Therion: For The Band Who Has Everything
“I don’t believe in originality any more. Can you tell me one band in the last ten years that was totally groundbreaking and original?” It’s a hard question to answer, to be certain, and as THERION brainchild and maestro Christofer Johnsson poses it, he takes a breath in the certainty that the ever elusive search for originality is a thing of the past, at least for his newest record, Leviathan. The Swedish symphonic metal pioneers, after releasing countless records exploring the gamut of musical ideas and textures, including the most ambitious musical project of their over three decade career with Beloved Antichrist in 2018, have decided to tackle one final challenge: write an album designed to please other people instead of themselves.
“We decided to make a THERION album of hits intentionally,” says Johnsson. “We’ve always been musical explorers over the years and we’ve tried many things, but after Beloved Antichrist I felt totally empty because I had done everything I wanted to do. One day I was talking to our singer Thomas Vikstrom on the phone and I said that there was one thing THERION never did and that was try to please other people. We thought it could be a great challenge to test ourselves and make a classic sounding THERION album full of hit songs.”
For a band that’s travelled more musical roads than most, the idea sounds like a piece of cake on paper. But for anyone who knows the band’s catalogue, that task becomes much less clear when thinking about the band’s most popular songs of the past. And that thought didn’t make it past Johnsson either as the band was set to get started.
“The first problem was what does classic THERION mean? We don’t have one classic sound, and all the songs people love sound different. We’re not AC/DC,” laughs Johnsson. “We just set to writing catchy riffs, groovy tempos, and strong melodies in general. We were not afraid of being melodic, and we didn’t care about originality.”
The sessions proved to be among the most fruitful of the band’s career; hard drives full of riffs and and unused song ideas were just the beginning. By the end of it all, the band had over forty songs that could be used for this album of hits. But with so many choices, there was only one natural decision: release Leviathan as a trilogy of albums, each with a distinct flavour and reflection of the many facets of what makes THERION great. It would be a true retrospective for passionate diehards as well as an excellent entry point for new fans.
The unfortunate circumstances of Coronavirus forced the band and Johnsson to rethink a writing process that had been rocksteady for years. With members spread across the globe, working remotely was a necessity, and its complexities were compounded by the intricate and detailed nature of the band’s orchestral arrangements and many layers that add to the richness of their sound. Beyond the technical aspects of stitching the music together, the basic tenets of communicating ideas had to be rethought.
“Historically we worked best with the knife against our throats, and this was the first time we didn’t have our own studio,” explains Johnsson. “In the spirit of that, I think I learned a lot having to communicate in a different way. I have to trust people in a completely different way. They appreciated the new responsibility of that, but there certainly were ups and downs in the process with some people.”
Travelling back in his own mind to craft an album borne from the past, it’s hard for Johnsson to not only reflect on his own past, but on the devastation 2020 wreaked upon so many people in his orbit. Still, even while seeing the pain the Coronavirus has caused to so many, his position in THERION seems, as least to him, more secure than it’s ever been. “When things are tough, people always look to entertainment. If you lost everything, would you give up your Netflix or music? It’s then when you need it more than ever. I felt more secure than ever being in the music business, but we haven’t missed a show since 1987, so that part is difficult for us. But even though it’s easy to focus on ourselves sometimes, there’s a whole ecosystem out there at risk. Venues, crew, stage workers, merchandising companies, tour bus companies…so many things won’t be there. Many people have to get new jobs to put food on their table, and it’s not so easy to bring them back when tours start up again because they don’t want to jeopardise that. It’ll be a nightmare when we get started again.”
But in the midst of some of the most trying times of people’s lives, THERION and the music they create, especially with an album as accessible as Leviathan, are in a unique position. Symphonic metal has the unique power with it’s embrace of classical music to create images of fantasy and other worlds in the imagination like no other sub-genre. It’s a true escape from everyday life, if even for a few minutes. With such a power in his hands in times like these, Johnsson is simply grateful to do what he can to alleviate some of the pain.
“Music has meant so much to me growing up with 80’s bands like ACCEPT. If my music had meant a fragment to anybody else the way that music had meant to me…that music got me though so much. If I have created an album that meant as much to someone as that, it would be unreal to me.”
Leviathan is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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