Apart from playing the bass, Seppälä also often doubles as the band's backing vocalist. Also, the band recruited a musician to specialize on keyboards, whose name was Jani Pirisjoki. Both joined Inearthed in early 1996. With this new line-up, Inearthed proceeded to record their third demo, entitled Shining.
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Moreover, in the period 1994–1996 they released three demos under their old moniker, IneartheD. This list includes the material released as IneartheD. Children of Bodom's first release under their new name was the split single "Children of Bodom", released in January 1997. Their debut album Something Wild followed later the same year.
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Lead guitarist and singer Alexi Laiho at Rockharz Open Air 2016 Rhythm guitarist Daniel Freyberg 2016 Children of Bodom was formed in 1993 by guitarist Alexi "Wildchild" Laiho and drummer Jaska Raatikainen under the name of Inearthed. They had known each other since early childhood and had shared an interest in heavy metal, especially death metal groups, such as Dissection, Entombed, Cannibal Corpse, Autopsy, and Obituary and classic metal groups such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Dio, and Ozzy Osbourne. Bassist Samuli Miettinen completed the initial line-up of the band. Inearthed recorded its first demo, Implosion of Heaven, during August of the same year.
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Samuli was the main composer of the band's lyrics for the two years that he took part in Inearthed, but his family moved to the United States in 1995, making it impossible for him to remain in the band. His last contributions to Inearthed were the lyrics of the songs from their second demo, Ubiquitous Absence of Remission which was the first time they worked with producer Anssi Kippo at Astia-studios (Lappeenranta, Finland). In this demo, keyboards were incorporated into the band's songs for the first time. In order to achieve this, both Laiho and Raatikainen played the keyboards separately and subsequently mixed the recorded track with the other instruments.
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Thus, he was fired and replaced by a friend of Raatikainen's, a jazz pianist named Janne "Warman" Wirman. Wirman was the component which was previously missing from Inearthed. His presence allowed the band to assume the style which would later characterize Children of Bodom. With Wirman, the band successfully recorded their first album in 1997.
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The band was required to create a new name to sign up to Spinefarm Records. The contract with Shiver records had already been signed under the name of Inearthed. The answer to that problem came as the members looked for good names in their local phone book. When they stumbled upon Lake Bodom, they realized that it was a name with impact and one which had an interesting story behind it.
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Laiho, who had previously only composed the melodies of the songs, assumed the role of the band's lyricist. At the time, Raatikainen played French horn in a local big band, and during a rehearsal, he met Alexander Kuoppala, a trumpet player and also a proficient guitarist. Shortly after the recording of their second demo, Kuoppala was invited to join Inearthed as a rhythm guitarist. The bassist chosen to replace Samuli was Henkka "Blacksmith" Seppälä, whom Laiho and Raatikainen had previously known from school.
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When Raatikainen met Alexi Laiho at school in the year of 1993, they realised that they had similar ideas and musical taste. Thus, they began playing together and idealizing their band Inearthed which would one day become Children of Bodom. The band released their first demo, Ubiquitous Absence of Remission, which he contributed some keyboards. Jaska played a vital role in the formation of the band, since he was the one who brought both Alexander Kuoppala and Janne Wirman to their line-up.
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When Samuli Miettinen quit Inearthed (the original name of Children of Bodom) in 1996, Seppälä joined the band, (asked by lead guitarist and singer, Alexi Laiho) he then adopted the 5-string bass. He is the frontman of the band when it comes to interviews and public appearances. Other than the fact that he can speak Russian, Finnish, English, Swedish and some Spanish and French, he is also the most equilibrated member of the band, in a general way. He studies development studies and political history at the University of Helsinki when he has time, which is not too often.
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Children of Bodom was a Finnish melodic death metal band from Espoo. Formed in 1993 as Inearthed and splitting up in 2019, the final line-up of the group consisted of Alexi Laiho (lead guitar, lead vocals), Jaska Raatikainen (drums), Henkka Seppälä (bass guitar), Janne Wirman (keyboards), and Daniel Freyberg (rhythm guitar). The band released ten studio albums, two live albums, two EPs, two compilation albums and one DVD. The band's third studio album, Follow the Reaper, was their first album to receive a gold certification in Finland, and subsequent studio albums acquired the same status.
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Their debut, Something Wild, was supposed to be released by a small Belgian label, Shiver Records, but second vocalist Sami Tenetz (from Thy Serpent) acquired a copy of their album through the hands of Kuoppala. They both worked for the same company at the time. Shortly after Inearthed signed this contract, Spinefarm Records' boss became interested in signing them for a country-wide release. The latter deal was much more attractive to the band since the Belgian label was offering them close to no help, to the point where they would have to distribute and sell the album themselves.
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For their next release, Children of Bodom decided to make use of Peter Tägtgren's Abyss studio in Sweden instead of the Finnish Astia-studio from Anssi Kippo where they had recorded all of their previous releases including the demos from Inearthed. The band wrote eight songs for the album. While in the studio, they decided to include an extra track that was hastily composed and featured lyrics improvised by Laiho; that track would eventually receive the name of "Kissing the Shadows". The band gave the album the name of Follow the Reaper and recording sessions took place between August and September 2000; the album saw a worldwide release in late 2000.
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Beware the Heavens is the first album by the power metal band Sinergy, released in 1999. The album features two instrumental tracks "Born Unto Fire and Passion" and "Pulsation", and a track inspired by the series Xena: The Warrior Princess, entitled "The Warrior Princess". Some melodies that can be heard in the song "Beware the Heavens" were sampled from a song called "Translucent image" by IneartheD (now known as Children of Bodom); the song is featured on IneartheD's 1995 demo Ubiquitous Absence Of Remission. This is the only album where Jesper Strömblad (In Flames guitarist) plays guitar alongside Alexi Laiho; his position was filled in by Roope Latvala on all subsequent albums.
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