This interview was conducted by Philip A. Wickstrand with guitarist/main songwriter Christofer Johnsson by telephone on October 22, 2010.

Sweden’s Therion have undergone a great evolution throughout their illustrious musical career; from death metal beginnings to symphonic metal grandeur, they have always been different from the rest of the pack and ahead of their time. Only a real sourpuss would not be able to at least appreciate the music that they create and the passion that they have for it. Their new album, Sitra Ahra, was released in North America this October.

Phil: First, tell us a bit about the new album Sitra Ahra.

Christofer: Well, what do you want to know?

Phil: Tell us about the song writing process.

Christofer: Well, most of the songs are old, real old. In general when bands are recording old songs, it usually means that they are left over, they didn't record for whatever reason, you know, makes some sort of compilation or if they want to use as bonus tracks or whatever. In this case, we actually saved songs. We wrote so many songs that we had enough for three albums. I mean, we had maybe fifty songs or whatever, but we had enough good songs that we could make three really good albums back in 2004. So we had this great pool of songs and we were seeing three albums in it - Lemuria, Sirius B and Sitra Ahra and in order to catch up a little bit, we decided to record two albums at the same time, 'cause if we would have recorded them one by one, we would always have a bunch of albums lying around because I'd be writing new songs meanwhile. We were considering to record three albums at the same time, but it was just too complex, you know, it wouldn't have worked out, so we did Lemuria and Sirius B and were saving Sitra for the future. But for some reason, I had an idea for a completely different album after Lemuria and Sirius B and we were taking two songs off Sitra Ahra and making a bunch of other songs and made Gothic Kabbalah. And therefore, the three CDs became a quadrology because Gothic Kabbalah is like a cousin to the three siblings, you could say because of those two songs. And it meant that Sitra Ahra was pushed even more in the future, so now when we record this album, some of the songs were like nearly ten years old and it's pretty positively [unintelligible] - it's like vintage wine, aged in a very nice way. And we also tried to work in a completely different way when we recorded the album.

Something that I really don't like with modern productions is the total lack of dynamics, that it's so compressed. It's like three different dynamics; you have the gentle sound, the mid sound and the loud, pretty much. So they usually compress it as much as they can and just push the main level up until it's almost boring and two or three songs sort of, you know, loudness raised in space and I just hate that sound, even if they're cool songs by a new band, it can get boring because of the production. And also, more and more bands are recording with props and that sort of stuff, just digital, very cold production, you know, it's very loud but the ambient should contact, in my humble view. So we really tried to get the sound of the old, analog sound. Remember we recorded digitally, you know, really using every means possible to emulate the old analog sound and to have the most dynamics in it. Of course, in the mastering, they always compress it a bit, so you lose some dynamics, but at least it sounds like an '80s recording and has been remastered 2010 or something like that. And also, another thing that completely weighed [unintelligible] thinking - I've always had this problem that I don't hear everything in my production. You have so much things going on at some parts that, say you don't hear the strings very much - okay, let me bring up the strings and then "Oh, fuck, now I don't hear the woodwinds" and then turn the woodwinds up and then to the bass and then the guitars are too low and then drums are getting in behind and you continue to beat everything and in the end, you're exactly where you started, except everything is louder, the main level is louder because you were bringing everything up.

This time, we tried a completely different approach. To find the space for each song in the sound picture from the start, so you can hear everything. Not paying attention to how the all over thing sounds, just making sure you can hear everything. And when everything was there and you could hear everything, then we tried to work on the over all thing. You know, we put in a sound to make it more powerful or whatever. The classic mistake is otherwise that you start working with the drums, "Oh yeah, let's have a powerful drum sound", then you work with the guitar sound, have a push in the guitar and then it's so much, it's over you that it’s just not spaced first of all, [unintelligible] to be heard. So in the end, we mixed a guitar sound that's more a vintage sound, because it doesn't cover up that much and you can hear everything, so this is the first album you can [unintelligible] orchestra that I can actually hear everything that I'm supposed to. That's real lucky for me. And it kinda fits, though, also that we make the sound vintage when we work with very old material. It kinda sticks together. And also, this album, we said "No compromises" and things can take exactly as long time as it wants to. We just say that we start now, we can tell the record company anything about like when it should be ready; we told them what we thought, but no promises. So in the end, we spent one year and four months on it, which included taking a lot of breaks and stuff. But also in the mix, it works in a completely different way. Instead of taking one song and very tentatively mixing until we thought we've done the best with it and then go on to the next song, we did a mix to the song and give it a shot, you know, let's mix the song, but no, if we were stuck with some stuff, we just said "Let's not get [unintelligible], just get on with next song". So we would take the first mix and listen to it at home while we mixed other songs. Then we would go back and mix it again and continue like that, so most of the songs were more than mixed once, but some of the songs were mixed like four or five times, which is a very expensive way of working, but we really thought it was worthwhile doing it and to work at the Polar Studio was really, really an experience.

I did my own studio for a lot the recordings, but to do the mix at Polar was really, really a fun thing. Lennart Östlund, the main guy there, used to work with LED ZEPPELIN and ABBA and GENESIS and the old bands that recorded there… even RAMONES, I think. He really is a cool guy to work with, with this type of music. I always had a feeling when we were working at other studios that they really liked what we did, they respected what we did, but they didn't really, really understand it. They would always look upon it as something really cool and "Yeah, this THERION band has a lot of channels and a lot of cool stuff", but then it go back to normal again after that. With Lennart  and Polar, it was different. For him, it was like, "Yes! Finally I can to this - this is what I should be doing all the time." He didn't want to get back to normal, this is what he wanted to do. And a great example would be like… we used… like a hundred and forty channels or whatever. Normally, if you would request something like that from a studio, they'd say "Okay, we can get them. Are you really sure you need this?" and you know, "It's a lot of work." You know, you can get anything if you pay for it. But with Polar, "Yes! Finally somebody who doesn't compromise! How many channels do you need? A hundred and forty? Coming!" It's a very different attitude and it really, really felt like we found home in terms of mixing, so I find it very strange to imagine to mix somewhere else after we worked with Lennart at Polar.

Phil: I'm not quite sure I heard it correctly, but when I was listening to the album, did I detect the use of a theremin?

Christofer: No, it's not theremin. Do you mean the beginning of "Land of Canaan"?

Phil: No, no - at the end of "Unguentum Sabbati".

Christofer: No, it's a moog.

Phil: Okay. That was really neat. Are you going to be using that more on future songs or just as little flourishes here and there?

Christofer: I've moogs before, so I wouldn't be surprised if I used it more in the future, like "Ginnungagap" for instance, from Secret of the Runes has a moog, as well. But I have no idea, really, what is around the corner and that's good - I like it that way. I mean, with Sitra it was different because we had saved songs from the past, so this time, we knew what we would be doing in advance, but normally when we make an album, we have really no idea what the album after that's going to be like. And I kind of like to surprise myself and see what happens.

Phil: What would be your favorite tracks off of Sitra Ahra?

Christofer: "Land of Canaan" - that song sounds pretty much like the music I listen to myself. But it's a very revealing album. You could say that with this album we're working with correcting [unintelligble]. Like all these years, we've been fooling that we're a cool Metal band, but in reality you've been listening to your parent's music. [laughter] We just dressed it up, that it would be thought that it would be Metal music. Everything is a matter of how you arrange things - people are so incredibly sensitive to the wrapping, how you wrap things, you know? This time we did it more natural, more close to our influences. This is really how a lot of THERION albums earlier could have sounded, as well. I mean, you can really see some of it like… take… songs like "Ship of Luna" and "Via Nocturna", it's practically '70s influenced Rock, these type of songs. It's just that we produced it in a different way. Well, you can listen to Lemuria, for instance, the title track is completely symphonic Rock music. "The Dreams of Swedenborg" is anything but Metal. But Metal, how you produce it and how you work it, peopleare so sensitive to that. It's exactly more important how you work things than the contents in terms of selling stuff to people, if you study consumer psychology. And of course, with music is something higher than, you know… like when you sell crap to people, but it's still… the mechanics in people's minds are working in a similar way. Not in a way that you could write total crap and be hailed as genius for it, but how you make people react to something that you have done. It is so much in the wrapping. Like, I've read some comments on [unitelligble] record, I think we had both good and bad critics on it, but if you hear some of the people who didn't like it, they would say things like, "Oh, it's not enough Metal" and whatever.

Therion's Christofer Johnsson

Interviewer: Philip A. Wickstrand

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Formed 1987
Stockholm, SWEDEN
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Genre: Death & Symphonic Metal

CURRENT LINE-UP:

Thomas Vikström:  Vocals
Christofer Johnsson:  Guitar, Vocals,
Keyboards & Programming
Christian Vidal:  Guitar
Nalle Påhlsson:  Bass
Johan Koleberg:  Drums

DISCOGRAPHY:

Of Darkness... (1991)
Beyond Sanctorum (1992)
Symphony Masses:
                 Ho Drakon Ho Megas (1993)
Lepaca Kliffoth (1995)
Theli (1996)
A'arab Zaraq-Lucid Dreaming:
                              Best of/Comp. (1997)
Vovin (1998)
Crowning of Atlantis EP (1999)
Deggial (2000)
The Early Chapters of Revelation:    
                                    Boxed set (2000)
Secret of the Runes (2001)
Bells of Doom: Best of/Comp. (2001)
Live in Midgard (2002)
Lemuria (2004)
Sirius B (2004)
Atlantis Lucid Dreaming:
                              Best of/Comp. (2005)
Celebrators of Becoming:
                              Live in Mexico (2006)
Celebrators of Becoming:
                                     Boxed Set (2006)
Gothic Kabbalah (2007)
Live Gothic CD/DVD (2008)
The Miskolc Experience: Live (2009)
Sitra Ahra (2010)

(Click on Photo to Enlarge)

November 20, 2010

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