The band was originally formed in 1979 by Mats and Thomas. Christer followed shortly thereafter and after a year Mike was onboard. Peter was the next guy in and the line-up was complete. In November 1982 the band released their first single "Prisoner of war / Sauron". That´s 20 years ago folks !! This single has now become something of a collectors item and is sold for ridiculous prices today.
In November 2002, 220V celebrated the 20th anniversary of this single by, releasing the new album Volume 1, a releaseparty and a concert. With the same line-up as in 1981 - 1983.

                  (More pics from the anniversary here)

Below you can read 220V's own reflection on the 20th anniversary in a personal letter from the band.

The first time we started talking about getting the "old" band together again was at a nice dinner we had on the christmas holiday 2000. It took about another 6 months before anything really happened, but then we realized that the 20th anniversary of our first single was only about a year away. Now we had a goal…

Recording something was necessary…We wanted to re-record the songs from the single and something new if we could dig something up or write something new. The band has lots of demos since the old days and most of these songs weren´t on the first album "220 Volt". So while listening to those songs we found things we thought we could try… And some of it ended up on the new album "Volume 1".

Anyway, along the way we were offered to play at Sweden Rock Festival which we did on June 8th 2002. Apart from a few warm-up gigs that was the first time this line-up was on a big stage for almost 20 years. That experience was incredible, we did this cause we wanted to have some fun, and ladies and gent´s, that´s exactly what we had. The weather was perfect, the sound was good and loud, and spirits were high. We smiled our way through that one…

Next step was to prepare the anniversary which was in November 2002. We recorded the album very simply in a rehearsal room outside Stockholm, and another one in Östersund which we used to record the vocals. The album got finished somehow and the cover was made and so on..We had a finished product that we called "Volume 1" This is the first actual album that this line-up finally made, hence the title.

We wanted to play at Gamla Teatern (The old Theatre) in Östersund, which is an historic building in itself and a very important place for the band. So we booked it and arranged with sound and lights. Now we only had to rehearse and get a setlist together.

We started the anniversary weekend on Nov 29th by inviting lots of old friends to a releaseparty.. This turned out really great and many said they hadn´t had so much fun for many years. That makes us really glad, that was the whole intention. We went up onstage and did a short set for our friends(not our very best gig, but fun fun fun). We played, "On top of the world", "Don´t come my way", "Woman in white" and "Prisoner of war". We wanted to save ourselves for the concert the next day.

So finally we were there, the end of the journey as far as the anniversary was concerned…Saturday Nov 30th 2002 will live in our memories for a long time. It´s almost impossible for us to describe in words how we felt that night. The response from the crowd was inf****n`credible. Way beyond our expectations. A big round of applause to all of you who came to see us and helped out in making this such a special event for US! We hope to be showing you some stuff soon on this website. We´re waiting for some tapes and stuff but check back!

Now we only have to figure out what to celebrate next!

Special thanks to: 4 More Fun, Anders at O´Leary´s, Ulf Karlsson, Musikbygget, Jörgen and Robban for all your help
/220 Volt