THERION Mainman On Musical Experimentation: 'The Only Rule Is That I'll Have To Like It'

Norway's Metal Express Radio recently conducted an interview with THERION mainman Christofer Johnsson. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Express Radio: How were the sales of your latest DVD package?

Christofer Johnsson: I don't have any figures in my hands, but it was a little bit less than expected, actually. I think a lot of the young people thought it was too expensive. I mean everybody who bought it was very happy with it because got so much value for their money, but if you don't have the money it doesn't matter how much value you get (laughs). It's not really bad, but it's just a little bit less than we expected.

Metal Express Radio: Was it a limited or a regular edition with the six discs?

Christofer Johnsson: It's a regular release, and it's never going to be limited. This is a milestone release for the band, one of those historic releases and like this it should always be available. I'm sure people will be interested in it in 5 or 10 years from now even if we continue putting out releases. Who knows, maybe we'll end up doing a historical release part two or something like that in the future. But again, there are not that many big changes in the band like there was before when the whole band changed new guitar players all the time and we were playing exotic places for the first time. There still would be a few things like that, like maybe we're going to Japan for the first time on this upcoming tour, but it cannot be compared to the first time playing in Mexico and stuff like that, because that was such a big thing for us, for a young band that wasn't really that successful.

Metal Express Radio: Your promo photos feature all the singers that participated on the album. Do you consider them as permanent members now?

Christofer Johnsson: No, no. That's the unique thing with THERION. We don't have a singer. We never had a permanent singer since I was the main vocalist and I stopped doing that in '95. We continue the way we do now and it's just that we form a co-operation. I think with this record the unique thing is that we did a complete concept. We said, "Okay, let's do the record together and the tour." Normally we'd just record the album and then find singers for the tour. This time we decided to do both the record and the tour together. That's why we put the main singers on the photo sessions. This is the only difference from how we used to work in the past. And also, they were allowed to contribute to some of the songs. Snowy Shaw was doing a few small things on some songs, but Mats Leven was writing a song on his own and also made some additions to some other songs, which is something we normally wouldn't allow, but it was an experiment and I think it was a successful one. We always like to try something new with each record and hope that people will like it. I think that's the whole formula for THERION being such an artistically successful band after so many records. If you look at most bands that made 13 studio albums, like SAXON, IRON MAIDEN ... they all had their artistic peaks and they live out of their classics. You won't find any bands that would say that their latest album is their best one. Nobody would say that, not even the bands themselves. So, I think one of the keys for THERION for being artistically successful is that we have the ability to change. We would, of course, have the same situation if we would stick to one style. But, there's a limit of how many times you can write riffs in the same style with one vocalist being in the band before you get stuck with what you do. What makes it easier for THERION is that we developed this attitude that you should have something new. Of course, we lose fans when we do different stuff from what we did before, but on the other hand we gain new fans as well. There's a little bit of rotation of fans and then you have a core of diehard fans that manage to follow the development. I don't know how many other bands are like that. It actually makes it much easier to compose because if you get fed up with something you can do something totally different.

Metal Express Radio: Is there any musical challenge that you wouldn't embrace with THERION?

Christofer Johnsson: There's nothing I can say I wouldn't do, but the only rule is that I'll have to like it. I would never ever record a song on a record that I don't like even if the entire band would love the song. But, apart from that, I don't see any limitations. For example, you can see that it's the drummer writing half the lyrics on this record. I've always said that it doesn't matter who's writing the songs as long as I choose them and I like them. And, I never had any chauvinism towards other's compositions. I just listen to the songs and I pick the best ones. Of course, it's a very subjective matter, but since it's very hard to define what THERION is, it has to be me. But, that doesn't mean that I'm deciding everything. It happens many times that when it comes to arrangements they tell me that "we should do this or do that" and I'm fine with that if it's the right way. But, when it comes to the overall strategy like which direction to go, what songs to use, then I have a veto there, but it's very seldomly used.

Metal Express Radio: It's basically your band and you still let other people write, and also you didn't mind admitting that your second guitarist is better than you and all that stuff ... quite admirable, actually!

Christofer Johnsson: I stopped practicing guitar in '95 and it's just fine by me to be playing small parts on the record just for the fun of it. I'm playing live and that's fun, but on the record I just care about the result. And I have a lot of other things to do in the studio. I think we're doing it the right way. In a way you can say that I'm a little bit egoistic, because I do what's best artistically. I mean I do what I like. For me, it's not fun to play a lot of guitars in the studio anyway. It's just boring (laughs). It's fun to play guitar live but not in the studio. It's just something that needs to be done, and I don't have this stupid pride that some musicians have that always have to be like this or that just for the sake of being this or that. For instance, MERCYFUL FATE have this songwriting thing for every record. I mean KING DIAMOND wrote four songs, Mike wrote two songs, and Shermann wrote four songs. It was decided beforehand how many songs each members should write. And when they had a new member coming into the band he couldn't write. It's like when Ripper Owens joined JUDAS PRIEST, it didn't matter if he wrote a killer song, because he wasn't allowed to add his ideas.

Read the entire interview at www.metalexpressradio.com.