Regarded as the original symphonic metal band by many a metal fan, Sweden’s THERION are about to unleash the jam-packed 4 DVD / 2 CD release ‘Celebrators of Becoming’ via Nuclear Blast Records. Baconmusic’s James Allman caught up with their charismatic bass player Johan Niemann to discuss the new release along with future plans with regard to the band’s next studio opus.

JA: You played the Progpower festival in the UK recently, your first UK show for a while. How did the show go?

JN: It was excellent, great fun. I didn’t know what to expect as it was the first year but it was good. Great sound on stage, good venue and really friendly people.

JA: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the show myself, but I am intrigued to know what the special surprise was that Chrisofer (Johnsson, Lead Guitarist, Chief Songwriter) had promised before the show?

JN: That was kind of weird, we were all harrassing him about it because he didn’t even tell us either. It wasn’t all that big, but it was cool and kind of added to the show. He had contact with 2 famous female ballet dancers and basically they came on stage with their costumes and weird accessories. They were on ‘Rise of Sodom’ and a couple of other songs, it was very crowded on stage!

JA: I understand the show was the last THERION gig to feature Christofer on vocals. So who will be taking over the lower end vocals from now on?

JN: No one, I guess. There are a couple of reasons why Chrisoffer didn’t want to do it anymore. After all, he was doing it since he was a toddler and he was like I’m in my thirties so fuck this shit, you know he was just tired of it. Secondly, we don’t really rehearse all that much so he doesn’t really keep his voice in trim so doing a tour really takes it toll on his voice. Also, we have so many albums to choose songs from, and we’ve been playing the old stuff for a long time now so its time for a change and focus on the newer stuff. We won’t be playing anything from the first 4 albums from now on.

JA: I hear that you have just begun recording the new album. It’s going to be quite a challenge to top the ‘Lemuria’ and ‘Sirius B’ records. How do you plan to go about succeeding in this challenge?

JN: Well whether it is successful is not really down to us. But we feel we have songs that are relevant to what we are doing right now, so we feel the album will be as good as anything we have ever done. Its not going to be that hard, because we’ve been playing those songs from ‘Lemuria’ and ‘Sirius B’ for a while now so we need some fresh material in our heads.

JA: I read that all of the material is already written for the album. How are the ideas sounding so far?

JN: Well its going to sound like the last records obviously. But only as much as any other albums have sound like another one of recent albums. So it will sound like THERION!

JA: Now it must cost a lot of money to make records like ’Lemuria’ and ‘Sirius B’, how do THERION afford to do it?

JN: We have a very friendly record label. Obviously, yes those 2 records were every exepsnive records and 173 musicians do cost a lot of money. But the record label believes in us and is continuing to do so. The records sold well, so as long as the guys who are paying for it are happy then we’re all happy.

JA: Is there a rough time in mind that you expect to have the new album on the shelves?

JN: We are aiming for either the back-end of this year, or early next year.

JA: THERION’s adventurous music seems to lend itself to a 5.1 DVD-audio relase for an album. Is that something that will be considered when recording the new record?

JN: That’s a good idea. We haven’t actually discussed that, we’ll have to talk about that.

JA: So, you are about to release the 4 DVD / 2 CD set ‘Celebrators of Becoming’. This must have been a major project to put together, how long has it taken?

JN: You’re right, it was a major project and it took a long time. It started when we recorded the Mexico shows (on DVD 1) . They were two sold out shows in Mexico City, so we decdied to record the 2 shows and take the best performances to make one good show, which seemed like a great idea because we didn’t have a similar opportunity to do that elsewhere on the tour. If it turned out well then we’d realease it, and if not then we’d bury it, but fortunately it turned out really well. So from there we started gathering material and Christofer put something on the website looking for bootleg shows and other material covering periods of the band that he didn’t have much for.

JA: Why did you decide to release all of the discs together, and not perhaps as separate packages at different times to keep the fans ‘ticking over’?

JN: Well we wanted to include everything to just make this one major package, as most bands don’t really do that. We thought that would make it stand out.

JA: But what about catering for the casual fan?

JN: Well that’s the problem of course, but the plan is to make it priced somewhere near to a normal DVD so it shouldn’t cost anyone an arm and a leg.

JA: I notice on the Wacken performance on the DVD there are quite a few extra backing vocalists than you had when I saw you at Sweden Rock last year. Was this a special ‘one off’, it looks a great show?

JN: Yeah it was, we did a couple of special festival shows that year. It was a massive stage and audience, that was at Wacken 2001.

JA: Yes, I noticed SAXON’s eagle above your head!

JN: Yes, you can’t miss it!

JA: I believe last year that THERION embarked on their first tour of the USA. It is notably a difficult place to tour, how was it for you?

JN: It was difficult! I’ll try not to slag off the American promoter too much. But, he said a couple of months before the tour that the ticket sales we’re going really well and we were going to sell out a lot of shows and basically we didn’t sell out a single one. At the first show in Portland, there was only 84 people and that put a big dampener on things. Its different over there though, you know every band who tours anywhere has a rider, a technical rider and one for food and drink. In Europe, if you play anywhere and sell 1 ticket, you get everything on the rider. But in the US, if you sell only 1 ticket then you get nothing. So those days when we didn’t sell many tickets we basically didn’t get any food. Also, the tour bus broke down twice so that meant that we had to cancel a few shows which is always a major disappointment.

JA: Which shows were the best of the tour, in terms of audience?

JN: There were some really good ones, the Chicago one at ‘House of Blues’, ‘BB Kings’ in New York, the LA show and well the Progpower show in Atlanta was awesome, that one was with STRATOVARIUS.

JA: I see that your touring schedule does not yet include any of the European summer festivals. Are such shows not part of the plan this year?

JN: No, we are going to be focussing on the record so this summer we’ll actually get a vacation. I think Christofer wants at least 2 months off to clear his head of everything.

JA: Now on to your side project DEMONOID, I understand that you already have a new vocalist. Can you tell us a little bit about him?

JN: I guess you read that on Blabbermouth. The drummer actually called me to tell me that we have a new singer according to Blabbermouth, it was news to us! Well we have actually asked one guy to join us, but I don’t really know where that information came from as we didn’t tell any one. He hasn’t even auditioned and we haven’t agreed on anything, but there is a guy we really want to try and his name is Frederik and he’s in a Swedish Grindcore band called SPLITTER who are all in their early 20’s. He’s a really amazing singer and he’s nuts!

JA: With so many metal bands around these days, which are you favourites to listen to at the moment and who would you say are you biggest personal influences?

JN: I love NEUROSIS, A PREFECT CIRCLE, TOOL, OPETH, NILE, SATYRICON, MARS VOLTA and I’m into my 70’s progressive rock so I‘m listening to lots of old YES, GENESIS, VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR and JETHRO TULL. Its nice to listen to stuff I haven’t heard. As for influences, Anthony Jackson who used to play with Al Di Meola, a 70’s fusion guitarist. Also, Tony Levin (KING CRIMSON, PETER GABRIEL), Mick Karn (JAPAN) an absolutely nuts guy, love him and love the band. Also, Steve Harris (IRON MAIDEN) and Eddie Jackson (QUEENSRYCHE).

JA: And finally, you’ve been a part of THERION now for the best part of 6 years. What has been the highlight for you so far?

JN: Well a couple I will mention. Firstly, Wacken because it’s the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of. Plus the fact that we were finally able to do a USA tour and the fact that we were able to get on stage there and have fun is the main thing, even though the tour didn’t turn out that great. I really appreciate being able to visit all of these parts of the world that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to if I wasn’t doing this.

JA: OK, thanks for your time and all the best for the future with THERION.

The new THERION 4 DVD / 2 CD set ‘Celebrators of Becoming’ is released in the UK on May 5th via Nuclear Blast Records.

Visit www.megatherion.com