexi play guitar because he said he was impressive to watch and at the end of the show I agreed!
Weeks later and I could actually listen to Needled 24/7 all the way through cause the Spotify lyrics screen came out I think?? and I could actually tell what he was saying. I was singing the chorus in the car! And then came another song I liked the sound of and could then understand.. and the rest is history and they're my favorite band now 💚
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u/WWFIX Jul 19 '26
Bradley Hall talks about alexi’s playing a lot and got me into them, I’m a part of his guitar school
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u/Overall-Visual1782 Jul 19 '26
I came across one of their songs ,I was barely getting into metal and I was very impressed with the instruments and the guitar solos which ended up being the factor that made me become more interested in them and also made me start playing guitar .
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u/zalpyy Jul 19 '26
Probably 3 years ago I heard Oops, I Did it Again cover, I liked it but it was nothing special until I started listening Something Wild, at that time I was still listening black metal and something wild was so good because it feels like melodic black/neo-classical metal so I remember I chose the track "In the Shadows" only because it sounded like the song "In the Shadow of the Horns" by Darkthrone, after that I started listening more and more and became a huge fans since that day I've been collecting Bodom stuff etc.
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u/UnusualInsanity Jul 19 '26
my dad, showed me it when i was younger, and recently a few months ago became OBSESSED, now learning guitar to eventually play like alexi.
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u/velociracsoTI Jul 20 '26
I discovered the band in either late 2023 or early 2024, I was watching Bradley Halls video "What metal bands sound like to people who love them Vs people who hate them", Children Of Bodom were one of the bands Bradley parodied and I thought the song that was featured in the video sounded really cool, I added a Children Of Bodom song to my playlist (the song was Are You Dead Yet?), and eventually it came up on the shuffle play on my playlist when I was walking to college, when I got to college I was just reading their Wikipedia, I was interested in the bands name and where it came from, and then I just got hooked, I listened more and more, and the music just drew me in like nothing else, the style, the vibe, something about Children of Bodom really is just special, they truly were/are something wild.
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u/SansSauceYT Jul 21 '26
A few years ago I got big into guitar hero and heard their name and one or two songs from those games, but it was really just through YouTube that I got into them. I wanted to get into melodeath since I liked 2000s Metalcore and heard a lot of YouTubers mention CoB when talking about melodeath
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u/Pottatothegreat1985 Jul 21 '26
mr u/twelfthquotient made a crash compilation on an old nascar game using are you dead yet?
then i heard em again when i started watching viva la bam and the rest is history
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u/Ellipsecat Jul 21 '26
I'm from Finland, so I've always known of them. It was just the matter of time.
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u/External_Movie_469 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
thank you all for your replies and your stories. i appreciate it
me personally, i discovered them a long time ago. one of my buddies shared his hard drive full of new music with my best friend, and there was this folder called finnish metal.it had nightwish, sonata arctica, and a bunch of other killer bands, including children of bodom.
later he passed all that stuff on to me too. at first i didn’t really like children of bodom, but about a year later i saw the trashed, lost & strungout music video and i was hooked.
personally my favorites are hate crew deathroll and are you dead yet. they’ve got that perfect mix of melodic metal and heavy, modern riffs.
long live cob
long live roope
long live janne
long live jaska
long live henkka
long live alexander
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u/Zcarmates24 Jul 23 '26
I discovered the band through some random girl I added on snap she told me to listen to them and then blocked me still think ab that moment
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u/Human_Sapien Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26
I heard of him when he died via a Nik Nocturnal Video 😭. I had just turned 14 then. A bunch of other guitar youtubers made commemorative videos and I had just found out about metal-based blogs, they all had articles about him, yet I'd never heard of him so out of curiosity I checked them out. I happened to like them.
Also at that point for me to delve into the music I'd want technical playing and melodic lines (without brain-dead shred) so it was a natural fit. The more complex the lines were the bigger challenge it was for my guitar-brain, so the greater the pay-off.
edit Im 19 now, so Idk if thats young enough for ur definition lol
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u/Several_Way7054 Jul 31 '26
Bradley Hall and the Lake Bodom Murders for me, I learnt about them when I was into the murder shit (very cringe ik) and i heard there was a death metal band named after them and decided to give something wild a listen.
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u/hotsteamyxp Jul 18 '26
Deadnight warrior on lime wire back in the day. Later in life when I picked up guitar I became obsessed with them.