There are so many reasons why the Swedish melodic death metal scene has been so well received worldwide throughout the years, but I firmly believe that one of its greatest bands that should under no circumstances ever be left out when discussing this subject, is none other than Gates of Ishtar from Luleå. I still recall when I discovered them by accident when I was an enthusiastic metalhead in high school, being around 18/19 years old while searching for more extreme and underground gems that were somewhat like unsung heroes of their era that later became crowned jewels. Since their initial reunion in 2015, Gates of Ishtar re-released and reissued their first three full-length albums on physical media and digital streaming platforms, and thanks to the overwhelmingly loyal support from their fans, as well as the labels and other personnel helping out with the re-releases, I think it's safe to say that their revival brought them to a better place than they would have ever imagined. During this year, the band teased some bits and samples of their new material for the upcoming album, which still doesn't have an official release date, title or a label at this point in time, but I believe we are all very much looking forward to it with great expectations. A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to the band via Facebook, and I got in touch with their two guitarists, Tomas Jutenfäldt and Andreas Johansson, both of whom I have interviewed live on Zoom. During our conversation, we've discussed about various subjects such as the band's reunion and their upcoming album, but we've also revisited some of their special memories from the 90's and we've even touched on the story about Gates of Ishtar being ripped off by the German label Invasion Records, which later went bankrupt and its owner Maja Majewski eventually disappeared. If you wish to know more about the band's backstory and experience the unearthly delights which surround their music, I hope you will follow me on this Bloodred Path, as we witness The Dawn of Flames and entrance the world unfolding At Dusk and Forever. My noble ones, I present to you, Gates of Ishtar.

Vladimir

Thank you so much guys for coming here. Heartwarming welcome to both of you. How are you guys doing?

Tomas: Well, thank you very much. I'm doing well here in Stockholm. Just came home from work and had some food, so everything's great.

Andreas: Yeah, same for me. I've been home for a couple of hours, making dinner for my wife. Also been working. I'm located like an hour by flight north from Tomas right now. 

So how's the winter season coming along? We already had a very crazy snowstorm here last Friday.

Andreas: Up here, I think that you can notice the global warming or something because, we're in the end of November now, and last Friday, it was around 8 or 10 degrees plus. It's not common right here, at this time of the year. It's supposed to be a lot of snow and degrees below zero. But, it's just a thin layer of snow and not that cold, actually. Winter is coming.

Even in November, we had temperatures about 10 degrees, and all of a sudden, the snow came like it's around the end of December. At least we're not going through the 40 degrees temperature. I know you guys had some issues with that during September, if I recall.

Tomas: Yeah. I think we have Summer here, at least in Stockholm, a bit into September. But then we also went to Mexico and had even more Summer. So, when we got back, it was a bit colder. But there is no snow here in Stockholm. We had snow for two days I think, just a little bit, and then it started to rain, so now it's, like, 10 plus again.

So, the reason why I brought you guys here is because, it's been a while since anybody has talked about Gates of Ishtar, and I recall that a new song sample was released somewhere around this year. So far, I want to know how the new material is coming along as we speak?

Tomas: It's going really great. I think we have 4 songs that are pretty much complete. Maybe they need some arranging, but the general songs are done, and we have a lot of more ideas for new songs as well. Andreas and Mikael, our singer, and the rest of the guys up in Luleå, they get together and rehearse and try out new things. And, they send stuff to me so I can put guitar solos on them and harmonics and stuff like that. So, it's going really good.

Andreas: I agree. We try to come together every Sunday, for a couple of hours, maybe five or six hours, and everyone is bringing their ideas. Markus is coming up with these new and fresh ideas on the bass guitar, and then we just try to put it together, two guitars, bass, and drums. And then when we leave, for the next week until the next Sunday, Mikael is sitting home by himself trying to arrange the vocal parts on the recorded material. And as Tomas says, everything is going really great. We have riffs for a lot of songs. But it's a little bit different from before when we all lived in the same town. It's so much easier to just go to the rehearsal room to sit there with everyone, than to bring up the ideas and to have inputs from other guys. It's not harder, but it's different to do it this way. We don't have any other choice basically right now for the moment. So, it's going great.

It's great to hear that. But so far, what's to be expected of the new Gates of Ishtar album? Will you guys be continuing that classic approach that you had on the previous three albums, or are you trying to incorporate some new ideas along the way?

Tomas: I think when we get together and play music, it just sounds like Ishtar. And maybe it's because we've been on a break so long from the last album that we released, until now when we started playing live again. It's like everything has been frozen in time. So, when we started playing together again, we just picked up where we left off somehow. And I know that, I've been playing the songs that we have finished so far, and we also did them live both in Czech Republic and in Mexico, and the response we've been getting from the fans and from other friends is like "It sounds just like Ishtar. How did you manage this? It's exactly the same". So that's good to hear, but I don't think that we're trying in any way to make it sound like it should sound. This is just what comes out when we play, I think.

It's like muscle memory, I guess.

Tomas: Yeah. Something like that.

So far, have there been any kind of negotiations with any major labels to put out the new album?

Andreas: I think that up to date we have, at least not been speaking, but we have offers from two labels. I mean, everything is so different now, like 25 years later than when we released our other albums. I think about all the deals with the percentages and everything, like the complete contract. We're not really up to date in what to expect when you sign a record deal. So, we are trying to take it easy and to finish our stuff, and then I think we will maybe try to reach out to some other labels as well. But there's an interest and we have offers.

Even though it's been like 10 years since the first official reunion of the band, it did go on hold for a brief moment until it was later reactivated in 2022. During all these years, you already had your 3 albums re-released and reissued with updated artworks and it was released through various labels, one of them being Century Media Records. What can you tell me about the whole decision regarding the rerelease of your first three albums?

Tomas: Well, we were gonna reform the band and do a reunion concert at the 20 years anniversary, I think it was back in 2015. We were gonna play live at Partisan in Germany, but then our drummer Oskar, he died very suddenly, very tragically, and, obviously we didn't do that gig. But then we got an offer from Century Media to rerelease the three records through them and on vinyl for the first time and with updated artwork, so we did that as a tribute to Oskar, our drummer. Everything went on hold again, until we were contacted by the promoter for House of Metal, where we did the gig last year in November, pretty much a year ago today. So yeah, that's what got us started again.

I have to say that even though time goes on, years go by, the reputation of the three albums that you've put out is still very strong. I really gotta ask, do you have the impression that the interest from fans and the media has shifted to an even bigger scale towards the band since the reunion?

Andreas: That's a good question. We got interviewed in Swedish television a couple of months ago, and I think that the reporter had also followed us during the years, and he had some good views on the phenomena about Swedish bands from the 90's that are out in the world, playing festivals and touring, like Bewitched and Gates of Ishtar. I don't know, because a lot of the people in the audience that we see live now, I don't think that they even were born when we released the first album. I don't know, it's hard to compare, but I mean, the response on the gigs that we've been doing and all the response through social media and stuff when we release news and updates are really impressive. And, we are really glad to receive all the great support, because it wasn't obvious to continue the Gates of Ishtar story even though we played in Umeå, but a major decision for that was that the response was so massive, and we had so much fun doing that, I think.

I guess we can easily say that the years have treated you for the better. Even though you're an older band, somehow when a band comes back after 10, 15 or 20 years, they somehow manage to be even more relevant than they were back in the day. I mean, a lot of the bands in that 90's era, they somehow managed to be even more attractive to people. I guess it's somehow that people found something very special and very mesmerizing about the bands. Personally, myself speaking, like you said, some of your fans weren't even born when your albums were released. I was born around when your third album was released in 1998. So, I was lucky to have discovered you way back when I was in high school. It's great that you still see generations like me or even a bit older coming into discovering these bands and finding something special about them. But generally, they don't really know much about you guys, so were there any special memories from the days in the 90's when Gates of Ishtar was relatively new and working on those three classic albums?

Tomas: Well, there are so many great memories from the 90's. Something that I remember very fondly when I think back of it is when we recorded our first album. For instance, when we recorded in a studio called Tico-Tico in Finland, and we had such a great time. And we were also great friends and just having the adventure of our lives, only like 18 years old. So very fond memories and also, which you can find on YouTube, the gig we did in Umeå as well, back in, I think could have been '96 perhaps, when we played at Galaxen, together with Dissection and other bands, so that's pretty big. Actually, I didn't even know who Dissection was at the time hahah. That came later for me when I started to listen to it. So, it's quite fun to think back about that.

Do you Andreas have any special memories from that same period?

Andreas: As Thomas says, that whole era is just filled with great memories from a really strong friendship between five guys that were very young. We started when we went to the last 3 years in the school system to rehearse together. I think that one of the greatest memories for me was when we received our first record deal with Spinefarm Records. We recorded the demo, sent it out to a couple of labels and then we received a call and an express letter from Finland. I think it was on Saturday; it came in the mail and they told us to not answer any other offers and to be fast to sign the contract with them. I mean, that was a big thing for us, when you're just 18/19 years old and an uprising metal musician. So, I think that was one of my strongest memories from that time. And that was like the beginning of it all. I think a lot of people are talking about A Bloodred Path as the legendary first album from Gates of Ishtar still stands today and that's a really good point for the album, I think. I remember that we sat there in Tomas' apartment, I think, when the mail came through the door and it was a record deal.

Tomas: Yeah. And I also remember another fun thing that I came to think about now when we, when we got the first advance for the record, both me and Andreas went out and bought a PlayStation, the first PlayStation. It was brand new on the market, so we used our money for PlayStation and some games, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, I remember. Oh. So, really fun memories from that time.

Awesome. What a great way to start your PlayStation experience, am I right? But since you mentioned Dissection and, saying that this was actually your first encounter, that you were not really familiar with the guys, I really wanna know what was the encounter like with that band, since you're both one of the very crucial Swedish melodic extreme metal bands of the time?

Tomas: Well, to be honest, I remember seeing some cool looking dudes backstage at the gig, looking really serious. I mean, we were just kids from the north of Sweden, so I didn't really know what's happening. Maybe Andreas has some more on that hahah.

Andreas: I don't know about that, but when I went to my parents' place, and my mother was cleaning up in the attic, she found a couple of posters from gigs we had done. And I think that we played with Dissection two times, and then there was Katatonia, Dark Tranquility, At The Gates as well. I think, Gates of Ishtar, at least from the beginning, we had, like kind of an expression you say in Sweden when you're not that dead serious. I mean, we got some kind of crappy reviews in Norwegian black metal zines when we released our first album which was like "Gates of Ishtar is like an amusement park metal" and stuff like that from the bone hard Norwegians at that moment, but we were kids, we drank beer, we played music, we had sausages, burgers and pizza. We had like the sparkle in the eye. When we met, we weren't like the dead serious guys, we were like, okay.  By the way, I was familiar with Dissection and all the bands at the time, but yeah, I also think that they were a little bit more serious than us. So, they didn't take the first contact if you understand what I mean.

Yeah, I do. The thing about the Swedish scene, at the time you had a lot of these melodic bands. These weren't just bands that were taking influences from your regular death metal and black metal, but when it comes to melody, they took it a lot from the New Wave of British heavy metal, even the prominent heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Mercyful Fate, also even classical music. They had like new classical influences that were integrated into their playing. Back then, what bands did you guys look up to and what were your biggest musical influences at the time?

Tomas: For my part, all I listened to pretty much was Iron Maiden. I mean, all the albums from the beginning, or actually from the Bruce Dickinson era mostly. Peace of Mind, Somewhere in Time and Powerslave, I was really into that at the time and still am, but in another way. So that was one thing that I always played when I picked up my guitar. I was trying to pick out Maiden songs. I'm sure that comes through in some way in Ishtar music as well, but Andre, Niklas and Mikael did most of the songwriting. But I think you can pick up some Maiden harmonies here and there when we play, but Maiden mostly for me.

Andreas: I think we all have different music we listen to. I think that at that time, I was mostly into Norwegian black metal, they were early Emperor albums, Limbonic Art, Entombed, Dismember. I mean, all kinds of brutal music, but mostly at that time, I was into atmospheric black metal music, because there was some kind of a certain feeling about that. And, it still is. I mean, I try to fall back to the old classic albums. I listen to Vargrav when I bike to my work. It's a Finnish black metal band of Ville Pallonen and it sounds like he's only been listening to Emperor and Limbonic Art and released the album, I think a year ago. So, the old classic still stands very strong. But, I mean, everything, Maiden, Dio, all kinds of heavy metal bands. There weren't only one or two bands, because there were a lot of bands. Everything that's good, basically.

I'm actually very glad that you gave Vargrav a shoutout because I remember when I discovered their second album Reign in Supreme Darkness that was released in 2019, which everybody said In the Nightside Eclipse - the reimagined version and everybody went fucking crazy, and everybody realized that Werwolf from Satanic Warmaster is part of it. And I guess you could easily say that it is one of the greatest black metal projects of recent years, like you even mentioned the new album which came out last year. I think it was around December, actually. And it was pretty good too, I gotta admit, but that second album is…

Andreas: Yeah. It's brilliant. I thought when I listened to it or when I've been listening to it a couple of times, I thought "Yeah, it sounds a bit like old Emperor" and then I read the comments on YouTube and we're basically just "this is shit because it's only Emperor", you know. I mean, yeah, it might be only Emperor, but it's still good. I don't care, basically.

I gotta ask, since we already touched on the subject of your albums, I got the impression that you guys didn't seem to be that lucky with the two albums, "The Dawn of Flames" and "At Dusk and Forever", because they were initially released by Invasion Records. The problem was that there were these unapproved artworks which were either stolen or plagiarized. Were there any serious legal issues involved at the time because of what happened?

Tomas: I don't really know what happened to him after, the guy's name was Maja. I think we're not the first band that he screwed over, but he's got quite a reputation from what I know. I can tell you that we were not happy when we saw the final artwork on "The Dawn of Flames" at least. I seem to remember that we had an idea for another album cover, and another album cover was discussed and approved or something like that, but I can't remember even what it looked like. It's so long ago. Do you remember, Andreas?

Andreas: No. No, I don't. But, I mean, that guy went underground, and actually just a couple of weeks ago, I saw like some kind of a compilation on YouTube from the most shitty and terrible album covers by Invasion Records, where they'd actually discussed all the people or all the bands that got ripped off by Maja Majewski. And then, "The Dawn of Flames" was there as well. I mean, we were so shocked when that that cover came up, but when you have a little bit if perspective to it today, the updated cover is great, but I mean, I think that the Vision Merch in the US, they printed the old album cover, and I would like to have a long sleeve with the old album cover, it's so tragic-comic in some kind of way, if you know the story behind it. But, I mean, he disappeared. I think that we got ripped on a lot of royalty payments as well. He just went on the ground, that guy.

Tomas: Yeah, I don't think we saw a dime from "The Dawn of Flames".

Andreas: No. We got ripped off.

Honestly, I'm not surprised that all this eventually led to Invasion Records being bankrupt, since obviously disastrous decisions lead to disastrous results, and it's really hard to trust labels when you either have no creative freedom or no percentage income or even bad promotion. Did you guys have a hard time trying to recover from this sort of issue that you have encountered?

Tomas: Not really. Not for me anyway. I mean, we stopped playing somewhere around that time. I can't remember exactly which year, but sometime after everything went kind of on a hiatus, and I moved to Stockholm, and Niklas, our bass player at the time, moved to Stockholm as well. So, the band kind of split up anyways. So, it all fell through.

Andreas: But I also think the first thing that we discussed about new offers from record labels, I think that, all the events that happened during that time has made us a little bit more curious about when we're going to cooperate with the label to release our new album. We want everything to be exactly as we want it so that we don't take the risk of signing a contract for 10 albums in 10 years or something, you know, some stupid contract. So, we will definitely read everything with 10 eyes before we print our names on the paper again.

Tomas: Yeah. Definitely.

But on the positive side, it's evident that you guys did recover because you're still active today, but of course, a lot of bands still have to be very careful about what they're getting themselves into, especially when you have these very shady labels all around, no matter if they're South American or even Central European, they can fuck you up badly.

Tomas: Yeah. Definitely.

When it comes to bands like yourselves who play melodic black or death metal, they usually hail from various parts of Sweden like Gothenburg, Stockholm, Strömstad and so on, you guys are from Luleå in Norrbotten county, and you also had another band from there which is The Moaning. What is the metal scene like in Luleå or in the north of Sweden in general?

Andreas: The current metal scene up here, I think it was really blooming the times when we released our demos and the first records. And as you said, we had The Moaning, we had The Everdawn, we had Scheitan, we had Satariel from Boden, and then in Umeå we had Nocturnal Rites, we had Throne of Ahaz, Bewitched, we have Naglfar as well. Umeå is not considered to be north of Sweden because it's 300 kilometers south from us, but, I mean, up to date today, The Moaning doesn't exist, The Everdawn doesn't exist, Satariel has quit. Pierre is still active with Scheitan, they released a couple of records and he has signed a contract with a Greek label and just put out a new record. The music is not what it was back in the days. It's more like, I think, more doom-ish gothic metal. And then we have Dark Funeral, who also had the origin from Luleå, but Mikke moved down to Stockholm quite fast. So, they were not actually an active band in Luleå, but he is from Luleå. So, I think that it's us and Scheitan that is active today. I don't know too much.

Tomas: Well, I don't really know about the current music situation in Luleå, but I haven't really seen anything about it. I think it's quite dead, unfortunately, nowadays.

Andreas: But, I mean, everything was so different back in the days. I mean, we had a complete school building with 3 stories with all the classrooms that were remade to rehearsal rooms and there was a guy working there, and you could borrow instruments. You could actually practice 24 hours a day. I mean the scene was really kind to young people that didn't wanna play football or ice hockey or basketball or something. You had the opportunity to do that. And maybe there's a demand today as well. I mean, young kids like music. It might be a couple of more bands coming up if they actually have the opportunity, because now you have to search yourself for a rehearsal room. I mean, when you're 16/17 years old, you don't have the money to pay to rent a rehearsal room in the city centre. That's not possible. I mean, I think we paid like 100 crowns a month to rehearse there.

Tomas: Yeah. It was subsidized by the state. We paid like pennies for it, really. And we also have access to a recording studio in the basement. You had to pay a little bit more for that, but still no big money. I think when we recorded our first demo, I think we each paid something like 2 or 300 Swedish crowns per band member for the whole demo. So, you can't really do that nowadays. Not that I know of, anyway. So, we had all the opportunities and the support from the government and all of that. I don't really think it exists in the same way anymore.

Andreas: No and it's quite obvious also when you walk the streets in the town. I mean, sometimes I've been thinking about it like "Wait, I don't see any metalheads anywhere". I mean, back in the days, we were everywhere, there were metalheads everywhere, not only on the gigs. And I think it's like that if you go to Stockholm and Gothenburg, I think you only see them at the gigs as well. You don't see them going around in gangs in the city centre. I mean, basically the connection was so strong in the 90's. It's sad to see. I mean, it's a great culture, and it's a great opportunity for younger people to be able to come out and do what they might like to do. They can't do it, basically.

Tomas: But I think we will probably see it more again. I mean, everything goes in circles, more or less. I mean, look at fashion or whatever you're looking at. The same type of names that people used in the 40's, what people name their children. Everything goes in circles, and I think the same will happen with metal as well. So, hopefully, maybe in a couple of years or in the 10 years period, maybe we'll have that resurgence again.

Andreas: That would be great.

Yeah. I agree, it goes, then it stops, and it goes again, it's just a general circle of life. Things happen this way. But still, even though things change over time, bands like yourselves still play a crucial role in the development of the scene and you're also inspiring others that come after you and that shows that your music stands the test of time. I'm generally curious to know, are there any current Swedish or non-Swedish black or death metal bands that you guys like or that got your attention?

Tomas: Well, one band, I haven't listened to them really a lot yet, but I will. It's a band called Grima. I think they're from Russia, from Siberia, something like that. I really like the sound of that. And, I know they're releasing an album in February or something like that. I actually pre-booked on vinyl as soon as I heard it, I said I have to get this. So, every now and then, you'll come across something that just gets your attention for some reason. But otherwise, for me music goes in period. I play a lot of guitar now, but I don't listen to much music nowadays. It goes in waves. But when I do listen it's a lot of 80's metal and a lot of more melodic metal stuff like Wintersun. I really had a Wintersun period when they released The Forest Seasons, and then I started rediscovering the back catalogue and stuff like that. So, it goes like this for me.

Andreas: Yeah, and if I look at my search history on YouTube, what bands I've been listening to. It's Archgoat, Vltimas, and then we have the American band Morta Skuld from Wisconsin. And then Vargrav, the Netherstorm. I've been listening to Dissection. And, also, the Ukrainian band Sidus Atrum, that's fucking brilliant.

Tomas: Yeah, I love that. I love that.

Andreas: And also, an old Swedish band that I've been listening to maybe in the last 5 days. It's called Internal Decay. They released an album called Forgotten Dream. I think that's all they put out. That's amazing.

Thank you, guys, so much for the interview. It's been a pleasure talking to you, and I hope that I'll see you guys in the near future, and, good luck with the new album. Are there any final words you'd like to say?

Tomas: Oh, thanks a lot for taking the time to speak to us. It's really fun to do these interviews and all five of us look forward to recording a new album and presenting to our fans, and I don't think anyone's gonna be disappointed by that.

Andreas: Hope to see you guys at a venue somewhere in the near future, because we will try to take all opportunities to go out and play, both the old and the new Ishtar songs. Really looking forward to it, and thanks a lot.