Origin: Östersund (Sweden)
220 VOLT
 |
| Peter Hermansson - Jocke Lundholm - Mats Karlsson - Peter Olander - Mikael Larsson |
Discography:
Eye to eye - 1988 (with lyrics)Music Videos:
220 Volt - Firefall
220 Volt - It's nice to be a king
220 Volt - Lorraine
220 Volt - Love is all you need
220 Volt - Still in love (TV Performance)
220 Volt - The harder they come (TV Performance)
220 Volt - Young and wild
Notes:
- 220 VOLT was formed during April 1979 in Östersund. The musicians had first gelled in 1976. In quite bizarre circumstances, one of Sweden's best known Heavy Metal bands was founded on a round of miniature golf. When Mats Karlsson's ball went wayward it was retrieved by Thomas Drevin, who threw it back, injuring Karlsson's hand. This sparked a conversation revealing both had interests beyond golf of a more metallic leaning.
Rehearsals took place at Vallaskolan school in Frösön, here poaching frontman Christer "Frille" Åsell from another band and drawing in drummer Pelle Hansson. Some weeks later the original bassist was superseded by Tommy Hellström. In April 1979 220 VOLT conducted their debut live performance at a school dance. Club dates and other school concerts followed, during which the then fourteen year old Mike "Larsson" Krusenberg took the bass mantle. In 1980 220 VOLT performed in Stockholm for the first time as part of a youth club national convention. Their local profile was raised considerably on June 4th 1980 with a show at the Östersund Gamla Teatern being broadcast on radio. In late Peter Hermansson became their new drummer in early 1982.
220 VOLT entered the studio in June 1982 to put down seven demo tracks. Results were positive and in September Kjell Björk from Guntans Records sponsored a second session, this demo including the tracks 'Sauron', 'Prisoner Of War', 'White Powder', 'In The Night' and 'Stand By For Action'. Two tracks from this set would be launched as the band's opening single 'Prisoner Of War' b/w 'Sauron' in November. Live promotion saw a valuable Östersund support to HEAVY LOAD in December. At this same juncture, Rock music in Sweden received a huge boost when EUROPE scored big in the charts. With major labels racing to track down the next hard sensation, 220 VOLT was snapped up after CBS Records had financed a further demo.
Prior to recording the debut, Thomas Witt produced album for major label CBS Records, May 1983's '220 Volt', vocalist Christer Åsell departed to join EMPIRE then INZIGHT. His 220 VOLT tenure had been cut in the first attempts to record the debut, the label insisting his vocals were not up to par. He eventually formed the group DAYLIGHT DEALER. A swift replacement was found in Jocke Lundholm. However, Drevin was to depart, teaming up once more with Åsell in EMPIRE, in favour of Peter Olander in 1984.
220 VOLT's second album, again seeing Thomas Witt behind the production desk, was laid down over three weeks in November 1983 at Stockholm Recording Studios. 'Powergames', issued in February 1984, saw cassette versions adding an extra two tracks in 'Screaming For A Riot' and 'City Lights'.
CBS Records thought highly enough of the band to finance a continuous singles campaign and the promotion push also enabled the group to tour as support to the likes of NAZARETH and German Metal band BULLET. The band's third album, 'Mind Over Muscle', saw issue in February 1985. For the North American market the best of the first three albums were combined to form a new release 'Electric Messengers', released that June. With this album to 220 VOLT supported AC/DC in the USA.
The Swedes momentum was stalled however when all of the band, with the exception of Olander, were required to do their national service, effectively putting the band on ice. In this downtime Olander contributed to ex-EUROPE guitarist JOHN NORUM's solo album 'Total Control'.
1987 saw 220 VOLT with military obligations out the way and back to full strength and promoting their Max Norman produced 'Eye To Eye' album, touring as part of the Swedish 'Monsters Of Rock' festivals alongside TREAT and ELECTRIC BOYS.
The band ground to a halt in 1990 but reformed under the new title of VOLTERGEIST touting new vocalist Per Englund, previously with BLACKSMITH. Drummer Peter Hermansson later teamed up with guitarist JOHN NORUM. Subsequently Englund would go on to MOTHERLODE, GARBO and a BLACKSMITH reformation.
An album of previously unreleased 220 VOLT material surfaced during 1997 fuelling anticipation of a reunion. Fans would have to hold their breath for a further five years though as 220 VOLT, citing a line-up consisting of vocalist Christer Åsell, guitarists Mats Karlsson and Tomas Drevin, bass player Micke Larsson and drummer Peter Hermansson, finally got back together for an appearance at the 'Sweden Rock' festival in 2002. The band soon set to work on a comeback album, 'Volume 1', including live tracks culled from the 'Sweden Rock' event, and put in a 20th anniversary gig at Gamla Teatern on November 30th. 'Volume 1', restricted to 1000 copies, sold out within two weeks.
In October of 2004 220 VOLT signed to Swedmetal Records for an early 2005 album release, 'Made In Jämtland'. -
0 comentarios:
Post a Comment