Thalia began in France in 1985, when ZZO, Tof and Waret were still teenagers looking for the right people to play with. Fabrice Emmanuelson joined later and brought a new voice to the band, helping push their music towards a more grooved and progressive form of heavy metal.
The first album, Forest Of Minds, came out in 2000. It received strong feedback, but the band stopped soon after. Some of the music that would later become The River Of Books had already started to take shape around that period, with other ideas written in 2010 and 2013. Those songs were reworked years later, then recorded for the album.
For ZZO, Thalia still belong to the lineage of powerful, groovy and melodic heavy metal that grew from the spirit of 70s hard rock. On The River Of Books, the band bring that foundation into longer forms, progressive structures and songs that deal with ecology, spirituality, nostalgia and the damage human beings keep doing to the world around them.
In this interview, ZZO and Thierry talk about returning to old material, keeping the Thalia sound alive, writing about the state of the planet, and finding the same musical reflexes again after years away from each other.
“Our influences are part of our musical universe. They enrich it and make it evolve, but the Thalia alchemy remains unique and original.”
More than twenty years separate Forest Of Minds and The River Of Books. When you started rearranging material written between 2000 and 2013, did the songs begin to reveal new meanings to you compared to when they were first written?
ZZO: Yes, definitely. We focused on rediscovering the original intention of all these tracks by stripping them down. Some parts were probably too technical, even cerebral! [he laughs]. We only kept what seemed relevant and legitimate, so that each track would be coherent and flow smoothly.
Thierry: Eight basic tracks date from 2000 and 2001, when we were working on the upcoming album, before deciding to stop. We took six for the album: “Vision Empire”, “Athmosign”, “Flesh Paradox”, “Close to Me”, “Cries of Earth”, and “Sacred and Scared”. We also worked together in 2010 on “Traces”, “The Fear”, and “Body and Soul”. The bases of “The River of Books” and “Exaltation” date from 2013. All the titles were reworked in 2020 and then recorded. Some titles were abandoned, five or six of them.
The new album keeps what you call the “Thalia sound”, but there are also traces of Rush, King’s X, Dream Theater, Living Colour, The Police and Muse running through it. How did you approach those influences after such a long absence without losing your own identity in the process?
ZZO: Our influences are part of our musical universe. They enrich it and make it evolve, but the Thalia alchemy remains unique and original.
“we, our leaders above all, are not ready to accept the obvious. “
The River Of Books deals with ecology, spirituality, nostalgia and humanity’s destructive side. Looking at the world now compared to the late 90s and early 2000s, did those themes become heavier to write about over time?
ZZO: Life on Earth is a model of balance, harmony and interaction. Money, when elevated to the status of “supreme” energy by greed and avarice, as it currently is, only destroys all of this instead of contributing to it.
Thierry: We are tipping over to the wrong side, the side of self-destruction. Ecology seemed to be the only possible way out, and awareness was growing. Recent years have shown that we, our leaders above all, are not ready to accept the obvious. We are losing ourselves in archaic and extremely costly conflicts in terms of human lives, money and carbon footprint. Global rearmament is incredibly expensive, as are wars, proving in the process that the money needed to limit global warming, for example, is indeed available, and that the decision to use it or not for this purpose is purely political. The countries most responsible for climate change, the decline in biodiversity and the plundering of Earth’s resources are either under totalitarian or populist regimes. They confuse opinion with established facts. Global warming is not an opinion, it is a fact. The decline in biodiversity is not an opinion, it is a fact. As soon as humanity turns away from science and embraces alternative beliefs, things go wrong.
This observation adds to the anger in the discussion. Human behaviour today places an abysmal debt on future generations. There is a strong likelihood that the problems linked to overconsumption, to depleting more resources than the Earth can provide, will end in bloodshed and tears when we have to fight for what little remains.
You describe the album as “the fruit of the unique marriage of our four personalities”. After years apart and different life experiences, what happened musically when the four of you were finally back in the same room again?
Thierry: We played together for so long, especially when we were very young, that something quite unique became ingrained in us. Only bands that have grown up together experience this kind of chemistry that develops between members. There is no need to discuss for hours how to play a particular passage. A look is enough. In rehearsal or in concert, we unconsciously send each other signals that allow us to modulate our playing to better harmonise with one another.
These signals are imperceptible to the listener. They are natural reflexes. These reflexes were intact after all these years without playing together, and I know deep down that they will remain so for a long time to come.
The record carries a strong sense of groove even when the arrangements become progressive or emotional. Do you see groove as the central thread that has always connected every era of Thalia, from Forest Of Minds to The River Of Books?
Thierry: Groove is organic. It speaks directly to the body. It is a powerful medium that resonates instinctively. Using it is like addressing the other person, the listener, directly through their physical sense.
The energy of the music flows through the same channels. Melody speaks to the heart, to emotions. Harmonic structure speaks to the soul, to the inner self. Finally, the arrangements and sounds used build an aesthetic structure around these first four elements. It is by trying to combine these elements as precisely as possible that we manage to touch the listener by telling him a story on multiple levels of his being: body, soul, memories, heart, conscious and unconscious.
Groove came to us after discovering King’s X. Then, with the arrival of Fab, our singer, we developed this element, definitively integrating it into our artistic palette.
Get The River of Books through Rockshots Records.
