THERION Interview with Christofer Johnsson
via phone February 4, 2000

ID: Therion has helped bring the combination of classical and heavy metal to the attention of many metal fans. What was the inspiration to use that combination?
Christofer: It was basically step-by-step. We started as a death metal band in '88, and when we started with that it was quite original at that time. We started in '87, but we thought that everyone else was just trying to rip off Anthrax and Metallica, so we thought, 'Let's do something different,' so we started playing death metal. We actually had the same attitude back then as we do now, just to do something different. When a lot of other death metal bands popped up in the beginning of the '90's, we started using keyboards, some female vocals, and some clean male vocals; some different stuff, some symphonic stuff. We were really happy with the progress we did, so with each album we've been progressing one step further to what we are now. This is our ninth album that we just released. I think it's a quite natural process.

ID: Do you have a background in classical music?
Christofer: I've never took an instrument lesson in my life.

ID: You don't play anything besides guitar?
Christofer: Well, I play a little bit of keyboards.

ID: How long have you been playing guitar?
Christofer: Since '87. I kind of learned how to play the instrument as we formed the band. Actually, I started on bass in early '87.

ID: Deggial is the first Therion album without synthesizers, right?
Christofer: Well, that's really correct, but we used real classic orchestration before. We [used it] on the Vovin album. We do have some keyboards on the new album, but the thing is we're not replacing any classic instruments with keyboards. Like on the Vovin album, we had real strings, but we had some French horns and we used a sample for that because it was so little that we didn't want to get a guy to do it. It's the first time where all the classic instruments are authentic. We still used the keyboards for the church organ. We had this old 70's keyboard that we used in the Deggial title track; things like that we used keyboards. But all the classic stuff was authentic.

ID: Was there any special guest vocalists on this album?
Christofer: Well, we had Hansi from Blind Guardian to do some vocals on one of the songs. Originally this album was supposed to be a classic album with a choral arrangement, but I didn't like the choral arrangement in the verse so we ended up doing something different. I was calling up Udo Dirkschneider from Accept orginally, and he wanted to do it, but when we went in the studio he didn't really have the time because he was out on the promotional tour in Europe promoting his new solo cd. We didn't have the time to wait for him to get back. We thought of doing something different and Hansi is really one of the best heavy metal singers of the '90's generation.

ID: Why did you decided not to sing on Therion releases anymore?
Christofer: Well, it doesn't suit what we're doing today. We're too melodic and I can't handle singing melodic. We're not death metal anymore, so I don't think it would be suitable.

ID: What inspired the Dragon Trilogy of albums?
Christofer: I don't know why they wrote that in the biography; it's not really a Dragon Trilogy. People always think that because all three albums have "dragon" in the title, but it's purely coincidental.

ID: Was there a certain language that each of those albums represented?
Christofer: We use a lot of different languages such as Enochian, Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek. We've been using Latin a little bit, but that wasn't very successful. We've been using a little bit of everything.

ID: Do you speak all those languages?
Christofer: No, we use it more like a mantra, you know? Some of it is, like, in a more poetic way.

ID: Well, while we're on this subject, I've read that you belong to a magical order called the Dragon Rogue...
Christofer: Yeah, it's a magical society, but it's also an open organization that is worldwide. The core of the organization is an order, but it's a quite open organization; anyone can join. If you don't want to be in it anymore, you simply don't pay your membership fees anymore.

ID: What is it about?
Christofer: We are all about classical mythical topics like the Kabala, Enochian magic, old magic tradition, and a lot of the classic topics as well as a lot of new topics [that affect the way man is today].

ID: How does it inspire your lyric or music writing?
Christofer: Usually, the lyrics are written after the music and we just have to get in the meditation state of mind and try to catch the atmosphere of the song. You could say that's a little extra thing that makes the song.

ID: On Deggial was there any lyrical concept, or any concept at all?
Christofer: It's an integral part of the album, of Deggial's lyrics. It's a compilation of many different philosophical things. [It's about] an anti-messiah named Deggial. "Anti-messiah"...You should not confuse it with the Christian "antichrist" because it's slightly different.

ID: I've read that you usually compose all of the musical arrangements yourself. Is that how you went about recording Deggial or did you use a different approach?
Christofer: Well, there was a problem with the lineup this time, if that's what you mean. Like on the Vovin album, I had studio musicians; we had no proper lineup. This time there was a real band for this album.

ID: Well, was everyone contributing to the writing of this album?
Christofer: I wrote the stuff myself. I mean, the members were contributing to their part of the material; they didn't write anything of the material. I mean, I'm not telling the drummer exactly how to play. Of course, he has to play the instrument himself. The second guitar player has to give a little bit of input, and he puts his personality into his guitar playing. But so far, I do all the compositions. If they come to the next album with some excellent material I would be dying to use it. They're great musicians.

ID: Does it get more difficult to write over the years?
Christofer: Strangely enough, no. I think it's because we're changing all the time. We always have inspiration.

ID: Where will you be touring in support of Deggial?
Christofer: So far only Europe. We have a tour headlining in March, we invited Voivod to go with us. One of my favorite bands, really. Well, we're gonna do one fly-in show in Mexico, but that seems to be the only thing other than Europe at the moment.

ID: Will you be playing any of the festivals in Europe then?
Christofer: We usually do. There's nothing booked yet, but possibly.

ID: I'd love to see you guys come to the US...
Christofer: It's not out of the question. If someone pays for it, we'll do it. I mean, they're going to fly us over to Mexico, it shouldn't be a problem to do it in the States. It's a matter of the concert promoters. It'd be nice if we could do the Milwaukee Metalfest or something.

ID: Yeah! [Unfortunately, they're not! Dammit!] When you do tour, do you take a choir or an orchestra as you've done in the past?
Christofer: We did that [twice in the past]; once at Dynamo. We'll tour with a choir this time, but we can't bring an orchestra; it's too many musicians.

ID: What will you use to recreate the orchestral parts?
Christofer: We run a digital tape machine [for those parts]. We record real orchestration to the tape and the drummer just plays to a click track to keep in synchronization to the music on the tape.

ID: Over the past ten years, what's been your most memorable moment within Therion?
Christofer: I think it was when we got the sales account for the Theli album because I was so convinced it was a big flop. We more than tripled the record sales...It was a really big surprise for everyone involved.

ID: Has there been any turning points that made you look at the band differently than how you did in the beginning?
Christofer: I think Theli was the turning point as well, because after the sales part of the budget went bigger. With a bigger budget I can do so much more in the studio. Actually, Theli opened up the door for the albums to come. Like, I think we spent $80-90,000 on the latest album. That's quite a considerable amount of money for a band of our size. We would never have gotten that sort of budget if it wasn't for the success of Theli in the first place.

ID: Have you ever had any confrontations with other bands or members of bands?
Christofer: Nothing I would like to mention. I mean, some people you get along with and some people you don't get along with. But nothing serious.

ID: I heard some rumors about some confrontation with Varg...
Christofer: That was quite pathetic, really. I didn't even remember that. The thing was that there was something about a stupid death threat letters to almost every Swedish band for really pathetic reasons like "You're not a true death metal band because you wear blue jeans." Childish stuff like that. Most people just threw away the letters, but I wrote the guy back and told him what I thought of such immature behavior. We wrote a couple of stupid letters to each other. Then there was this chick in Sweden, 15 or 16, who thought she was his girlfriend, but she was just very young and naive. She tried to take [nail polish remover] and start fire to the back door [of where I was living at the time]. Obviously, the fire went out by itself. It was just a very small thing, but then the media thought to write about it and Kerrang did a very, very stupid follow-up on it. They tried to make the impression that there was this sort of war going on between a lot of bands, but it was just pathetic and completely exaggerated. It's just a lot of bullshit.

ID: On the opposite side of that, is there any bands that you, or Therion in general, have found a bond with?
Christofer: Amorphis are really good friends of ours. We did a very cool tour with them and we had a very good time. Also, I like The Gathering a lot...Both the music and the guys and Anneke. They're really nice people. There's a few bands that we got really close with.

ID: If you were to recommend a Therion album for a first-time listener which one would you choose and why?
Christofer: Depends on what kind of guy it is. If it's someone into really noisy kind of metal, or like black metal, I would probably say Theli cuz it's quite easy to like. If it was just a person I didn't know anything about, I would probably say the new one. I think it's the best one.

ID: What would you be doing if you hadn't held an interest in music, or hadn't developed Therion?
Christofer: I don't know what I would be doing. If I wasn't making music I would probably work with something else like a record company or record store or whatever. I was doing something like that before; a record distribution, and for a little while I had a record company myself. I think I would just be [attending] the university and getting a lot of academic titles, you know? A lot of people that don't want to work, but like to read books do that...They'll study until they're like 60 years old.

ID: What's the education system like over there?
Christofer: It's always free in Sweden. We pay more taxes than you guys do, but hospital, dentist, you name it...All that stuff that you have to pay for, over here is free.

ID: I'm moving to Sweden!
Christofer: Well, be prepared that you have to pay three times as much tax, though. It's still worth it, unless you're a millionaire. Chuck Schuldiner, the guy from Death, they would never say "Okay, we'll remove the cancer from your head, but you have to pay $100,000" you know? It would never happen in Sweden, it would always be free.

I like the system we have in Sweden because it also gives people who are born in the wrong place. Like if you get born in Brooklyn, you don't have the same kind of [opportunities] as you do if you get born in Holland, for instance. Like if you want to be a doctor or something, or you can't decide on going to Alabama or Texas or something, or you can't afford it because your parents have no money can't afford to send you to a big city where you can study, so you have to be a peasant or a farmer or whatever like your father and your grandfather and your grandfather's grandfather. Because that's tradition, because you're born in a family without money. In Sweden it's not like that; you can become whatever you like. You still get the same chance. I think it's good...There's a lot of talented people in many other instances don't get the chance. It's a benefit of the country. I would rather have a doctor doing surgery on me that really wanted to be a doctor, not just someone who happened to be in a rich family and the parents said "You're going to be a doctor and make a lot of money." If they're going to put a needle in me it should be someone who really cares about their job and not just their career.

ID: I definitely agree...I guess that's about all the questions I have. Was there anything you'd like to add?
Christofer: I hope we can make it over to North America; at least for a handful of shows. Well, no matter what, I hope we can do the Milwaukee Metalfest or something like that.