Band: THERION
Country: Sweden
Style: dark symphonic doom metal
Questions by: Kai Mathias Stalhammar
Answers supplied by: Christopher Johnsson (vocals, guitars, keyboards)

Greetings, Christopher! I know that you've just returned from the Woodhouse studio...

- Yep, quite recently. Our new album's recording is complete...
 
What can you tell me about your latest release? Why did you decide to name it as «A'arab Zaraq Lucid Dreaming»? What does it mean?

- It's a 10 year anniversary CD, containing covers, unreleased material, my soundtrack for a Swedish movie + some more. «A'arab Zaraq Lucid Dreaming» was a great title as it describe the lyrical concept and also is a nice title uniting the various songstitles that the soundtrack songs have.
A'arab Zaraq is the opposite to Netzach on the Tree Of Life in the Quabalah tradition. Lucid dreaming is an awake state of mind when the body is asleep.
 
What was the reason for including those cover-versions in «A'arab...»? Usually it means that band doing this, has nothing new to offer...

- It's a 10 year celebration’s CD, so it's supposed to be something different. Besides we WANTED to play some covers, wich is reason enough as I see it. It certainly has nothing to do with having something new to offer or not. We thought this could be something for the fans to suck on while waiting for the follow up to «Theli» we knew would take a while (such classic / operatic albums always take twice as long to produce and write as it is more than double work compared to normal metal).
 
The last seven songs appear as «The Golden Embrace» soundtrack, however I've never heard of such a film...

- Because it's Swedish and you don't live in Sweden.  Also, it's an art-movie and most metal people aren’t interested in that scene. Like asking a 50 year old guy if he has heard NAPALM DEATH if you see what I mean? (my father, who is 62, likes their former recordings... - ED)

«Beyond Sanctorum...» was recorded at Montezuma Studio, «Lepaca Kliffoth» - at MusicLab, «Theli» - at Impulse... Why do you change recording places such often?

- Because we get better budgets all the time and with a better budget you can get a better studio and producer, which in the end means a better sound. It is also more inspiring to change environment.
 
I know that you in some kind involved with organization called «The Inner Circle Of Dragon Rouge»... Does it have anything to do with satanism? What is your goal with this movement?

- It's called Dragon Rouge and it's an occult organization that anyone can join. Then there is an inner circle inside of this organization which is more like a closed magickal order. It is not connected with satanism, as:
A. Satanism is religion and we are not religious
B. Satanism is usually not offering any advanced views on magick (if any at all).
C. Satanism is a creation based on its opposite - christianity, which is a very young religion. We work with forces from MUCH earlier times than christianity. Also, why even bother about such a distorted tradition as the christian, and further; why bother to follow an opposite from it? Satanism is also a typical western society thing. We use the traditions from all over the planet.
Dragon Rouge, who has about 500 members in Sweden, is one of the few organizations that exercises a genuine work with the dark side of magic - a system that is working to strengthen the individuals personal power and to develope the, what is called, parapsychological qualities. The principal symbol from the order is the red dragon who represents the primordial life-force of man. Through special meditation techniques and ceremonies, we are working to get in contact with this force, in order to by that reach the possibility to a full control over our life situation.
Dragon Rouge study all occult sciences that gives a richer knowledge about the dark magick, i.e. Quabalah, Alchemy, Tantrism, and Enochian magick. We also study the works of philosophers like Heraclitus and Nietzsche. The practical works of the order consists of various rituals and magical techniques that can open the parts the ego that is hidden. We work with i.e. controlling dreams (lucid dreaming) and astral (out-of body) travel. Dragon Rouge have various lodges and ritual groups around all the country of Sweden as well as one in Norway. We also have special sections that focus on Voodoo and Yezidi magick, Vril and Necronomicon.

I was very upset after listening to your last two albums, and the reason for this was clear comprehension that THERION reached the peak in it's musical development; speaking plainer, you are in the same situation as CELTIC FROST were in 1987 after «Into The Pandemonium» release. As a result, there's a natural question arising - what's further? Are you going to follow the same direction and create one more «Theli»-alike masterpiece, or maybe it will be something utterly different...?

- I don't agree really. We can take this musical concept even further before we have reached the peak. I would never copy the album before and as you can see listening through all albums we've done through the years, we have had a constant progress in about the same direction, even though we have refreshed our music with various different additional elements all the time. You'll see when you hear the new album we just recorded, that there was still some more steps that could be taken. Such as even more varied material, better sound, more wellplayed and better arranged. Just because «Theli» was great, doesn't mean that one can't do things even greater. When I get to the point where I feel there is no way of progressing further, I'll rather take some years vacation to see if inspiration comes back or else I'll stop releasing albums.
 
Are you familiar with the guys from SHADOWSEEDS? I heard that they belong to the «Inner Circle of Dragon Rouge» together with you... Is this band still alive? Do you have any news regarding them?

- Yeah, they are two of my very best friends. As for now they don't have any plans to record something new, but maybe in the future. If so, they will do something a bit diffrent from the first album, like completely dark wawe.

Please, tell me everything that you feel you need to about all THERION releases...
 
- «... Of Darkness» was our debut, consisting of material that we composed during 1987-89. It was recorded in 1990 and was released in ‘91, so it was mainly a testamony of the very earliest THERION days. It was innovative and progressive death metal at that time (we were regarded as very original), but today one can see it as more or less death metal with some tricky parts at some spots. Recorded at Sunlight studio.

«Beyond Sanctorum» was an experiment with some keyboards and clean (both male and female) vocals added on. This was VERY rare at those times, so some idiots even called us posers for doing it (the same idiots that probably do the same thing today - now when it is trendy 7 years later). We even tried some oriental tunes for the very first time in the song called «The Way». Recorded at Montezuma studio.

«Ho Drakon Ho Megas» was a continuation of the progress we had started. The death metal was heavily mixed with other kinds of music as Persian folkmusic, 80's heavy metal, classic music + even some industrial stuff. This was the album that our fans had the hardest time to accept. It was simply too complex at certain points and totally flipped out!  It was also the beginning if having problems to perform out songs live. We still managed to it well though. Recorded at Montezuma studio.

«Lepaca Kliffoth» was a point where we had dropped most of our death metal roots in favour to become more oldfashioned metal with a modern touch and way more influenced by classic music. We brought back the concept of clean female and male singers, but could afford real opera singers this time. «Beauty In Black» became our "hit" kind of and we made a really nice video for it. Recorded at Musiclab.

«Theli» was way beyond what people had expected!  I finally had the recording budget I had been waiting for and could hire a full opera choir as well as a cheap orchestra. It was now totally away from death metal, but we still managed to keep the majority of our old fans. «Theli» sold over 50.000 copies only in Europe and was without doubt our biggest success so far. Recorded at Impuls studio.
 
«A'arab Zaraq Lucid Dreaming» was our 10 year celebration’s album, containing some cover songs, leftovers from «Theli», a classic soundtrack I wrote for a swedish movie + some more.  Recorded at Impuls studio.

Does THERION have anything in common with black metal?

- Not that I can think of, speaking musically. As for the lyrics I suppose both ours and their can be labeled as "occult", but that's the only common thing in general. Most black metal lyrics are just crap from 16 year old satanist wannabees that scream about satan, cold snow and winter winds. Then there are others that read one occult book and consider themselves as experts and write terribly embarrasing so called "magical" lyrics. But then there are also a small percentage of people who actually write good dark poems to sing and a few that actually has studied the occult in a proper way and is able to write real magickal lyrics. With those last mentioned we have much in common. 
 
I know that Grishnackh's (BURZUM) girlfriend tried to burn your house not so long ago... Why forced her to do that, how do you think? Some Norwegian and Swedish shitheads declared "war against trends" in the beginning of 90's, did this affect THERION in any ways? What is your opinion about Vikernes (a.k.a. Grishnackh)?

- It WAS long ago. Early 1992. She was young (16 years old) and I suppose she wanted to impress on the "big guys". THERION has always played music which has been several years before the trends, so obviously not. When we started to use keyboards and female vocals, we sometimes heard things like "posers" and today this is almost as common as guitars in the metal scene. We were always in ahead of our times. As you can see now, there is also more and more bands that try to become classic as well. I was never too bothered about him then (I just thought the whole situation was ridiculous) and I care even less now. He's simply just a guy that came from nowhere and wanted to become the coolest guy in town, so he had to do some extreme things in order to get the kids look up to him.
 
What are your lyrics dealing with? I noticed some «Necronomicon» influences, do you find this book interesting?

- They are magickal revelations and visions that have occured during the influence of astral projections and lucid dreaming. Sometimes they are magickally historical. I never read that book, just looked through the pages once. I don't find it too intressting. It's a good gathering of Babylonian rituals, nothing more. These stories that is written about the "mad arab" are just fiction trying to make the book more interesting. Of course the rituals can be used, but I can assure you that they are way less dramatic than the way it is featured. The reason that some elements from the THERION lyrics and «Necronomicon» is similar is because THERION sometimes have lyrics that also deal with the Babylonian tradition. Both spring from the same sources.
 
«Therion»... Did you take this name from CELTIC FROST’s album «To Mega Therion»? Can you explain this word's meaning?

- Yes, there was an album called «To Mega Therion» and I must admit that this was the reason we took the name in the first place back in 1988. But later I found the meaning of the word and it fits perfect to the kind of lyrics that THERION have as it corrensponds with the same subjects.

«I still haven't decided whether to take THERION as a joke or the saddest attempt at music I have ever heard» - such are the words of Marten Bjorkman, ALGAION vocalist. What would you like to tell this guy, if you'll have a chance of meeting him?

- Nothing. Why should it bother me what he think? Who is Marten Bjorkman and what is ALGAION anyway?  If I would make a guess I’d think of a 16 year old looser who discovered black metal in 1997 and now think he’s a considerable person just becouse someone liked the rehearsal demo his begginner band just recorded on a borrowed portastudio. Some people really take them selves too seriously just becouse they finally get to do an interview in a fanzine read by some hundred people. We sold over 50.000 copies of «Theli» in Europe, so why should I even react if a clown or two dislike what I do?  I am more than happy with the amount of fans we already have. People like this dude Marten you talked about should most likely acomplish more them selves if they dedicated more time on their own bands instead of complaining about others. Who is interested in reading stupid answers from such bands anyway?  If the readers want soap-opera entertainment I assume they rather switch on the TV and watch some cheezy stuff like «Dallas» instead of reading about underaged metal jerks throwing shit at eachothers music.

How are the things going with CARBONIZED?

- We decided to put things on ice some years ago, but I find in quite unlikely that we will record something again. But one never knows, maybe we will get the ideas of doing it again one day. I don't think there will be too many people interested in it though, we always sold really bad actually. Too weird music I guess.

Are you pleased with current THERION line-up? What can you say about Piotr's side-project SERPENT?

- Right now there isn't really a stable line-up. I used hired studiomusicians for the new album. I had enough of people being too drunk all the time and sometimes behaving like rockstars, so I decided to work with more serious musicians instead.

Do you know anything about Russia? What do you think of my country? Have you heard any Russian extreme metal bands?

- I know about Bulgakov and Rasputin when it comes to more esoteric matters.  When it comes to more "boring" matters, I know alot as I always had easy to learn things like history and geogaphy in school. As for the plolitics I know a bit, but as the western media is distorting things I'm not sure about the sitiation really. I've been asking some Russian friends that I e-mail with about it and it cleared some things actually. I hope Yeltsin won't die from too much vodka (he he), ‘cos he's quite important for the stabilization of your country.  Most european countries think that the Swedish people drink alot. The Swedish people think the Finnish people drink a lot. And as the Finnish people think that the Russians drink a lot it must be clear that the Russians are the kings of alcohol in the world!  I think if I would have a vodka competition with a russian guy, I would LOSE!!! Cheers! I have heard an old band called CRUIZ (or something like that) and once I had a promopicture of a metalband calling themselves HITLER. Quite strange name for a band isn't it? Besides that I don't have any experience of the metal scene in Russia, sorry.

Reading «Tyrants Of The Damned» lyrics, I had very strong feeling that you disdain fascism in all forms of this pure insanity... Am I right? Adolf Hitler seem to be surprisingly popular person among black metal people nowadays, why so? Don't they have enough brains to understand that this guy was completely INSANE and there is NOTHING good or fascinating in any actions he have done?!

- Actually there was a lot of intressting occult ideas behind it that I study. But from a political point of view it wasn't very nice. BUT, I think Stalin was no better than Hitler when it comes to killing people.  However, one of the biggest reasons I dislike the second world war was becouse the ideas of the third reich were in the beginning based on occult thoughts and I support the idea of the third reich as it was originally planned by the Thule-order (the occult order that brought Hitler to the power), but then the fucking idiot started to gas jews and put him self in stupid millitary confrontations. The fact that he was after the jews made many of the jewish nuclearphysics escape the country and thanx to that USA and Russia had the atom bombs as well as the first satelites was totally based on the German V2 rocket programs basics. USA bombed Japan with technology that came from German jewish scientists in the first place. Europe has always been the innovative part of the western world and it is very unfortunant that USA now can play worldpolicy. I truly dislike the american culture and politics. If Germany would never had declared war, Europe would have been far more interesting today than it is now.

 

- I have no clue about what they do today. Magnus was a guy I used to hang out with and is the only guy I know beside my self who is a total freak on Uli Jon Roth. Last thing I remember him doing was playing some kind of jazz. Fredrik had this band DIVINE SIN (they released an album on Black Mark), but I don't know if they still exist. He lives about 300 km away from me, so we don't really have any contact either anymore.
 
What do the following people represent in your eyes?
 
Jesus Christ

- Historical jew that formed the fundament for what later became the New Testamony in the bible. This caused the christian tradition to become a more modern religion, but yet a false smiling face upon the surface while still oppressing people. Kind of sucks, but I'm not sure if it was his fault. He was probably just some weird dude saying strange things that no one understood and then some idiots write these amazing stories about him that later became the New Testamony (exactly! - ED). Basically I believe that the christians made a god out of a weird.
 
Napoleon Bonapart

- A good commander in battle, but he got a stroke of megalomania when getting too much success. Like Hitler did. From a military point of view Hitler did some wise moves in the beginning (beside the fact that not declaring war at all would have been the very wisest thing of course) too, but then he did the same mistake as the Emperor Wilhelm did during the first world war; a two front war. Attacking Russia before defeating England first was rather stupid and to expect to defeat Russia who never lost a war (as far as I can remember from the history at school) before the winter, made the majority of his soldiers freeze to death as he was too sure of victory to supply them with winter clothes.  Military history is intressting.
 
Friedrich Nietzsche

- Das ubermensch uber alles!  I like his philosophies as they inspire to bring the best out of man instead of giving everyone a hug and say that «we're all the same». We are not. I meet tons of idiots all the time.

Zigmund Freid

- His ideas are very simple with the knowledge we have on the human mind today. Everything he analyzed he in one way or another related to sexuality, wich seemed to be an obsession of him. Everything with a long shape is a phallos symbol in his eyes more or less. I prefer Carl Gustav Jung when it comes to psychology.
 
Karl Marks

- His ideas are interesting from an utopic point of view, but as the world look like it is no possible way to reach marxism in reality. Russia tried and you should know how bad the results turned out. The only way to have marxism in practise is either to form a completely new colony by populating a wild island with only people willing to contribute to this idea. An alternative idea would be military conquering the whole world and to have only one parlament. Then all problems would be domestic and the population could never dream about the things that other countries have that they don't have. But then there would be a constant rebellion that would have to be defeated, so the total state would anyway be rather unstable. Personally I am a kapitalist.

Charles Darwin

- Brought up the theory that mankind have evolved from the animals, which was the first scientiffic ideology to turn against the christian idea that «God created man». Therefore important.
 
Count Dracula

- Interesting historical person that got a more romantic fictional perspective through Bram Stoker’s book.
 
Joseph Stalin

- A complete idiot.

Olaf Palme

- Boring, but yet intelligent politician. He brought the Swedish social democrats to a level that they will never reach again. Which is nice because I hate them! He did some great international work that gave Sweden a very positive status though.

Varg Vikernes

- Just another criminal in jail. What's the point in burning churches in a Scandinavian countries, as the christianity is as good as dead here anyway? I'd say he would be more brave if he burned a church in the American south (like Missisippi or Georgia)! Then the Klu Klux Klan would most likely have shot him and the police would have helped them. It's easy to be «brave» in the country where christianity is something for old ladies with one foot in the grave.
 
Glen Benton

- Nice person when I met him once in Sweden when THERION played support.  Controversial in media, but DEICIDE seem to have died in Europe as we already have too many controvercial bands saying «Satan is evil and I cut my arms everyday» over here.
 
What the earth will be alike after two next centuries pass - your opinion?

- Either dead or very interesting. We're going the right direction it seems.
 
«Democracy» and «communism». What these terms mean to you?

- «Democracy» is an illusion that never can be acheived, so it is the mildest way of controlling people one might say. «Communism» is somewhere between socialism and marxism and the communism is supposed to be a passing phase on the way to acheive the marxism. To me it mean a more open way of oppressing people and it was a way to destroy the nice culture that Russia was known for before the revolution. So it sucks.
 
Do you still consider THERION as a part of underground? There are a lot of kids nowadays considering themselves as «true underground» (isn't that funny?) while all others don't even have the right to exist, at least that's what they think. Do you care about such wimps?

- Underground to me, means that you either are still at the demostage or you have done a release at at pure underground label with no prope distribution. So obviously we are not underground anymore as we have sold 70.000-75.000 copies of «Theli» worlwide.

LACRIMOSA used the same orchestra as you did on their recordings, their last two albums were also spawned in Impulse Tonstudio, and I could find more similarities if you want me to... I believe that both bands, yours and LACRIMOSA represent new generation of metal music, do you agree? Do you know Tilo Wolf? Is he a sort of person you respect?

- We both belong to the new generation of fresh bands that do something different, but musically we don't have that much in common. They have their roots in the goth scene and we come from the metal scene + that we are operatic and bombastic while thay are gloomy and sad. I like their music though, and I met Tilo briefly at Impuls, he seemed ok.
 
Do you like playing live? Who plays keyboards on stage? Does Barmbek Orchestra participate in your live shows? I guess, it's quite difficult  (or should we say - impossible?) to perform new THERION songs live...

- Playing live is cool, but it's always a very expensive matter for us. We never used an orchestra love, but we have used diffrent smaller choirs (which is why it's so expensive for us). I used different hired session musicians on tha last few tours and it worked so much better that I will for sure continue to do it. We looked and sounded much better than before and nothing less than the best is good enough for the audience if I am to decide.

    

What is the main subject behind «The Beauty In Black» video? I mean the story and motif...

- Don't know really to be honest. I gave the video-producer the lyrics and a tape with the music, so then he could make up whatever he liked as long as it looked in a way that would fit to the song. I like the results but have forgot what he said it was supposed to tell (if anything).
 
Who was responsible for scenery and clothes - I guess, they cost pretty big money...?

- Not as much as one can think. The video-producer arranged everything and he gave us a really nice price as he thought he might get more jobs from Nuclear Blast that way. We spent about 12.000 DM (German marks) which is about half what it could have costed if someone else would have done it. That was of course very lucky for us!

Who is that girl and guy, shot in the clip?

- The girl was called Klara and she's a photomodel that the producer had choosen. The guy is called Guilliaume and he used to play bass in KATATONIA. He's a friend of mine and he looks very «gothic» in real life, so I asked him if he'd like to join in. As far as I know they didn't do anything like this before.
 
Why didn't you invite Hans Groning and Claudia Maria Mokri to participate in «The Beauty...»'s shooting?

- Because they look all wrong. The fact that they sing well doesn't mean that they would suit in a video.
 
Are you going to shoot some more videos in the future?

- We did one for "To Mega Therion", but unfortunatly it didn't turn out as well as «The Beauty In Black» did (as we had a SMALLER budget and we were stupid enough to use a different producer).
 
Do you enjoy reading? What about Per Lagerkvist's writings? He seems to be one of the best Swedish authors in my opinion... What can you say about Russian literature? Such names as Dostoevskiy, Tolstoy, Czehov, Bulgakov - do they sound familiar in your ears?

- I usually don't read fictional authors, I read only magickal litterature and some philosophy. But I have read a long excerpt from Bulgakov and it was really nice, so I will definitely read the whole book (Chris means «Master and Margarita» - ED) as soon as I have the time.

How would you compare Sweden to other European countries? Is there any place on Earth that you'd like to trade your motherland for?

- Scandinavia is more cold and more hi-tech than the rest of Europe. It is also more serviceminded. As more Sweden compared to rest of Scandinavia we are the most advanced one. As for the negative aspect Sweden is utterly boring and has a less living culture than the rest of Europe. And 90% of our beers suck! (our vodka is quite good though).

Both, Jan Peter Genkel and Gottfried Koch participated in «Theli» recording with grand piano and synth parts, also some of orchestration was made by these two guys, that's why I think that they were more than just producers / sound engineers for you, right? Will you continue working with them in the future?

- They only participated with a few parts, so I'd say the were mainly producers. But good ones, as producers are supposed to help the band to find suitable session musicians (if there is a need for it of course) and they were so good in playing that we didn't need to hire someone else to do it. They were great, but I decided to try Siggi Bemm instead this time as I like to experiment and Siggi had a great reputation. I also talked to him before deciding anything and he seemed to be the perfect one.
 
What is your view on sexual perversions? Just read any of mass-media issues - they’ll assure you that persons with «traditional» sexual orientation became a kind of pariahs in modern society...

- «Pervert» is a word for someone with a more extreme sexual desires than one self. So to some people you might be a pervert and to some others you might appear as a dull jerk. Personally I kind of like if the total society get more sexually extreme as it is a kind of rise of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is in opposite of the christian tradition of forbidding the peoples sexuality. Can you believe that anal sex and homosexuality is still forbidden in some states in USA and some other countries as well? (fags and lesbians should not be imprisoned but killed... - ED)  These laws are obviously not uphold by the law in practice, but the fact that it is not removed from the lawbooks is quite retarded I'd say. From my point of view I don't care what the fuck people do as long as they leave animals alone and don't rape people. If two persons get pleasure out of fistfucking each other, why not? I don't even understand why there is this mapping of sexuality, people are what they are anyway, so what's the point with comparing it?  One fundamental problem with this world is that people tend to have too many opinions about everyone else instead of minding their own buisness.
 
And something for the end...

- Our new album «Vovin» will be out the 27’th of April. In my opinion it is way better than «Theli», so give it a chance! Cheers and hope to see you on tour one day!

 

THERION
Email: therion@swipnet.se

Nuclear Blast's THERION homepage:
http://www.nuclearblast.de/therion/index.html