After almost three years, Therion has closed the cycle of its most recent record offering with the release of 'Leviathan III', the last of the trilogy and according to the same creator of the band, Christofer Johnsson, the most varied in styles and a finishing touch to a project that has convinced critics and fans alike.
We talked with Johnsson from his home in Malta about this new album, in addition to the massive show that the band plans to give in Mexico in early 2024 with a full philharmonic orchestra, something they have been avoiding doing for years. but that he has decided to carry out for… personal reasons.
The last time we talked, you had just released 'Leviathan I', now you are about to release the third part of the trilogy, how do you feel about finally being able to close the cycle that you started several years ago?
Well, I'm quite relieved that it's over, because it was a lot of work [laughs]. But of course, it's great to be able to have the complete trilogy, because the original idea was to test the flavor of each of the 'Leviathans' individually and that there would be one for each one. Fans tend to have different tastes. If you ask them what the best album or the best song is, you are going to get many different answers. I mean, we have some albums that are the most commercially popular or if you look at the streaming statistics you can find out which songs are the most popular, but if you read the comments online you will find a lot of people who prefer the more obscure songs, the more risky or perhaps the most experimental ones.
So, 'Leviathan III' is thinking about satisfying those who like more experimental things. The first two were aimed at a much more general audience who likes our songs. Our hardcore fans always prefer songs that aren't even in the top 100 of our discography.
At that time, you had already told me that the Leviathan trilogy was precisely designed to please the fans. How was the reception?
First two did pretty well, so I hope this one does well too. 'Leviathan I' was at the top of the most listened to albums in Germany and now, both albums are among Therion's five most listened to. I think 'Leviathan II' is the second most popular in our discography right now. same.
When an album is new, it tends to be higher in the preferences compared to the others, as it looks more interesting and popular. When a year has passed and the hype has passed, that's when you can give a better reading and both 'Leviathan I' and 'Leviathan II' continue to have many views. That's pretty good.
For this third part, I predict that it will do a little less well, since it is aimed at a smaller audience and that was the point, to give our most die-hard fans something for them that would not be the most commercial songs. Obviously, they listen to those types of songs less.
Therion's music is characterized by being complex, was that why you decided to release the Producer Edition version where he explains each of the songs point by point? Also, at the same price as a normal CD.
It's complicated. Producer Edition was also released for the first two albums through Nuclear Blast and were slightly more expensive for the digipack edition. The idea was mine from the beginning and when we started with 'Leviathan III' I obviously wanted to have this edition as well.
But then, we changed labels to Napalm Records and they didn't want to release this edition, they wanted to do something else. And to make things a little more difficult, when I signed with them I didn't give them a global deal. I kept Latin America, Turkey, Asia and several other places, where I would do the release myself. They could basically do it in the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
So they would release their edition there and I negotiated the licenses in the territories that I kept, and in those places I would release my own version, which from the beginning I planned to be beautiful, exclusive and it turned out to be fucking expensive. It cost three times the price of a normal CD, since it was a digibook.
There are several versions of it, almost all of them under license, such as the version from Japan or those from all of Latin America, with the exception of Mexico because the one I made myself will be distributed there, as well as in Turkey. I think selling it at the price of a normal CD is quite generous.
About physical editions. Many people continue buying these versions even though everyone already uses streaming platforms. For a band like Therion, how important is it to preserve this?
For me personally it is very important. In fact, it was the main reason we changed the label. Nuclear Blast was acquired by Believe, a streaming music distributor. They own TuneCore and other similar platforms. And so, from their point of view, streaming is the future.
I don't care how people consume music. Maybe from a business point of view, it's the right thing to do. But emotionally and personally, I prefer physical copies and especially vinyl which has seen an increase in sales lately. The resurrection of vinyl is a reality and for me, that's great because I grew up with it and I love it.
Nuclear Blast has a very different way of looking at things because of its owners. They want to sell streams and for them vinyl sales are only something temporary that they can milk, but it will surely end and everything will be via streaming. So despite having a lot of money, they never wanted to invest in making vinyl, so when we released 'Leviathan II' it took eleven months to be able to have the LP edition. I mean, almost a year and that was totally unacceptable to me. At that time, we had to delay the release of the vinyl edition for almost a month. The CD and digital version came out on October 28th and the LP had to wait until November 15th, which is not OK at all.
When the contract with Nuclear Blast ended, they offered us a new deal, which was quite generous. But I started to look for options and see what the conditions would be with another label and Napalm offered me less money than Nuclear but when we talked about the issue of vinyl they convinced me.
I asked them, how long would it take to have the vinyl version ready? And they told me that they had just bought their own plant to make them due to high demand and they gave me a two-week delivery time. How can you compare two weeks to eleven months?
I am financially independent. I no longer make music to make money, I do it for the passion. So for me it is very important to be with a label that is interested in maintaining physical versions. And if one day they disappear, it's OK, but as long as they continue they will continue to be my priority.
Do you already have ideas for the next Therion project?
I already have a couple of songs I've been working on, but I honestly don't know what we'll do next. I think I need a couple of years of creative rest from Therion for now, after working so hard on these three albums. We wrote over 40 songs and also made demos for over 40 songs. And we recorded -I think- 37 songs. It really was a lot of work. And for now, it's nice to have a clear head until the next album. We've made 19 albums, people can't wait for us to release an album every year.
Maybe now I'll focus on a side project in the meantime. For example, I want to make another Luciferian Light Orchestra album for which I have already had songs ready for a ages. I also want to make a traditional eighties metal album, since it's the music I grew up with.
When I was 11 I dreamed of becoming a metal musician, it was the kind of music I dreamed of and I think I owe my 11 year old self a heavy metal album. For me, writing an album of that type of music is super easy because it is in my bones, it is in my blood. Every time I plug in a guitar I write Judas Priest, Saxon or Maiden style riffs.
In fact, I think it's something that anyone can listen to because we have a lot of influence from 80s heavy metal music in Therion's guitars. It would be great to make an album solely in that style, although clearly it wouldn't be anything original since everything is already done in that style and it's not like I have many expectations; I don't even know if I'll do it through a label or release it independently.
Therion has a lot of fans in Mexico, it's a fact. But this time, instead of doing an extensive tour of the country, you decided to do a unique show with an orchestra, something that is not common for you to do. The last time it happened was about 15 years ago. Why did you decide to do it again and also in Mexico?
If I'm honest, the main reason is mere greed, because they offered me a lot of money and it was impossible to say no [laughs]. For me, doing these types of shows is quite annoying. People think that it's just getting on stage with an orchestra and that's it, but that's not the case at all. There are weeks and months of preparation to get everything ready and that generates a gigantic amount of stress.
Orchestras are not used to playing with a metronome, nor are they used to playing rock music. I mean, there are certain orchestras specialized in doing it, but in general a philharmonic orchestra is quite bad at that, because it is not the way they play. It's like putting a rock musician in an orchestra and telling him to "follow the conductor." He's going to be like “what the fuck is this”, because he doesn't know how to follow an orchestra conductor. While in a rock band you listen to the other musicians, a conductor uses his musicians as an extension of himself.
Mixing an orchestra with a rock band is much more complicated than it sounds, so you need a lot of rehearsals and the band also needs to practice with other types of music and prepare a score.
I swear I'm going to die sooner, because the couple of orchestral shows we did in Europe were so stressful that when we finished the second one I said to myself, “Ok, we'll never ever do this again.” Fuck it. But well, 15 years later and after years of receiving and rejecting offers, I always said “Don't bother me with that, take your money and go” [laughs] But we all have a limit and at some point it was so much money that I said “ I will do that".
And well, I tell myself that if this had to be done, it should definitely be done in Mexico because it is the best place to do it. If I take a look at Therion's streaming statistics, around 25% globally come from Mexico via Spotify. Ticket sales have started and we have already sold more than 7,000 so far, it is not going quite well and with that, things are working financially.
Also, after the last tour we did in Mexico where we did 18 concerts, it was crazy and we sold out the tickets in half of them. So it feels like a fair thing to return something to Mexico. If we were going to do this one more time in our career, Mexico is the place.
Rock music is about instinct. Classical music is the opposite, it is pure intellectuality.
Are you going to bring an orchestra to Mexico or are you going to work with a Mexican orchestra?
It's a Mexican orchestra, which saves me a little stress. It is a collaboration between Therion and Mexican artists. Additionally, they have some freedom in how they want to work with the arrangements. So instead of playing everything exactly the way I want, they will make a suggestion which I have to approve and it will also be easier for them to play.
When we did it in Europe, the orchestra basically played orchestral versions of Therion songs that I prepared and were written to fit the way they usually play. And as soon as the band started playing, they went shit because it was difficult for them.
Music is written in different ways. You can see a violin and a guitar and it's easy to think “they're both string instruments,” but they both sound very different from each other. On a guitar it is very easy to play a scale or some arpeggios, but on the violin it is not so simple. That would make you think that it would be easier for them because I'm not a fantastic guitarist so if I can, why couldn't they play the same? They play in a fucking philharmonic orchestra! But it's different, and I also noticed it when we did covers of classic songs. The notes sound strange on a guitar. It may not be difficult to play technically but it is difficult to remember how to do it because it is very different from playing metal.
When you are going to play Mozart's Requiem, for example, it is very easy to play from a technical point of view but you need to do the math in a super strange way, it is like remembering telephone numbers. Rock is very based on the 4/4 scale or sometimes on 6/8 or 3/4, but classical music is made to be read: 3+9+6, it is a very strange cycle to read the notes unless you understand them in a score. It's pure mathematics. Rock is something much more about instinct, you can feel when the next chord is coming, you can feel the rhythm and play it. Classical music is totally the opposite, it is very intellectual.
More than thirty years of career with Therion, what goals do you need to achieve?
The last thing on my wish list is to do a show in an arena and that is about to happen in Mexico. Don't know. But why should we always have new mountains to climb? Sure, when you're young you want to go climbing but as soon as you reach a certain age you want to just take things simpler.
I'm totally fine with just being an entertainer, writing music and that's it. In addition, the environment is also something that affects. In the 90s, it was very easy to be original if you put folk music elements or orchestral parts into your metal band; Also many bands began to put women as singers which was not something really new but it did generate another kind of sounds.
As of today, almost everything is done. Sure, you can still compose music that is original, but in the search for originality you end up making things sound weird. Now, all existing musical styles were mixed. I haven't heard anyone invent anything really new in the last 15 years. The last time I heard a band doing something really original was Diablo Swing Orchestra - great band by the way. When I heard them I thought “wow, I hadn't heard this before.” It is a kind of mariachi-metal, at least in its beginnings.
If you look back, you have the gothic metal wave of the 90s, then the folk metal stage and before that there was death metal, black metal, thrash and before that, punk... there was always something new, something radical you've never heard before; but that has unfortunately disappeared.
Of course, you can always mix things up. You can play African drums, with guttural Tibetan singing while you have a girl singing like a goat. You can always make circus music by mixing things that no one had mixed before, but outside of those freaks, no one can make new music that serves commercially and by that I mean that reaches large audiences.
There are only a limited quantity of colors, you know? With those you can make mixes and create some new ones but at some point you are going to run out of options and the only thing you have left is to make good songs with what you already have and your goal is that, to make good songs that people want to listen to. And personally, I have no problem with it. As long as I enjoy writing music and there are people who want to listen to it, it will continue to be a great privilege for me to do so.
What makes Therion different from other bands is that we have a wide variety of styles. If you listen to one of our songs, you can find more variety than in some bands throughout their entire existence. That's a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how you look at it; Most people want you to be consistent and always sound a certain way. And I understand it, of course. For example, I'm a big AC/DC fan; I want them to always sound like AC/DC and not do stupid experiments. But for the minority who like to listen to a wide variety of sounds, a Therion album can sound like something that could have been made by several bands at the same time and that is especially demonstrated in 'Leviathan III', which is extremely varied.
