Children of Bodom/Bodom after Midnight Megathread (RIP Alexi)

AFAIK Alexi and Roope had a joint signature model back then, called RR-LL (Latvala-Laiho). But yeah, really weird that the guitars never surfaced. You'd think if someone stole them they'd sell them at some point... And if someone threw them into a lake, shouldn't they have floated around? I've never tried throwing an electric guitar into a lake, so I don't know if it'll float

 

Huh, I had no idea those RR-LLs ever existed. Looks like only 60 were ever made and exclusively for Finland as a budget model (modified RR3, bolt-on, etc.). Alexi was playing with Roope in Sinergy at the time, so presumably that was the reason for giving them a joint signature. A bit odd, however, given that COB was bigger than Sinergy at the time.

What was weird about Alexi's split with Jackson is that he claimed they wouldn't build him more custom shop guitars ahead of the queue. So when his Jackson CS guitars were stolen, he was looking at more than a year to have them replaced. If he already had a sig at that point (albeit a budget one that was only sold in his home market), why wouldn't Jackson just build him 2 CS guitars ahead of the queue to keep him happy as an artist? Children of Bodom was exploding at the time. ESP clearly wasn't shy about swooping in. Alexi got the star treatment from them from the very start.

As for the stolen guitars, I highly doubt those Jacksons were tossed in a lake. The person who stole them might not have sold them (if he was a fan, or afraid he'd get caught). On the other hand, if he was smart about it I guess we'd never know. You hate to think about scenarios where they were stolen with a buyer lined up beforehand, but such things can sometimes happen.

 

It was really strange that Jackson cared so little about COB. Granted, I believe Jackson was in the middle of merger with Fender so maybe they had their hands full? And if I remember correctly, Jackson lost a lot of artist at that time and they lost "cool" factor. Or maybe they thought that endorsement is not something that they need. Ibanez and ESP/LTd were guitars to have at that period.
Still, sure Jackson would need 1 year to create custom guitar.....but they could provide him some other MIA Jackson Guitars, because Alexi needed them for upcoming tour. Really strange reaction from Jackson.

 

I bet 10$ Kim Jong Un got a hold of them.

 

I don't know what Jackson's actual CS turnaround time is, but I doubt it is one year. It isn't a one-man operation and they have the production capacity to build guitars very quickly. Think about how quickly they can put together NAMM guitars for example. Or how quickly they could take a MIJ or MIA Jackson and give it some CS appointments (fretwork, paint) to get him up and running.

Either something got lost in translation with Alexi or they didn't care to keep him.

You make a good point about the merger but it happened 1-2 years beforehand. Unless it was Alexi getting caught up in the chaos of bigger plans for the company, I don't think that's it either.

In hindsight, I don't think Jackson cared much about the European market at that point in time. They probably saw Alexi and Children of Bodom as having limited appeal in North America. Here's some possible evidence for that claim:

Here's the 2002 and 2003 Jackson catalogues.

Alexi isn't in either of them. Not only is Alexi not featured as an endorsee, some American artists are featured who were tiny at the time. For example, note that Rusty Cooley gets a slot on the first artist page in the 2002 catalogue. This was back when Cooley pretty much only had his solo album to his name and was getting very limited attention in the Texas music scene and on the Internet via his website.

Meanwhile Children of Bodom was growing quickly as a band but not necessarily in the US. As of 2002, their last two albums had gone platinum in Finland but hadn't charted in the US. They'd had pretty major shows all over Europe and as far flung as Korea (which you can find footage of online to see they were shaping up to be a big draw in these markets).

It seems really shortsighted of them to neglect him, but in all likelihood he didn't hold much value to them as an artist in 2003 if they were still building a presence in the US and were just starting to tour there.

I think the logic is faulty at best but I can't justify their treatment of him otherwise. In the decades since, Jackson has ramped up their presence in markets outside of the US and have become more artist-focused. At the time of the Laiho-Jackson split that wasn't necessarily true, however.

 

The RR-LL was the guitar they demo'd in that clinic video that surfaced. (skip to the end of video)


Probably MiJ with similar specs to their personal guitars, but with bolt on construction.

Jackson definitely had some odd artist relations at that time though. I was watching Herman Li's stream, and him and Sam were talking about how they wanted a deal with Jackson originally before going with Ibanez, but they said no. This was Sonic Firestorm/early Inhuman Rampage era, so around 2004-2005. Dragonforce hadn't blown up yet with Guitar Hero, but they were still on the rise and had even opened for Iron Maiden by this point. Weird to think about Herman Li playing a Dinky and not an Ibby S shape.

 

Re:Jackson

Around 2000 Jackson was pretty much out of money. They coasted on credit and did what they could to keep guitars leaving and selling, but outside of that, they were in really rough shape.

Fender acquired them officially in 2002, after a few months of talks.

Part of the deal was Jackson, as a business unit, needed to become cash positive again before significant FMIC financial infusions. They also had to relocate the operation to Corona.

So from about 00' to nearly 07' Jackson wasn't in a position to do much for artists unless the artist was willing to either a) take a really lousy deal, or b) gamble on Jackson doing miraculously better out of nowhere. For awhile it was looking like Fender was just going to let them die.

Re: Rusty Cooley

Rusty had been a HUGE Ibanez guy prior to Jackson, having made a name for himself at Jemfest, and amongst the Ibanez community. Jackson snatching him was a big morale boost, and they flaunted it as such.

Though, see above, Rusty only got a few catalog pictures and two guitars from the whole deal. It's not surprising he quickly moved on.

 

Whole situation was really unfortunate. Jackson failed assessment how COB popular really were or their bad money situation at time and Alexis rash decision. He still had his green pinstripe RR and for sure could get hold of couple Jacksons for upcoming tour. But on other hand I do understand him....he was really helping bringing back Jackson guitars to new metal generation. I could totally be wrong here, but if memory servers me right, Jackson was really linked with old 80s/early90s heavy glam metal that just wasnt cool after Nirvana era. It really was more on Jacksons side that failed to come up with some solution. Could also be that communication from Alexi never reached right people in Jackson.

 

Maybe he said one too many "mother truckers"

 

Thanks for the context. I started playing guitar in 2001/2002 so Jackson's struggles throughout the 90s were something I came to learn about later. I knew they were hanging in there but I wasn't aware it was this bad. Ironically, the artists that they did keep gave the impression Jackson was weathering the storm just fine. B.C. Rich was in a similar position, especially given that Kerry King and Mick Thompson were much bigger names in the early 2000s.

Re: Rusty Cooley

I didn't discover Cooley until late 2004 or sometime in 2005, I think. It was before YouTube but after he'd built up a web presence.

Even given the bump he got from JemFest (and later John Petrucci's interest in him) he wasn't an easy guy to discover. Outworld didn't release their LP until 2006.

Cooley wound up back with Ibanez after he left Jackson. I'm not sure whether he was endorsed by them beforehand but he continued to play a 7620 and Green Dot Universe into the mid-2000s, plus that LACS guitar which has made its rounds around this forum.

I'm not sure how he felt about Ibanez as an endorser. After he jumped ship to Dean he made some rather critical comments about their reluctance to build him the guitars he wanted/needed. It was partly practical (apparently he didn't like the RG cutaway) but he may have wanted an actual signature model as well which obviously Ibanez wouldn't offer to an artist of his size. His move to Dean was probably a smart move in hindsight given what happened to Outworld and his other bands.

Alexi was almost certainly attracted to Jackson exactly because they were associated with the 80s glam metal he idolised. It seemed clear to me that he wanted to stay but felt disrespected. There may have been good reasons for this (per Max's comment above), although I recall Alexi seeming to take it personally at the time.

I've tried searching google for any of those old interviews but they're simply gone. There's very little left from the period Jan 2001 to Jan 2005.

 

I've read this on COB forum many years ago, here's the deal - Alexi didn't have contract with Jackson directly, but he had contract with store in Helsinki, which used to distribute Jackson guitars at the time. Store was bringing in ESP's at the time, so they gave ESP a bone that Alexi needs some guitars and ESP rushed to help.

 

Any info what Roope is doing lately?

 

His ousting from COB really hit him hard. I think I read in an interview that he hadn’t touched a guitar since he was kicked out. I could be wrong. COB was the guy’s life, pretty much.

 

That's a shame as the guy was a great guitarist. He could have easily gone to another band or done something solo. I really feel like he had much more "soul" in his playing vs. the rest of the band.

 

There was an article about him in a local newspaper some time ago (couple of years maybe) where he basically said he just sits at a local pub all day these days... It's a shame for sure, he could've tried to resurrect Stone for example...

 

I knew about Roope not playing for years after getting fired, but wasn't he back to at least playing?

 

Probably already pawned all of his guitars.

 

Hopefully only his ESPs.

 

I remember in that interview him saying he was jamming some "pissed off" riffs on a Les Paul. He's got a nice black les paul custom you can see in some of the HoB promo stuff. Wouldn't surprise me if he's sold his ESP's, but I'd imagine he kept this one cause it's so old and roadworn. Those scratches on the body are from his preference of using metal picks. I've always wanted to try them but never bothered to order some(I've never been to a store that has them).

 

Sad. I would have totally dug a Stone reunion. I still like to throw on No Anaesthesia! from time to time.