Early in 1983 the band was close to settling the deal with CBS/Sony. CBS had received a demo that Mike Eriksson, the bands old friend, had supplied them with. They liked what they heard and Mike was on the phone with CBS on a few occasions and they offered to pay for another demo. The band recorded another tape swiftly and sent it off to CBS. When they received it, they offered a deal on the spot. Thomas Witt (who produced the first three albums) was sent to Östersund to "meet and greet" with the band. The band rehearsed with Thomas Witt and a few new songs were presented. Thomas worked on some rhythmical and lyrical things and a few arrangements. The band rehearsed like crazy after he left and prepared themselves for the recording of the first LP (vinyl back then you know…)

In April of 1983 the band headed to Stockholm for the recordings. Excited guys!! Peter Hermansson, Thomas Drevin, Christer "Frille" Åsell, Mike "Larsson" Krusenberg and Mats Karlsson got off the train and the journey of their lifes had just begun. They were making their first own album for a major record company. Thomas Witt came to meet them at the station and they were off to where they were going to live for the next 10 days…An old rehearsal place, that belonged to a succesful band called Factory had to serve as hotel for the guys! Beds were fixed and and a place where they could get something to eat was found. Now they were off to the studio. They met up with engineer Thomas Ljungqvist (who sadly passed away in August 2002) and together they started to get the gear in place and a soundcheck going.

10 days were booked for recording AND mix! Not a whole lot by any standards, but the band was determined to make it. The backing tracks were laid down live in the studio so everyone had to try and get it right. The basic tracking was done in 2 or 3 days. However, when they were recording the vocals,"Frille´s" voice wasn´t in it´s usual shape and it didn´t quite work out. He graciously stepped down and told the band to carry on, finish the album. All felt really bad about it, but decided to keep on ´til the album was finished. Their friend Jocke Lundholm was contacted and asked to come down and see if he could help out. At first he didn´t believe it, but eventually hopped on a plane and hurried straight to the studio. Some of the songs he knew already and they were tried right away. Some were totally new and had to be learned from scratch. Mats or Thomas or Peter H would sit next to him while recording, giving cues and showing where to start or end. Not the ideal situation, but at least they got the vocals on tape.

At last they were finished. A new album (planned) and a new lead singer (not planned). The band went home and started to rehearse with Jocke. A couple of shows were to be played in conjunction with the release of the first album. They thought about a title but decided that the album was going to be called simply "220 Volt"!

In June of 1983, the band played their first shows with the new line-up.

Jocke Lundholm, vocals
Thomas Drevin, guitars
Peter Hermansson, drums
Mike "Larsson" Krusenberg, bass
Mats Karlsson, guitars

The first show ever was in Stugun, where Peter Hermansson grew up. The next day was in Östersund. The album was just about to come out, so the interest was big. Local papers weren´t in favour of the band at this point, but the crowd was. The album was released in the summertime which traditionally is a weak salesperiod, but managed to sell more than expected. The band played shows, but didn´t embark on a fullscale tour. The biggest show was on the re-instated Storsjöyran ( a big festival in Östersund) where the band met 6000 crazy fans! The success of the first album made the record company push the band for another one, as soon as possible…The album "220 Volt" ended up getting a release in 7 other countries at that time, and a few more later on. Read more about the recordings here.

Work began on writing new material. This time the band knew they were going to do another album and that was extra inspiring. As opposed to their first album, when they had a lot to choose from, they now wanted all new material. The autumn of 1983 was spent in the rehearsal place but some shows were played. In the middle of October they cut a demo of 11 songs. They got thumbs up from Thomas Witt and the record company, so the studio (Stockholm Recording) was booked once again and the recording was about to start in November.

CBS came to see a show where the band played some new material. They were a bit frightened when they saw the band live, cause it sounded much heavier than on the demo. They never tried to change the band though, and they couldn´t..

Powergames was recorded differently than the first album. First of all, the band was granted 3 weeks to record and mix, that´s twice as much time as the first album. The production had more input from the band, since they now had some experience. The situation outside of the studio improved aswell, they now had a rented house to stay in whilst having time off. Not that there was much time off, but still…. The band moved away slightly from the idea of playing live, and went from that to doing more overdubs instead. The album generated some Volt classics such as "Firefall", "Airborne Fighter", "Mistreated Eyes" and "Child Or Beast". The band thought that the rest of the material could´ve been improved upon, had they been given some more time before the recordings, but they were still satisfied with the majority of the album. The album was released in 18 countries at the same time, so things were improving for the band. Read more about the recordings here.

The release of "Powergames" was set for February 1984. And when the album came out, the band had undergone another change in the line-up. Peter Olander had stepped in instead of Thomas Drevin. The band felt at that time that Thomas (who was a very important songwriter for the band) wasn´t quite putting in as much as he used to. This was another sad departure, but so it happened…

When the album came out, it was marketed in a different way than the first album, and made a greater impact. The band started to see their name in charts from Germany and France for example and the spirits were high. This time the band wanted to tour in support of the 2 albums, so things were set up.

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