Our Tribute to the Reaper
Hey guys,
It’s a me, Kai. Our take on a cover for the upcoming Bodom tribute sampler is finally out, and I thought I’d share a little background story about our contribution.
Our “connection” and the song
First, a quick roundup about our record label and our own “connection” to COB: One of the guys who runs Reaper Entertainment is a former promoter of the band from their days at Nuclear Blast. Being a big fan of COB himself and knowing them well, he’s still working with them nowadays. Through that, we also had a few chances over the years where we met members of the band or did some work for them.
Before everything went downhill during the Corona years, our label even had talks with the band about us joining them as a tour support. As far as we were informed back then, the band basically agreed – but a final management decision never came. That was back in 2019, and that’s where that story ended.
Anyway, back to our contribution: With our own background to the band and as fans of their music, saying “yes” was a no-brainer. The big question was: Which song?
The band’s songs are usually very distinct, well-written and tightly bound to their signature sound. Simply playing one of their tracks could easily turn into us performing it 1:1 with just a slightly different sound or voice – or, worst case, ending up in a disaster like Puddle of Mudd’s attempt at Nirvana’s About a Girl… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsjgRs_r_bo
On a second thought it probably wouldn’t end that bad but I think you get the point.
After some consideration, I kept coming back to a thought I often have when listening to iconic bands: “How did they sound in the beginning and how would it sound if they record that again?”. So, I started quickly fiddling with some of their lesser-known songs and early demos. The Shining demo then caught my attention since it was the last demo before they released Something Wild and you could already recognize some trademarks of the band. On the demo itself “Homeland” seemed to have the most potential for a cover (Not saying the other songs wouldn’t have worked, but it just felt right in that very moment).
Well, beside “Homeland” there was another close contender called “Latomerie”, which the band initially covered from the Finnish punk band “Klamydia”. While initial tests sounded great it totally didn’t work well with my vocals.
Listen to the original song:
Recording & Mixing
The next step was all about transcribing the instruments as good as possible and re-record them for an initial demo. Transcribing from a 30-year-old blurred cassette demo without having any notes, timings and lyrics available wasn’t exactly what I would call the “fun” part but you gotta start somewhere and tanscribing every instrument by ear is the best way to learn about all the little details and secrets of a song.
Once the transcription was finished (…many moons and beers later), it was time to look into each part of the song and see what there could be contributed to the song. For example the ending felt slightly verbose. The idea here was to replace the original ending and create a kind of transition from “what the band played back then” to “what the band played later.” Based on the chord progression, I tried some melodies of other Bodom songs that could fit the context, but ultimately, the lead melody from Hate Me! seemed to work best in creating its very own atmosphere in this part of the song.
Another challenge was the lyrics. The band never released any for those demos, and only a few fan-made guesses exist online. So for the cover, the approach was to blend lines I could make out with my own words and words/phrases that the band tended to use around that era. And if you’re wondering what happened to those lyrics: they got deleted and burned. No lyrics in the original – no lyrics for the cover. It’s all open for your own imagination what this song could be about.
Once everything was recorded, the mixing process became a little journey of its own: Trying a more modern sound seemed like a logical step at first, but it just didn’t fit the song. So it took a while and a lot of revisions (… and many more moons and beers) to find the right balance – something that would keep the original spirit but still reflect how it might have sounded in a re-recording context (with us on the mixing knobs).
Last but not least, we asked the ghost of Mr. Laiho for some support on the track. With the help of some modern audio trickery, we managed to extract parts of his voice from the original demo and re-arrange them into the new recording. His voice now appears in the final chorus and with that we close the chapter of Bodom.
Listen to the cover and the sampler on Spotify:
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