Former Children of Bodom Guitarist Roope Latvala: “I Was Fired Without an Explanation”

When Children of Bodom split with guitarist Roope Latvala in 2015, a statement from the band claimed that “we parted ways with no bad blood.” But according to a new new interview with Latvala, this is not actually the case (translation via Blabbermouth):

“I really feel stabbed in the back by those guys,” Roope told Finland’s YLE. “I’ve been bitter at those guys. I was fired without an explanation.”

Roope added that he felt that “Children Of Bodom’s success had gone to” frontman Alexi Laiho’s head and that Alexi started to “look down on” him for reasons that weren’t quite clear to him.

As a result of being fired, Roope fell into a major depression and “started to focus on drinking.”

“I couldn’t touch my guitars,” Roope said. “It was as if it was forbidden for me to play guitar.”

Which, if we take Latvala at his word, is really sad. Even if I think most Bodom fans would argue that Latvala was never a indispensable member of the band — he didn’t join until four albums into CoB’s career, and scored only one songwriting credit the entire twelve years he was in the group, for “Bastards of Bodom” — no one deserves to get sacked with an explanation.

Unfortunately, I doubt anyone is gonna tell Latvala what happened at this point. I mean, who knows, maybe Laiho will see this and call him up and be like “Sorry dude but the truth is we just could not tolerate your rank burrito farts on the tour bus anymore” or something. But most likely, this mystery will remain as unsolved as the murders from which Children of Bodom takes its name.

[via Metal Injection]