Children of Bodom acquired their name from a legendary murder that took place in Finland at Lake Bodom in 1960. When four teens went camping at Lake Bodom, in the middle of the night, a mysterious man killed three with a switchblade, and the man who survived, Nils Gustafsson, went insane and was committed to an asylum. He said he saw the Grim Reaper. The murder remained unsolved for many years, until just recently the Finnish Police announced it was, in fact, Nils Gustafsson who was the murderer. In October 2005, however, a district court found Gustafsson not guilty.
The Grim Reaper is Children Of Bodom’s mascot, making appearances on every album cover that COB released. They named him Roy later on. Alexi explained that: “In the movie Hot Shots there’s a guy called Admiral Benson. He looks into a painting thinking he’s looking out of a window, and he says, ‘they’re out there doing nothing,’ and calls out, ‘Roy. Roy! The guy’s been ignoring me all day…‘“
01 - Cover of “Follow The Reaper”, 2000.
02 - Cover of “Something Wild”, 1997.
03 - Cover of “Hatebreeder”, 1999.
04 - Cover of “Hexed”, 2019.
05 - Cover of “I Worship Chaos”, 2015.
