Gotham City (Swe)

Gotham City was formed August 1981 in the Swedish town Grubbe, west of Umeå. They released their first demo in 1982 which featured members: Ola Ohlsson - Vocals, Mårten Edlund - Guitar, Thomas Persson  - Guitar, Björn Erik Melander - Bass and Jonas Östman - Drums. The song "Borderline" was later included on their 'The Unknown' album with changed lyrics. Some of the other songs would also show up on the 1983 EP 'Black Writs'.

In 1982 they released the cult single 'Gotham City / Killer Angels' on Brute Force records limited to 300 copies. There is also a bootlegged versions of this 7" on clear vinyl. A year later they would put out their last recorded material with vocalist Ola Ohlsson; the EP 'Black Writs' which was recorded in February at Tonteknik Studios, engineered by Per Sörlin. Limited to 2000 copies, folded & glued by the band themselves. Later in May 1983 Ola Ohlsson get's replaced with Anders Zackrisson and a 9-track demo is recorded.

In 1984 their first and only full-lenght album "The Unknown" is released. This would also be their last official release. The song "The Beast Will Burn" from the album was also featured on the compilation album 'The Great Metal Attack Part 1 (1984)'.

1985: Gotham City releases a live demo entitled "Live in Umeå", these recordings where orginally made for Swedish Radio (2/3-1985) and there where small talk with a reporter between the songs.

1986: Gotham City recorded their last demo which had only 2 tracks: "Hang on & Lost In Time", did some live gigs and also got themself a new guitarist Michael Lundholm of OZ, who also made their new "bat logo".

1987, the end of Gotham City. Sadly the band would split up this year but some of the members (Anders Zackrisson & guitarist Michael Lundholm) continued to play under the name High Tension for a while and did some live gigs. Anders later joined Nocturnal Rites.

Gotham City The Beginning (Interview by Janne Stark from The Eearly Years CD booklet)
The story takes place in the far north of Sweden, in and around the big city of Umeå. Going back to 1978 when guitarist Mårten Edlund and drummer Jonas Östman formed the band Attityder (Attitudes) together with guitarist/singer Tomas Nilsson, bass player Nils Granered and guitarist Thomas Persson.

Mårten: It's hard to describe our style, but it was some kind of melodic rock, sort of jazz rock with lots of guitar harmonies, while Tomas was more of a punk singer. We only played our original songs and there is some rehearsal recording, but we never did any proper demo. Then Tomas wanted to play more punkish, and I wanted to play heavy metal so we split up.

Jonas: Mårten was really into metal, and we used to sit at his place and listen to records by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and all the things that were cooking at the time. I came from a more varied background musically. I listened to Kansas, ABBA, Led Zeppelin and punk. Björn Melander and I grew up on the same backyard, so we knew each other from when we were kids. He moved away and we drifted apart. Then we met again when we were at high school, and we found out he was playing guitar and bass. With Attityder we used to rehearse in our summer house, but it was horrible having to drive 45 kilometres just to rehearse and it didn't work. When Björn joined we could rehearse at his place, and we could practice as late as we wanted. I remember I ruined his floor with my drums. I ruined my parents' floor as well.

Björn: In the late 70s/early 80s I played guitar and sang in a band which was more of a jam type Cream/Hendrix type blues rock band. The drummer was Anders Zackrisson (who would later be Gotham City's lead singer). We did a few gigs but mostly spent our time rehearsing. Jan-Olov "Janne" Persson who plays bass on the Krogen show in 1985 played guitar in the jam band.

Ola: I was born in 1962 and me, Mårten, Thomas Persson and Nils Granered went to high school together, and then we ended up in the same class at the third year when we studied civil engineering. Me and Mårten used to sit next to each other and work on lyrics and draw logos at school. I came from the small town of Teg on the other side of the river and the others were from Grubbe, so I didn't know them from before. I was an elite swimmer for the Swedish national team, so I was sort of a local celebrity. When I wasn't picked for the Olympics team in Moscow in 1980, I lost interest in swimming. So, we got to know each other, and they saw I liked heavy metal. My dad worked for an air company, so I used to fly down to Stockholm to see concerts. That year, 1980, I went down to Stockholm to see Thin Lizzy with Snowy White at Hovet on their "Chinatown" tour and also Def Leppard opening for Scorpions. Not many from Umeå used to fly down to Stockholm so I had lots of things to talk about with these guys. It also turned out they were playing in a band, and I was really into it, but I didn't play guitar or anything. But they said I could try and sing and see how it went, so I did.

The band now featured Ola Ohlsson on vocals, Mårten Edlund and Tomas Persson on guitar, Nils Granered on bass and Jonas Östlund on drums. The band only did one gig before Nils decided to leave the band.



Ola: Nils left late 1980/early 1981 because he was playing basketball and didn't really want to commit to the band. One of my swimming buddies knew of a guy who was a great bass player, Björn Melander, who was a year younger than us. Björn's parent had a guest house where we could rehearse. I remember we started out by playing "The Green Manalishi", UFO'S "Doctor Doctor" and some Motörhead song.

Björn: As I remember it, Jonas came up with the name Gotham City in the autumn of 1981. I lived on the countryside just outside of Umeå and I had very understanding parents who let use their baker's cottage to rehearse in.

Jonas: Yeah, I came up with the name, but I'm not sure where I got it from. It's not like I was a Batman fan. It probably sounded cool, and we went – Yeah, let's go with that. I also did some graphic stuff. I mean, when you're that age you always sit there and doodle, and I made drawings of how the stage would look, guitars over there, drums in the middle and that sort of thing. Unfortunately all of those drawings got lost through the years.

Ola: Jonas wrote the song "Gotham City" and we thought it was a cool song and it would be a great name for the band, too. That year I went to a lot of concerts. I also got to know the fellow Umeå guy Lars Ekeberg who was president of the Swedish Motörhead fan club - Motörheadbangers. So, I started the Saxon Militia Guard. I remember we went to Finland to see Saxon and then we went to the Heavy Metal Holocaust festival in Port Vale, Stoke On Trent. Motörhead were the headliners, and then there was the newly formed Blizzard of Ozz, Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush, Riot, Vardis and Triumph. We were over there for three weeks and saw a ton of concerts. When I came back, we were all very stoked to become rock stars.

It shall also be noted that Ola also ran the heavy metal fanzine Monsters Of Rock together with Lars Ekeberg in 1981-1982, one of the first in Sweden.



Björn: I remember in 1981 the cassette porta studio had just arrived, a Tascam 244, and I bought one and we recorded a demo with our first two songs "Gotham City" and "Killer Angels" in our rehearsal room. We really didn't know what we were doing but we were very proud of it. Then we played it to Anders Östman, Jonas' cousin who is a very famous dance band musician, and he said - "But, you've recorded it in mono!". In December 1981, we played a big live show at a Lucia fest at the Dragonskolan gymnasium. In January-February of 1982 we finally got the money together to record at a proper studio, Tonteknik, which was a 24-channel studio owned by Per Sörlin. The only studio around.

Jonas: Björn was a real entrepreneur and initiated a lot of stuff. One day that porta studio was just there. I remember we recorded something, but it didn't turn out well. Tonteknik was the only studio around and the guy who owned it was the engineer, but he really didn't have a clue. He was mostly worried that the lights on the mixer went red when we recorded the guitars!

Ola: I remember we made that first studio recording, and we copied it on cassettes, and I wrote so many letters on my dad's old typewriter and sent to record labels, but no response. Then we figured we may as well do it ourselves, like many other local bands had done. We printed it in around 300 copies, and it cost, together with the studio, 5000 SEK (500€). I remember we secured the money through friends. It was sold at the local shops Akademibokhandeln and Burman's Music. The front cover was made by my old swimming teacher Hans-Anders Molin. He took the photo of the bat and made it look cool.

Björn: I remember we also sent some of the singles to the Heavy Sound store in Stockholm and we were very proud when they had featured us on the answering machine news message.

Jonas: I made the back of the cover together with a classmate of mine, Christer Gustafsson. We put it together with rubon letters. He was pretty good at drawing. Now, here's a perfect example of how little we knew about things. We did know that there was supposed to be stuff written on the cover, and since Christer helped me with the cover, well, let's put him down as producer. He helped me produce the back side of the cover, that's all.

Björn: After the single, in 1982, we went into the same studio and recorded the demo for what later became the "Black Writs" EP. The songs were "Spitfire", "Black Writs”, “1995”, “No Chance To Go", a cover of "The Green Manalishi", "Borderline", "Head On", "Midnight Hunter" and "Born To Rock Hard". Ola was incredibly enterprising and called around to a lot of people, including yourself, to get tips for gigs and stuff. Thomas played live with us at Hagagården and he was also on the demo, but then he left in the middle of 1982, and started playing with the punk band The Pinheads.



Gotham City - Black Writs (continues from the "Gotham City - The Eaerly Years" release)
Mårten: I remember the gig at Hagagården where Jonas spit fire, so the fire alarm went off! He loved spitting fire! He used to do a drum solo and then he went up and started spitting fire. There was also another gig at a sports hall in Nordmaling where the audience carried around Ola!

Ola: We rehearsed every Tuesday, and sometimes twice a week at Björn's place 15 kilometres south of Umeå. There were nights we could hardly get home because of all the snow. One time I wasn't home until 3 in the morning and my mum wondered if I shouldn't give this rock music up and get back into swimming. I also remember Heavy Load were playing in Umeå in 1982 and we really wanted that support gig, but since the band Mogg had won the Rock SM band stand they got the gig, and we were pretty disappointed about that.

Björn: Yes, Jonas would always spit fire! I remember he used to do it in the song "Spitfire". I was also a nerd when it came to technology and I bought some pyro stuff, took a pen which I emptied, filled it with powder, put on the cap, taped it on my bass and put on a triggering device which I activated with a 9-volt battery, so during my bass solo there was a fireball coming out of the bass for 6-7 seconds. I had  an Aria bass which I had cut the horns off and glued on sheepskin. We also did a gig in Vännäs, where my car wouldn't start after the gig, and it was minus 30 degrees Celsius. We had to be towed.



Ola: I remember before recording "Black Writs" my brother had given me an echo unit for my vocals. He had leukaemia and I made a bone marrow transplant, I think we were number seven in Sweden to do that. As a thank you he gave me the echo unit and helped finance the EP. Around this time we did our military service. Jonas received a discharge, but me, Mårten and Thomas did. Björn is a year younger than us, but he also got a discharge. I was granted a three day leave from the army to record the EP and we entered the studio in February 1983 to record. When we were finished in March, we were gonna be big rock stars! For "Black Writs" a friend of mine from the army, Anders Sellberg, did the artwork. The photo on the back, what you can't see is that we are standing knee deep in snow!

Björn: I remember we got some type of distribution deal with SOS Records. Back then we didn't know much about the music business and did most of the things wrong. We paid for the recording. A friend of ours, his father had a print shop, and he printed the covers, but they were only folded in the back, so we had to sit in the rehearsal room and fold and glue them ourselves. We received the discs in packs of 30 from Grammoplast press plant and had to put them in the sleeves ourselves. We printed 2000 copies, and we didn't receive a cent from SOS.



Ola: One Saturday in May 1983 we had a band meeting and at that meeting the other guys said - "We wanna be rock stars, so we have decided that Anders Zackrisson is going to be our new singer and we want you to be our manager”. I was so upset I just left and didn't talk to them again. They always used to talk about this guy Anders Zackrisson who was a great singer, so I should have seen it coming. I was really driven back then. I had quit swimming and I had the Saxon fan club and music was my passion. I had left the army and had no idea what to do so music was my priority. After that I got a job as a swim teacher for Ving Travel on Rhodes, Greece. I was going abroad for six months, and that's 42 years ago! From 1983-1991 I worked with Ving and SAS and lived in Greece, France, one winter in Gambia, the Canary Islands, two summers on Ibiza and in 1989 I moved to Majorca and lived there for 25 years. SAS was part owner of Spanair where I started working. I lived in Panama for a couple of years and now I live in Barcelona, working with airport contracts for Volotea airlines. It wasn't until 2002 I found out there was an interest in Gotham City! I haven't been into music since I left in 1983, but I didn't really have the talent, so I guess that was OK. I will admit I was a bit surprised and pissed off when I saw all the bootlegs so I'm happy they are being properly released now!

Björn: The way we handled the situation with Ola is really my bad conscience, but you didn't have any good people skills back in those days. At the same time as Gotham City, I was jamming a lot with Anders, who was originally a drummer but during one session he started singing and then I heard there was really something there. When he joined, he was supposed to rehearse the back catalogue, and we did a re-recording of the song "Gotham City". Just before we were going to record, someone played a prank on me. I was checking the speakers on the PA system and when I had my ear close to the tweeter, the PA was set to feedback. I went completely deaf and felt terrible. I remember the day after in the recording studio I had to stop playing in the middle of songs because of the pain in my ears. I couldn't hear anything, so that wasn't particularly pleasant, but at least it was documented.



An article in Swedish Schlager magazine (#84/1984) told the story of the dubious SOS Records label and label manager Leif Bigert
Leif Bigert has during his career proved to be prepared to use people to the limit, as long as it benefits his business. He dupes the art- ists into signing worthless contracts. He is currently prepared to ruin the members of Gotham City in Umeå. To release their mini-LP last spring they took a private loan for 16,000 SEK. It's to be paid back in March and the band still hasn't received the 12,000 they are owed by SOS.

Lars Gillén was a local record shop owner and the person behind the Brute Force label. He said:  We were promised money once a month, but we received nothing. Not until October when we managed to get 6,500 SEK because I worked at the Akademi Book Store in Umeå. We applied a purchase stop for SOS Records releases, and that worked! No matter how much we have been nagging since then it's been quiet. If you finally manage to reach Leif Bigert, he says: "Yeah yeah, of course the money is coming. It's just that my co-workers are so incompetent". Most of the time you can't even reach him. The switch- board is like a wall and it's impossible to get past it. So, I used to call the sales guys direct numbers and they did try to help."

Gotham City drummer, Jonas Östman, also made an interesting observation. The band regularly receives lists of how big the SOS Records debt is. But, that number does not correlate with what economics director Ray Pettersson says. His numbers are lower and according to him those are the booked num- bers.

- How much can Bigert fiddle with the numbers?, Östman wonders.