Europe lives beyond ‘The Final Countdown’
Frontman Joey Tempest balances nostalgia with the group’s hard rock future
Photo credit: Tallee Savage
Swedish rockers Europe have shifted gears creatively since reforming in 2004, shedding cheesy glam metal tropes for a heavier classic rock sound. Eleven years of evolution culminated in 2015 with the War of Kings, a nod to the halcyon days of mainstream metal.
This year, keeping the emphasis on new music and off hair metal may be a lost battle;The Final Countdown, the album and the song, turn 30 on May 26. Fortunately for them, singer Joey Tempest and the band maintain a positive perspective on a song that’s lauded by some as a classic gem yet mocked regularly at karaoke nights. After all, its flamboyant feel and instantly recognizable opening sequence still reach new fans — be it at major sporting events or in Arrested Development reruns, beckoning Gob Bluth’s magic show.
Tempest caught up with Crib Notes recently in advance of Europe's Sat., Feb. 6 show at the Masquerade to talk about the band’s rebirth and how “The Final Countdown” has taken on a life of its own.
What prompted the move from the once-prominent glam metal style to a hard rock sound for the band’s 2004 comeback?
When we started again, we came from different places. I had researched songwriting — everything from Neil Young and all that stuff. (Guitarist) John Norum lived in L.A. a lot and started writing tunes on his guitar with e-tuning. We got together in 2003 and I said, ‘Man, this is going to be something!’” We realized it was a new start and said let’s do this long-term and have an adventure. Let’s not even attempt to do something close to the ‘80s. We wanted to learn about recording desks, compressors, mics, and get on this journey. I think War of Kings may have been a testament of that journey. It’s got a very warm classic rock vibe. We use more mellotrons and Hammonds and pan the guitar a lot. We do a lot of stuff we haven’t really done before…
Basically, we are not doing the ‘80s stuff. This is a new band, but we love playing some of those songs live.
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There’s a popular Geico commercial where you guys play ‘The Final Countdown’ in sync with a microwave. It seems like you guys were maybe poking fun at yourselves a little bit…
Sure. I live in London and in the last 10 years, there’s been a few things on TV … One is Iggy Pop doing an insurance commercial in the U.K. He doesn’t take himself seriously and comes across great. I thought, ‘Maybe we can do this, if we stipulate a few things.’ We said to Geico that we’d do it, but we needed to research the director, read the script, and provide them with a new version of 'The Final Countdown.’ Not many people realize that’s not the ‘80s version. We also wanted to look the way we wanted to look. We wanted to do a good job, but we also wanted a bit of humor in there. We had fun doing that, and we didn’t expect it to be played as much, honestly.
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When you guys were working on the song 30 years ago, did you have a feeling in the studio that this was something that could define your careers, or was it just another album track in your minds?
It was a period where I experimented a bit more as a songwriter with keyboards. But we didn’t really know. We knew it was really different and unique, and we wanted to open the show with it. That’s all we knew. We had no clue it’d be perceived as a classic … Actually, we recorded most of the vocals for ‘The Final Countdown’ in Atlanta. The rest we did in Berkley and Stockholm.
Now it’s played at sporting events and in movies. It’s one of those ever present parts of pop culture — in America, at least.
It’s the same all over the world. It’s what brings people to the band, and it’s a reason we can tour a lot.
More than one veteran metal band has told me that they have to tour now more than ever to make money. Do you guys have to stay on the road to do this a career?
It’s the way it is. If you’re a good band, you can survive. You have to work the merchandise and work your website. It’s a different world, but what we like to do is find the best producers and studios and write good songs. The audience might want to go out for a nostalgia kick, but they also want to know that you are trying — that you are working hard on new stuff. People about 10 years ago stopped doing albums. They were like, ‘Oh, it isn’t worth it!’ But you have to make an album and show people where you’re at and what you’re doing.
Do you have more creative freedom now compared to the ‘80s and ‘90s when you had a major label deal?
We have control to find our own producers and write our own songs. But to be honest, we’ve always done that. Outside of a few songs on Prisoners in Paradise, we’ve written our own stuff. But we did have some restrictions with CBS in New York. They didn’t want to release live albums. And obviously sometimes you had to argue about singles. On the whole, we had a lot of freedom then.
Is the openness to push creative boundaries this time around what keeps you hungry?
We don’t go out and do ‘80s package tours or stuff like that. There is room for nostalgia at our shows, that should be true for every band. But in the studio, we don’t believe that. In the studio, we try to move it forward.
Europe plays the Masquerade (Heaven) on Sat., Feb. 6. $26. 7 p.m. 695 North Ave. N.E. 404-577-8178. www.masq.com.