History and purpose

The idea of having a Therion Store was thought of by me and was based on some facts that I was thinking of. First of all there was this idea of renting a server totally of it's own (a dedicated server), which would be much faster, more reliable and also allow much bigger downloads. The membership fee of Therion Society (that was more or less financing the old server) would never be able to pay for such a thing, so the idea of opening up a store selling only Therion or related stuff begun to take form. I started to think from a fan point of view what is missing in other stores on the internet, what would motivate purchasing a Therion album at Therion Store instead of somewhere else? Well, besides the fact that buying at Therion Store supports the server, which is of course a good reason in it self, I found out there could be several other things. These where the biggest I could think of:

- People that don't have credit cards can usually never order something in many international on line stores. PayPal is an alternative, but basically nobody accepts cash in an envelope. In the underground scene this is how nearly all demos and T-shirts are sold, so theoretically there's nothing that stops a mailorder to use it as well. But it's "too much trouble" or simply gives a too "unprofessional" impression accepting cash probably. Sucks...

- Many mailorders have minimum orders or flat fees with the postage, so it's not possible or very expensive to buy just one CD or one T-shirt. They don't seem to think it's "worth the trouble" to sell just one CD. Sucks...

- Merchandise is generally too expensive. Merchandise company, management, band, distributor, store... too many parts in the line of business have to share the income and that is pushing the prices upwards. It shoudn't cost a fortune to get a T-shirt or a hood with the band you like. Sucks...

By solving those issues, it would indeed be an interesting store, but the there's also another wish from fans that could be taken care of and by that make it the ultimate store for any Therion fan!
As commonly known, most fans like to have their albums signed if the chance is being given. But the possibilities for signing sessions with the band are of course limited to when we are on tour and in most cases there are no time for it or the concert promoter don't have any interest in arranging such a thing. And many fans also live in countries where it's not likely Therion will ever play live. So the answer is obviously to open up a store where all CD's are signed! It makes the purchase of the CD very personal, signed and sold straight from the band and shipped directly to the hands of the fan! Isn't that how every band with roots in the underground scene dream of how it should be?
When facing reality, there's a hundred reasons why a band really needs a record company (and certainly when being signed to such a great one as Nuclear Blast who really care about the artist and let them have their artistic freedom), but it's a nice thought to have a small part of the distribution made in this way, kind of returning a little to the roots when our demos (back in 1989/90) were sold directly to people.
To put a fingerprint on each CD copy shipped to a listerner...

Christofer Johnsson
March 31, 2005