When two teenagers from the suburbs of Helsinki traveled three hours northeast to Lappeenranta during the summer of 1995 to knock on the door to the basement of a church, they might not have known at the time that the man who answered would become integral in helping them achieve their rock and roll dreams. The young men, Alexi Laiho and Jaska Raaitikainen, arrived there in hopes of recording the second demo for IneartheD, the band that would become Children of Bodom, after they heard there was a young punk with an 8-track tape recorder at this most unlikely of locations. The man who let them in, and ultimately helped them with that demo, was Anssi Kippo, who would fulfill several different roles for the band as they rose to international acclaim over the next decade.
Though the demo they recorded during those sessions did not garner much label attention, the group pressed on and produced another demo with Kippo to similar yawns from record executives. It wasn’t until their self-produced debut album Something Wild that they caught the attention of the brass at Spinefarm, which started a string of releases that are now indispensable pieces of trailblazing metal that defied genre labels and influenced countless groups that followed. Besides producing the debut record, Anssi was at the helm for Hatebreeder, an album that saw the Bodom boys take a sharper approach to songwriting and playing. Kippo often required an exhaustive amount of takes in order to get the band into an aggressive state that reflected the nature of the music, with the results on this classic record being proof that those methods worked.
After suggesting to Alexi that the band get a fresh set of ears on their material when recording Follow the Reaper, the band decided to return to Anssi for the most important release of their career, determining that they needed his firm hand to guide them. This choice was wise, as Children of Bodom produced Hate Crew Deathroll, arguably the band’s best album and, more importantly, the one that catapulted them to international acclaim.
Though his strict guidance in the studio may appear to be the most impactful contribution Anssi had to the group, he played a number of other roles to help the band. He acted as a tour manager, their front-of-house sound engineer, and their bus driver to gigs all around Finland. He accompanied them through foreign tours of Europe, South America, and another legendary run through Japan in 2001, proving to be a jack of all trades for the band as they navigated their way around the world.
I had the pleasure of touring Astia with Anssi as my guide, even participating in one of his famous sound tests during my stay. I also had a chance to interview him on the couch in Studio A, at my request, because it’s where members of Children of Bodom sat during the Hate Crew Deathroll album sessions. We talked about this, and a number of topics, including:
Enjoy!
