Martin Sandberg (born 26 February 1971), known professionally as Max Martin, is a Swedish songwriter, record producer and singer. He rose to prominence in the second half of the 1990s after making a string of major hits for artists such as the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and NSYNC. Some of his earlier hits include "...Baby One More Time" (1998)

Sandberg was born in Stockholm and grew up in the suburb Stenhamra, Ekero Municipality.  As a child, Martin was a student of Sweden's public music-education program, and once said he had "public music education to thank for everything." Other alumni of the program include Andreas Carlsson, Rami Yacoub, and Anders Bagge.  As a teenager he sang in a variety of bands before joining a glam-style metal band called It's Alive in 1985 as their singer and frontman. It's Alive were formed by ex-LAZY members Per Aldeheim and Kim Bjorkgren on guitars, and John Rosth who had been a member of Lineout. Martin eventually dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music with his band under the nickname "Martin White." In 1988 they participated in the national rock championships and played as the in-house band at a disco in Cyprus. The band got a breakthrough in 1991, as Dave Constable of Megarock Records offered them to make a demo-record. The later debut album was originally pressed in 1,000 copies and later on given away as a free cover tape in the UK by the Metal Forces magazine.  The decision to focus on a music career paid off as they landed a record deal on producer Denniz PoP's label Cheiron Records, a BMG affiliate. After recording their second album Earthquake Visions, they released three singles in conjunction with the record and toured through Europe in 1994 supporting Kingdom Come. Earthquake Visions eventually sold a disappointing 30,000 copies, despite being released in as many as 30 countries. More importantly though, Martin also began collaborating on songs with PoP. Recognizing a talent for writing pop songs in the young rocker, PoP renamed his new protege Max Martin and eventually became Martin's mentor.

Answer the following question by taking a quote from the article: Did he have any success with Cyprus?
The later debut album was originally pressed in 1,000 copies and later on given away as a free cover tape in the UK by the Metal Forces magazine.