It has been over two years since Children of Bodom parted ways with rhythm guitarist Roope Latvala. He replaced Alexander Kuoppala back in 2003, just in time to record 2005’s Are You Dead Yet? and worked up until 2013’s Halo of Blood. Ultimately, he left the group right before the Finnish metallers returned to the studio for 2015’s I Worship Chaos and has been replaced by ex-Norther guitarist Daniel Freyberg. When the band announced parting ways with Latvala, they informed there was, “no bad blood.” However, after two years of silence, his side of the story has surfaced.
In an interview with YLE, and transcribed by Blabbermouth, Latvala revealed he was fired without receiving any explanation and entered a dark place with drinking instead of playing the guitar for a while.
“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 the guitar.”
According to YLE, Latvala is finding the light again and writing new music:
“Recently, Latvala has begun to stumble in the darkness back into the light. He has dug a couple of Les Pauls from their cases and composed by a bundle of songs.”
