Children Of Bodom Hope To Play Ozzfest

Band Photo: Children of Bodom (?)

MTV.com reports:

Finnish black-metal outfit Children of Bodom will launch a North American headlining trek on November 9 in Quebec, one that'll grind to a halt in New York on December 14. Bodom have recruited Trivium, fresh from this summer's Ozzfest, and Amon Amarth to open the tour's 27 dates. According to frontman and guitarist Alexi Laiho, Bodom had no involvement in setting things up. In fact he can't even recall what either band sounds like.

"To be honest I've heard [Trivium and Amon Amarth's] albums one time all the way through, and I was pretty drunk at the time," he confided, saying Bodom's management handled the tour's orchestration. "So I don't remember the music. I do remember it sounding cool. I'll wait to see what I think of them when I first see them live. Apparently Trivium's a lot bigger than we are in the States. So it feels a little weird that we're the headliners."

Bodom's fifth studio LP, "Are You Dead Yet?," landed in stores this week; the album's been available in Europe and Japan for more than a month. It features 10 tracks, including a cover of the Ramones' "Somebody Put Something in My Drink."

"I've always been a big fan, and this track was recorded three years ago or something like that," Laiho said. "Back then it was like kind of shocking for people that we would cover something like the Ramones, because it's so different from Children of Bodom. But we thought the message of the song fits the band pretty well."

The record also features the first single, "In Your Face," a video for which debuted last week on MTV2's "Headbangers Ball." The video was shot in East Berlin "in some abandoned industrial settlement that looked like some f---ed up sh-- happened there 40 years ago," Laiho said. Bodom plan to release the video as a DVD single on November 23 with two bonus clips.

Laiho said Bodom will shoot a second clip at some point after the North American tour, but he's not quite sure for what track — that's a decision the band still needs to make.

Once Bodom have been up, down and across North America, Laiho said they'll head to Europe, Japan and then back to the U.S. for a second headlining tour, which should take them through the spring. Then there's the summer, Laiho said, which he hopes the band will be spending as part of Ozzfest 2006.

"We've been talking about it, but I don't know if it's going to happen," he said. "It would be a really good thing to do, because it does a lot of good things to a lot of metal bands. I don't know if we'll get on it. It's really a question of money. The promotional value's really good. It seems like a lot of bands — Lamb of God, Shadows Fall — really broke through after the Ozzfest. I think it would be good for us.