XT page by Rickard Bransell

Band Biography

In the end of 1991 Björn Stigsson who had been the guitar player and frontman in Leviticus for about ten years teamed up with Sonny Larsson former lead singer of Motherlode. Björn and Sonny have been friends since 1987, when Sonny did some of the vocals on Björn's solo album. They now began to plan for another solo record from Björn but after a while they changed their plans and XT was formed. At the same time Sonny had been asked by Yngwie Malmsteen to become the singer in his band but he chose to continue his collaboration with Björn. The name XT was Björn's wife's idea and it means Christ. Soon after that they got signed by Viva Records in Sweden and they also signed a distribution deal with Frontline Records in America. In October 1992 they realeased their first record with the same title as the band. XT didn't have any permanent lineup at this time so on the first record they had three guest musicians. Michael Ulfsgärd from Jerusalem played the drums and on bass they had Håkan Anderson from the first Leviticus linup and P-O Larsson.The music style on the first cd was rock and hard rock with much keyboards. Björn said in HM issue#53 "Our first album was a little thin in terms of production, but it still opened up a lot for us, especially in Japan." XT also made a few live performance this year. For example they played on two festivals in Dutchland which the Dutch TV filmed. XT now decided to concentrate on doing good records instead of being a intensive touring band. And in the summer 1993 the band went in to Björn's own studio and started to record their next album. So in October 1993 they released their second cd Taxfree. This time they came up with a much heavier album with better production and less keyboards and more guitars. With Taxfree they reached a big selling success with over 10 000 albums sold only in Japan. In Sweden the biggest Newspaper Aftonbladet voted the song The Silent Cry as the most powerful song in 1993. On Taxfree XT sounded more as a band but they still haven't any solid lineup. On this album Mick Nordström of Modest Attraction hit the Drums on keyboard they had Niklas Johnsson and P-O Larsson played the bass on all off the tracks this time. After the succsess with Taxfree XT went in to the BTS studio again and started to record their third album. In march 1995 they finally released Extended Empire which took the band in to a new heavier direction. Björn's guitar playing now sounded heavier than ever and Sonny used more variation in his song style. XT got many great reviews for Extended Empire in different music magazines all over the world. For the first time XT now had more or less permanent members with Björn on guitar, Sonny on vocals, Kjell Andersson(original Leviticus member) on drums, Niklas jonsson on keyboards and Johan Stark on Bass. And on the live shows they also had a second guitar player. With this lineup they now bagan to play more live shows for example they played on Hard Rock cafe in Stockholm. They also played on a christian festival in Stockholm in the summer 1995 together with Bride and Veni Domine. There have been some rumors on the Internet that says that XT have stopped existing but Björn says "XT haven't really stopped existing, but we have decided to take a brake for a while. Today it's harder to sell hardrock and metal music and we also like to take a little break that's the reason why we did it, but we still have our recordcontract left. We didn't have any plans for a new record right now, but we don't know what will happen in the future. Today I work together with a guy called Andreas Rickstrand and we works as a production-team in my studio. We call our self Rico & Bear and make a lot of recordproductions and remixes to many different record companies." If you want to find out what kind of music Björn are working with today go and check out the BTS digisound studio's homepage there you also can find some more information about XT and Leviticus.