During the late 80's - early 90's, In the age-olde spirit of Devil worship, second wave black metal was born in Scandinavia. But it wouldn't be until the inception of one Ofermod and the scourge of Michayah Belfagor that it would begin to take on a whole new meaning. Once-crude music to set churches ablaze to became a conduit for Qliphotic, Draconian and Luciferian magicks; the kind of stuff that transcended black metal into the realm of spiritual transformation. Serpent Noir are one of a number of other covens to have emerged from the depths of the European underground upon the path of The Dragon. Serpent Noir are a black metal band hailing out of Athens, Attica, Greece, which places them among a pantheon of talented artists both veteran and newcomer who've established the proud Greek black metal scene over the past 34 years. They are a project with a deep focus on occultism/ritualism, and their music is avant-garde and quite modern in many respects compared to that of their Scandinavian counterparts. During my latest interview, Yiannis K. of Serpent Noir invites us into the world of The Dragon where dark magick is practiced and Satanas - the Faustian spirit is channeled through dragon's fire. He also gets into Serpent Noir's latest full-length LP, "Death Clan OD" along with their most recent split release with label mates Sargeist.

Jeger

It's been two years since we last spoke. A lot has happened since then. How have you been?

A lot has happened on a personal level… We dealt with different hardships and obstacles we have had to overcome. It is not a secret that during the pandemic, I have had a street fight - an incident with multiple outcomes on a personal level. Though I must confess that - to an extent - I was happy and even eager to experience another side of the physical plane. While into custody and having more than two days without sleep, I composed the song 'Daemon Behind The Bars' which you can find in the split we did with SARGEIST. The lyrics deal with this experience: 'What is right, what is wrong? The Dragon's Magic is a double edged sword'. This incident in particular led me to take important decisions and actions on different levels.

Now, let's talk about your latest full-length album "Death Clan OD". It was released in 2020 and features the work of esteemed occultist Thomas Karlsson. How did he contribute and what was it like working with him?

We got to know each other for more than 20 years, but we met in person in 2003 during the annual meeting of Dragon Rouge. Since then, we are good friends and brothers in the Order, and nowadays we lead Dragon Rouge through Ordo Draconis Major. Well, it was only a matter of time until Thomas became responsible for the lyrics of Serpent Noir. The reason for having Thomas write the lyrics was not that I could not write them myself, but it was a matter of magical collectivism of the Draconian Knighthood. A sonic and sorcerous deed to celebrate the Dragon's Egregore.

Working with Thomas is always super smooth. Our collaboration began with our previous full length Erotomysticism, where he wrote all (but two songs - 'The Veritable Red Dragon': where I wrote the lyrics. It is a song dedicated to Thomas' indwelling magical entity, 'Daemon Deggial' and 'The Initiatrice Of A'arab Zaraq' which is a personal invocation in the lyrics of the album. No need to say his lyrics are always unique and pure Magic can be felt through his lines. In "Death Clan OD" he contributed with all the lyrics of the album. What is more, he recorded the vocals for the song 'GOEH RA REAH', for which we also did a video when he visited Greece in 2018. Just for the story, he has contributed with another vocal performance in the song 'Desert Of Azazel' from Erotomysticism.

"Death Clan OD" is based on Qliphoth which are the representation of evil spiritual forces in Jewish Mysticism. It's pretty complicated subject matter. What made you want to explore it?

This is not anything new to me. I have been leading a life connected to Initiation and Dark Magic since my teenager years when I found out and became part of a serious dark magical order, which is based in Sweden. Since then I cannot imagine my life any other way around. Well, the more I delved into Dark Magic and the Qliphoth, the more I realized the need to balance magical darkness and existentialism through artistic expression, which - in this case - is the music I compose for SERPENT NOIR (and NOX FORMULAE). All Serpent Noir releases are based on different stages of my personal Initiations through the spheres of Qliphoth, beginning from our first album SANGUIS XI. Indeed, the Qliphoth represents the evil side of the spiritual realm and the metaphysical plane, but it hasn't really to do with any "evilness" on a mundane level (you know, being ''evil'' and an asshole just for the sake of being "evil"… and an asshole ). It is the darkness one can find in the existential pursuit beyond life and death. Within Qliphoth we can find the hidden potential of all, symbol of which is the Red Dragon. In my opinion, there is no real Magic without delving into the dark side of existence and the mystery of Qliphoth.

What was the songwriting/recording process like for the record?

Songwriting was pretty direct, based on the momentum of inspiration. This is something I always stick to. We did a basic structure for the songs and then we recorded the drums, lead guitars and bass (in that order) and finally we added the vocals. Production-wise there have been some ups and downs. Main reason was that the studio owner worked on his own as a producer and came up with a super clean production, I mean, it was so clean that you would literally be able to hear a pin falling to the ground. That was not what we had in mind thus we went through different mixing. Eventually, being fully annoyed, the producer (who, by the way, is a good friend of mine and at that period was taking care of the drums for SN) deleted everything and we took the mix all over again. The result is what you hear in the record.

Satanism is of course a dominating theme and practice within the realm of black metal. How has satanism served to inspire Serpent Noir?

From a Christian (or any other monotheistic religion) point of view Black Magic and the Left Hand Path are perceived as Satanism, yet another name for the Red Dragon is Satanas or the Devil. But Satanism as a term has become a word which is being used disgustingly carelessly. Satanism - to me - is the Faustian spirit, the non-ending hunger and eagerness to awake, release and channel the Dragon's fire in all realms of existence. Personally, SERPENT NOIR is in my life just one of the outcomes of the Dragon's Fire channeling, but not the only one.

You recently released a diabolical split LP with Finnish black metal veterans and label mates Sargeist. How would you describe the experience?

The guys from SARGEIST were unexpectedly cool during the process! Real gentlemen! I proposed to write all the lyrics for both bands in order to have a common line and the guys happily accepted. All in all, I am really glad for this split, even though Serpent Noir's side of the split was apparently not that well received from the listeners. I consider this material of Serpent Noir to be good, I mean, it is totally honest and… I really like it! It comes from a certain momentum. Momentum of Inspiration deriving from the Dragon cannot do any wrong! An interesting realization was that Sargeist and Serpent Noir really fit music wise; we more or less have the very same sense of melody although differently performed.

Will you be releasing a new full-length LP in the near future? And if so, can you give us a musical/lyrical direction for the new material?

I don't think so. It will take quite some time before something new emerges from Serpent Noir.

This is perhaps my greatest curiosity when it comes to the band. Can you explain Draconian Current?

I will be as brief as possible: It is the Current one has to stream with in order to attune with the powers of existential darkness. It is the stream against the grain. It is these powers making us able to see life and existence as they truly are. The more we see and understand, the more control we gain over life and what lies beyond. But being into this, nothing should be taken for granted. Draconian Initiation is a path of harshness and difficulties are to come along with all the beauty and ecstasy of a unique path!

This is not for everyone: (and by mentioning this I don't try to sound special in any way) it is for those insane enough to step into it. There are different Dark Traditions that run through the Draconian Current that have a common symbol - the Dragon or different emanations of Her. Some of those emanations come with a different name depending on the Tradition: Drakon, Theli, Apep, Typhon, Apophis, Lothan, Vovin, Set, Quetzalcoatl, Satanas, Tiamat, Leviathan etc. Streaming with the Draconian Current (or the Typhonian Tradition) demands actual Magical practice for many years, it is a lifelong process that, for many reasons, one cannot do as a ''hobby'' and leave it when one feels bored. Playing around with It could be proven dangerous and bring total chaos into one's life. Discipline is demanded in order to approach the forces that exist in chaos of existence. For those that might read this interview and have no clue about the slightest, one example I would give in matters of approach is the practice of a Traditional Martial Art. You cannot be considered a Martial Artist by just being practicing for a couple of years. It demands non-ending practice, dedication and devotion for life.

Do you have a message for your followers?

Thank you for your interest in Serpent Noir! Hail the Black Knighthood of OD.

If a year ago someone told me that I would be talking to the mastermind behind one of the most unique bands that ever walked the earth, I would take it as a really bad joke and probably even knock a few teeth from that clown’s happy face. But hey, what do I know? Here I am talking to Christofer Johnsson about his latest masterpiece "Secrets of the Runes" and wondering how a man without any professional musical education can write 600 pages of such moving and beautiful notes? You think it’s easy? Forget about a full orchestra and choir; try to come up with a "simple track" for any three classical instruments, good luck. That said, dive into magical world of Nordic mythology and absorb the secrets...

Chris


I’m holding the first faded version of promotional material... Does illegal distribution present such a big threat to your music or music as a whole?

This is a record company thing so you are really asking a wrong person about that but I kind of understand them a little bit because when you send 300 copies of promo CDs you can be sure that there will be 3 or 4 assholes among those people that will put up an entire album on the internet. MP3s is one-thing because people want a real copy anyway, they are not satisfied with the MP3 quality but some people put up the CD quality, in like a wave format, so people can download them and burn CDs and they just want to prevent it. An the other hand, I noticed that this faded version makes it harder for people to make reviews out of it so, I’m a little bit unsure if it’s creating more problems or actually avoids them. Anyway, like I said this is really a company thing but I guess we’re going to have a discussion about this when we’ll have the next album.

I won’t be making a mistake if I say that "Secrets of the Runes" is a concept album?

Yeah, it’s the first concept album we did and it’s focused around the most central thing in the ancient Nordic mythology. That is Yggdrasil, the world tree. You can see it illustrated on the front cover. There’s one rune for each of these nine runes that it represents. The concept that we did was one song for each of those nine worlds representing one of the worlds and describing lyrically its character inhabitants. We usually have 11 songs on each album, due to the being the number of Kliffoth, and we also squeezed in an epilogue at the end and the prologue at the beginning. The prologue is called ‘Ginnungagap’ and this is the void of creation built in space when fire and ice were merging creating the world and then you have ‘The Secret of the Runes’ the epilogue, the title track of the album. This lyric is describing the quintessence of an entire concept. It’s about when Odin, the God Odin, hanged himself upon the Yggdrasil tree and he traveled through all those nine worlds and he received for each of these nine worlds a rune song.

I guess the writing and recording process was also completely different because this time you used your private studio?

Yeah, well... writing and recording are different things but actually it’s pretty peculiar because I was working on a completely different album and I already had 5 songs written for a completely different theme album and then I just woke up one day and decided to do something Nordic. So, I just laid everything aside, put the other album on ice for the future and started to work on "Secret..." Believe it or not but most of this material was written in a less than two months. So, it just came out all at once. It seemed I had a lot of inspiration sleeping inside of me during the years and once it was awoken, the door was opened everything just came out at this same time.
Yeah, you’re right, we built our own studio and we built it actually especially for this album. So, we spent half a year to build a studio and another two months to record it. It was very different of course I mean, this album is really handmade, it’s very personal because not only we built the studio when we recorded it but we also produced it ourselves and we didn’t have a conductor for the orchestra and choir so I took care about it myself also. It really is a personal album where each of the members could put a lot of its personality into those songs.

Was the Nordic theme the reason for using Swedish lyrics?

Definitely. The Swedish lyrics are something I thought I’d never ever use again but it kind of suited within this concept. Actually, there are only three and a half of the lyrics that are Swedish. One is in German, three and a half are in Swedish and the rest are in English. We used Swedish when it was not very suitable to translate it to English. Some things don’t translate very well and that’s why we kept them in Swedish. That’s why the first song is beginning in English and ending in Swedish, these lines translated to English wouldn’t make any sense.

It seems like you are very satisfied with Tomas’ writing. Are you not interested in writing lyrics?

I’m very comfortable with him doing this because first of all he’s one of my very best friends, we know each other very well and we have this same kind of interests so he basically writes the lyrics that I would like to have, I would like to try to write myself. The main difference is that he’s doing this better. It’s also his main focus, for me the lyrics were always secondary but for him lyrics are the primary thing and he puts much more energy into them that I would ever put in, which of course is affecting the final result. It’s also very comfortable for me because I write the melody lines and he can fit in the words exactly in a way I want it to. For this album I even wrote some, I don’t even know how I should call it, like nonsense lyrics that didn’t mean anything, but by just putting a lot of the words he could understand how I wanted the melodies to be bold compared to the words. How words could color the melody lines. And then he just replaced the nonsense words I put in with lyrics. So, it’s very very comfortable, it’s saves a lot of time, because to me, writing lyrics is something that has to come spontaneously. Sometimes before I could have a song laying down forever before I finally come up with the lyrics, Tomas is doing it really quick.

All lyrics are divided between male and female choirs. Did you feel that this type of expression would better reflect an album’s atmosphere?

Yes, there are not too many vocal solos but actually there are more solos on this album than before. We were never too keen on using solos but compared to "Deggial", our last album, there are quite much more. Also, they often sing at this same time but they don’t sing this same thing and it might seem like male of female choir. I don’t know why, this is not intentional it just turned out this way.

What do you think of Tarja from Nightwish? Would you ever use her voice on one of you albums?

She’s brilliant no doubt about that, but I think, because of two reasons, I wouldn’t want to do this. She’s already in a famous band and it draws a lot of attention; people would go "Oh, the Nightwish singer is singing in Therion." It would be like a circus for the media. People would focus more on that rather than on what we’ve actually achieved. We had this when Dan Swano was doing some singing for us. People didn’t listen so much what we did, well of course a lot of them did, but I think the attention was more his background. And another thing is that even though she’s damn good I don’t have a problem finding someone this same quality or better in most opera houses. She’s very good, no doubt about it, but it’s not like she’s unique. She’s very young also, I mean it’s very hard to find any of the best opera singers that are under 30. When they get 45-50 years old that’s when they sound best in my opinion. So, if you want to get the best ones go for the older ones. They have much more time to develop their voice.

You used to treat guitar as just another instrument... this time on many tracks guitar takes a lead. Was that intentional?

It’s just happened that way but still, as you mentioned, guitar is just another instrument in the orchestra, one of the most important ones of course, but it’s used quite often as a base instrument. This is a Nordic album and when you have this Nordic thing to me it seems like you have to have this element of earth. It has to be a more raw, harsher production. It doesn’t suit with this clean production we had on our last two albums so, it had to be much rawer. We put much more distortion on the guitar and when guitar is much heavier, much noisier we have to give it more place in the production. Yes, indeed there is a little bit more guitar harmonies than before but this somehow came natural by itself working with this type of songs. Since this album is heavier it was natural to use more guitars.

Tell me how different is Therion on CD from Therion in concert?

First of all, we are much heavier live and guitars are even more important. Well, we cannot reproduce exactly what’s on the record live. There’re few songs that we will never play live because that would be a fucking disaster. Some things are so complicated and so advanced that there are no choirs in a world that could do this even with rehearsing. It would be a fucking mess.

For the songs that we do live some guitar stuff and orchestration sound exactly as on the album because we take it from the album and put it on the multi-track machines.

Hiring an orchestra to do live shows is really beyond what we can afford. If the audience would be OK to pay a 100$ for a ticket I wouldn’t have a problem with touring with orchestra but who would pay that? There would be 5 people per show. That’s a problem we have so, we focus on what’s the most important, that is vocals. In Europe, where we do really well, we’re bringing 6-8 people with us for the choir. We’re going to tour South America and Mexico and even though we have this same amount of popularity there or even bigger in some places the extra cost of flying both, people and equipment, forces us to cut down the number of people in the choir. There will be three singers and the rest of the choir stuff would have to come from the track machine as well.

But if we do very well, then organizers will say "oh, Therion drew a lot of people, we made good money," and we can ask for more next time and bring the European concert to South America if everything goes well. As for the USA we not even there yet. Like last year with South America, we had some offers but we turned them down because they were not good enough and we’re not going to go and play for the absolute first time and give the audience some crap. We don’t do that. Same thing with the US, unless we get a decent offer that we can do at least a very good light version of what we do in Europe we won’t go because we don’t do crap shows. Fans deserve better than that. It would be an insult for the people that have waited for so many years to see us to get over there and then do some sloppy shows. So, we just need to raise the record sales a little bit further. The last album is still under 20 thousand in the US and we need to get over 20 thousand before we can seriously discus any possibility of a tour there, unless we would go supporting a bigger band. That would be no problem we would go and support the only problem is what band? With the style of music we are playing I can’t think of any band that would fit.

You are definitely the body and soul of Therion, but it seems like the opposite something you said few years ago, that Therion will never be a fully functional band, has become a reality.

Not really. I mean, there are some permanent members so in a way we are really a band. The people that play guitars, drum and a bass are really a part of the band but on the other hand we’re not really a band because we don’t have a singer. What kind of band is it that doesn’t have a singer? We’d always work with different hired people and it doesn’t really matter where we get those singers from. So, from that perspective we will never be a normal band because we won’t have a singer. But at least as for the foundations, guitars, drum and bass, those people are really permanent members of the musical concept that Therion is and they also have an influence on how we sound as well. Of course being the only original member of the band I will always have a possibility of saying ‘no’ if I don’t like something but we seriously discus everything together. It happened more than once that I had one opinion and they all had another opinion and I listened to them and we did it their way because there were three people thinking one thing and me only differently. So, we are working like a band.

Do you ever plan on using the full potential of your musicians on one of your albums or do you just want to avoid killing yourself at the shows by always watching your fingers?

They are really great musicians and they could play Dream Theater type of stuff if needed, but I think it would be better if they could do some kind of project for that because it doesn’t really fit into Therion. Actually the song that Kristian wrote had a lot of other parts first, there was that guitar masturbation stuff but we had to slaughter the song a little bit because it didn’t really fit into Therion. Once in a while it’s tasteful to have few of these technique things, like with the drums it’s pretty simple most of the time but once in a while you have this pretty tricky little thing coming up. Same thing with guitars but I think it’s good to keep it at that level. Therion is a musical concept mainly because of the compositions not because of the playing. Many bands, like Dream Theater... many people like their songs but personally I don’t like most of their songs. I’m very impressed with their musicianship and I respect them for that but I don’t like their compositions too much. I don’t want Therion to become a progressive rock band. This is not what Therion is about.

Next year marks 15 years of Therion, are there any surprises for the fans like "The Best of…"?

Definitely not "The Best of…." A ‘Best of’ we can do when we retire... maybe for the next generation of fans when we’ll have 16 or 20 Therion albums to choose from maybe then it will be cool to have the best of so they can see what’s up on each one...

So, maybe video or DVD?

We were talking about making a DVD compilation of all the videos clips plus of course some of the stuff we never released. Possibly there could be a few live songs from the last Wacken concert that was filmed but record company didn’t buy the rights for it yet. What’s more...? I think we can film some more during our next tour, maybe some backstage stuff, pictures, I don’t know, naked pictures of the choir [laughs]. We have been talking about a live album also but so far there are no decisions being made.

What about the future of Therion; you always try to push the boundaries, how do you see your music five years from now?

Good question... No clue. I never have a clue. [laughs] I don’t know how our next album will be. I just write music spontaneously, whatever comes out, if I like it I record it and if I like the recording I release it. That’s why it’s still a fun for me because I don’t go into a role like AC\DC that have strictly defined style and they know how they are going to sound like on their next release. I just try to do a record that I would like to buy myself. This is my only rule.

You’ve partially answered this question already, but, is there any chance of seeing you in States?

Actually, it seems like we have a fair offer to do a festival in the US in New Jersey, I think in April. If we play there, we’ll play for an hour or so and we’ll only play the new songs but at least that would be an opportunity to play in the US for a first time.

Let’s hope so.