The band formed in Gothenburg as Icewind in 1988 by members Christer Örtefors (vocals/guitar), Alban Herlitz (lead guitar), Casper Janebrink (bass) and Tommy Carlsson (drums). All the money earned from gigs went into a recording of their first demo. Produced by John Ballard in TUFF Studios, the tape gained some recognition locally but record companies were not yet willing to sign them to a serious contract. In 1990 Casper and Tommy, encouraged by their musician-fathers, abandoned ship to form what was to become the famous danceband Arvingarna.


The name Icewind briefly changed to Hot n'Spicy before a British biker gang inspired the permanent change to Road Ratt. They added the extra "t" in Ratt to have equal amount of letters in both words for the logo to look balanced.


With Ola Johansson (bass) and Patrik Herrström (drums) as replacements the band participated in an international band contest called Band Explotion. Out of 800 Scandinavian contenders they reached top 4, and the local press started to take notice. Determined not to be a talent show phenomenon the band now focused on their live act and on writing new material for a second demo. Alban Herlitz however sneaked one more tape away to Rockslaget, a local competition arranged by ABF and Göteborgs-Posten.

As it was a local thing the band decided it was a good opportunity to test the new material, and agreed to participate.
As 138 bands were reduced to 20 during the course of the competition, Road Ratt started to look like clear favourites. To further enhance the show Christer Örtefors decided to lose the guitar and concentrate on the singing. Fredrik Stenberg, Patrik Herrström's childhood friend, was called in, and the band became a 5-piece in time for the semi-finals.

Together with eight other bands they reached the finals and went into the studio to record two songs for the album that showcased the finalists. The songs were Money and Bad Girls, and the studio was once again TUFF Studios.
The finals took place at Liseberg's main stage, and the audience was estimated to be about 14.000. Being huge favorites, and with a large crowd of fans up front, they were declared winners at the end of the evening.


The prize for winning was the recording of a single but the band instead took the money and cut a 6-song demo with producer Pär Edwardson with ambition to shop around for a deal. But because of the media attention offers already came pouring in from various record companies and the evening tabloids speculated in what label would finally get their signatures. The band brought their new producer and settled with MNW - at the time home to Imperiet, Peter LeMarc, Wannadies, Nationalteatern, Thomas Di Leva, Wilmer X etc.

Source : Wikipédia