EUROPE

The beginning of Europe

In 1978 Peter Olsson, a bass-player, started a rock group, Force together with John Norum on guitar and Tony Reno (real last name was Niemistö) on drums. Force was the beginning to the forthcoming Europe. Joey left Roxanne and joined Force as singer. He wrote songs of high class, which he composed on acoustic guitar. Then he played the songs in front of the other members on John´s electric guitar. In 1981 Peter Olsson quit Force, and Joey started to play the bass. Soon they found another bass-player, John Levén. But then he got a very nice offer that he accepted. Yngwie Malmsteen wanted to have him in his band Rising Force. So John Levén left Force for Rising Force. And their bass-player Marcel Jacob went to Force. After a while John wanted to leave the group because of Yngwie, who acted like a dictator, and was obstinated to sing although he didn´t had any good voice. And John would like to play with a group with a good singer. Marcel accepted that he and John changed groups again.

In 1982, a man called Thomas Erdtman (later Europe's manager) arranged a competition called "Rock SM" (Swedish champion ships in rock), where local rock bands could send in demotapes to join the competition. He got 4 000 tapes, and he listened to all together with his family to get the best tapes. It
was Joey´s girlfriend who convinced Force to record a tape with some songs, and they made a tape. The songs was "The King Will Return","Seven Doors Hotel", "Rock On", "Children Of This Time"and "Paradize Bay". But they didn´t post it because they didn´t thought the result was good enough. So they skipped and forgot about the competition. Only a couple of days before the deadline, Joey´s girlfriend posted it without their knowledge. Force joined the first part of the competition. They started to train hard because they understood that this was their big chance. Joey didn´t thought the name Force was good enough so he found Europe, and the other members of the group liked it. Thomas Erdtman would like to find a new
pop band like Gyllene Tider (with Per Gessle, the Swedish Roxette-star), which was very popular at this time, and not a long hair hardrock band. But while the part-competitions took place he was amazed about Joey Tempest´s voice,
which was the best of all the singers he had heard on the demo tapes. And he really liked the whole band Europe.

Europe passed all the part competitions and got to the final and won. And if like that wouldn´t be enough, Joey won the price as the best singer and John Norum won the price for the best guitarist. The first price was a record contract. Europe recorded their debut album "Europe", which was a low-budget record with a quite bad sound quality on a small record company. But it went very popular and sold very much because of the high class of the songs. Europe started their tour all around Sweden. While they were touring, a Japanese rock journalist bought Europe´s record in a import shop in
London and was impressed. When he went back to Tokyo he played it for a record company with the result that the record was released in Japan. The record went straight up to the top-ten list, much because of the single "Seven Doors Hotel" which was a gigantic hit in Japan.

Europe´s second album "Wings of Tomorrow" was released in 1984. It got great reviews and sold very well. This album included the big hits "Open Your Heart" and
"Dreamer". Joey was playing keyboard both on the record and on the tour. But to become the right live feeling on the tour, and have the singer Joey in the front
part of the scene they decided to get another keyboard player.They found Mic Michaeli (real first name is Gunnar), who came from the band Avalon. Avalon also came from Upplands Väsby and played the high class Toto-style of music but a little bit harder. The drummer Tony Reno didn´t show the same motivation in his playing any longer and didn´t really fit in with Europe´s hard work to be a big band, so he got fired. So they found Ian Haugland (real first
name is Håkan). This set of Europe is that who will conquer the whole world, Joey Tempest, John Norum, John Levén, Mic Michaeli and Ian Haugland. While the group were on their big tour, they acted in the Swedish movie "On the Loose". Joey wrote the songs "On the Loose", "Rock the Night" and "Broken Dreams" which they were playing in the movie. "Rock the Night" made Europe very popular.


The big break-through, "The Final Countdown"

After many delays Europe releases their third successful album "The Final Countdown" in May 1986. Some reasons why the album took so long time to release was that the cover wasn´t finished. The american´s who made the cover started to work with it when the album was finished. So Europe had to begin their tour one month before the album was released. But when it finally was released it got the best reviews an album can get. Kevin Elson produced "The Final Countdown". The album was sold 6,5 million units and the single in 7,8 million.

The 3rd of September 1986 Europe went to Japan to begin the tour, which was very
successful. When almost the whole world begun to discover Europe, John Norum leaves the group. He couldn´t go on any longer with that hard pressure, and he wanted to begin on his own project. They also had a little bit different music taste, and he sometimes wanted to play the guitar a bit harder, which didn´t fit so goodin the songs. John liked Scorpions and Dokken while the rest of the group liked Toto and Journey. So Europe had to find another guitarist, and the only one they could think about was Kee Marcello (real name Kjell Lövbom), because they wanted a really good Swedish guitarist. Kee played in the rockgroup Easy Action. When he first got the offer he said no thanks, but changed his mind later.

Kee was training in the Europe songs while John Norum accepted to continue touring with the group until Kee was ready. John´s last concert with Europe was the 31th of October 1987 in Amsterdam. Kee has been one of Sweden´s absolute best guitarists for a long time. He is like Joey also a very good keyboard player, producer, arranger, song writer and singer. Kee have also played with a lot of other Swedish artists and have participated on many records. Kee´s first concert with Europe was in
Dortmund in Germany in front of 16 000 people and 50 millions saw them on the television. Now they are the most popular artists in Germany, and top the most hitlists. In March they are beginning their first world tour with the debut in Norway.

After all the no 1 placings on the top lists Europe got the nicest one the 2th of November, no 1 in England, which is a difficult market. In that time the album top the
lists in Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Schweiz, Luxemburg, Monaco,
Portugal, Finland, Poland, Austria and England. In the rest of the countries in Europe they were on the lists with nice placings. The single "The Final Countdown" are no1 in 26 countries. In January 1987 Europe almost got only America left to break through in. And in the spring when they toured in America the group was bigger than they ever could dream about. "The Final Countdown" climbed fast on the Billboard list, number 8 was the best placing. You can still hear Europe songs in big events like in the ending ceremony of the Olympic Games in 1988 where they ended the whole event with "The Final Countdown".

Europe started their America tour in San Francisco the 15th of April. They played in 23 towns and traveled 14565 kilometers. It was the first time a Swedish band made a that big tour in America since ABBA in 1979. The rockgroup Journey´s manager Herbie Herbert worked with their tour.

Now Europe had captured the hold world, first Japan then Europe, America, Canada, The Soviet Union, Australia, South America and South Africa. Europe moves from Sweden to Nassau, Bahamas. The reason is the extremely high taxes in Sweden. Later they moves to a house on an island in West-India called Turks And Caicos.


America tour

Europe starts touring together with Def Leppard in America as "special guests". They got really great reviews for that tour. At the same time the new single "Superstitious" is released and are climbing on the lists. In 1988 it´s hard times for hardrock groups. The only bands that are doing great are Def Leppard, Guns´n Roses, Bon Jovi and Europe. After their Def Leppard tour that ends the 23rd of august Europe goes back to Europe to start their promotion for the new album "Out Of This World", that was released in July. It got great, even better reviews then "The Final Countdown" got in some places, and it´s climbing fast on the Billboard list. But when Europe leaves America the album stops at number 19 on the list and beginning so fall slow. They had to leave America because the management didn´t let Europe continue for a little longer time, they had a deal that the management didn´t wanted to change.

When it goes down in America, Europe is more popular in many other parts of the world. The second single is a new version of "Open Your Heart". In November they are beginning their world tour. The first place to play in is Bombay, India in front of 60
000 people, a big success. Then they are going to Japan and then to Europe for 54 concerts. The third single is now released, "Let the Good Times Rock". The album is not the same success that they were hope. It sold 2,3 million units, but their world-tour
was very successful. The album was to over-produced. Their manager Ron Nevinson decided how Europe should sound, he didn´t wanted to listen how they wanted to sound. Europe wasn´t too happy of the result. They sounded much better on the demo tapes.

In 1989 Europe tours constantly. Europe are playing for example at a massive outdoor show at Milton Keynes with Bon Jovi, Skid Row and Vixen for 60 000 people. They are playing some of their new songs, and the audience really likes them. This time all the members writes the songs together, and not just Joey. In 1990 they are touring in South-America and South-East Asia. Then they are spending time in the West-Indies, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles writing and recording their forth album.

While Europe are working on the new album they got an offer to play on a big festival in Chile. They are playing for 30 000 people two nights in a row. Again this is very successful. The fifth album took very long time to do. One reason was that Europe wrote to heavy songs, the record company wanted some more soft songs that could be hits. Two years earlier they had many great songs that they wanted to be on the album, like "Yesterdays News" and "Break Free", but they were a bit to heavy. On the new album Europe have broke up with their manager Thomas Erdtman. Their new manager is Herbie Herbert. In September 1991 the album "Prisoners In Paradise" is released. The producer of this album is Beau Hill, who have produced Ratt and Warrant.

Europe kicks off a new world-tour with a New Year´s Eve show at the Tokyo Dome as "Special Guests" to Metallica. The name of the show was "The Final Countdown" although Metallica was the main band. Now Europe often got three guitarists on the scene. Joey is playing often, and Mic Michaeli are playing guitar when he isn´t playing the keyboards or Hammond. After the Japan show they goes back to Europe for their big Europe tour, which starts in Helsinki. Europe are playing in some extra shows acoustic. This shows how great musicians the hold band is. This shows was really great and very popular. Right after that it got popular to play acoustic, for example MTV started the Unplugged show, and I think it got something with that great result Europe showed to do.


The end, is the beginning of something new

Then they decide to take a break, which now seems to be a long break, because they haven´t been playing together for four years now. Joey worked together with John Norum in 1992 to do his single "We Will Be Strong". In 1993 Joey started his successful solo career, which results in a solo-album in 1995. Joey will release his second album in March 1997. John Levén and Kee Marcello is working on different projects. Kee released his solo-album "Shine On" in 1996. Ian Haugland is working with the band Brains Before Beauty. He is also recording the new Trilogy album, but
under the name Haugland-Hoffgard, on which Ian is singing. And like that wouldn´t be enough he is touring with the cover-band Let´s Party. Mic Michaeli has been producing a young Swedish singer. Then Mic and John toured with Glenn Hughes and played keyboards and bass on his album "From now on...". In 1993 the album "1982-1992" is released with seventeen of Europe´s songs. It´s not impossible that we will see a live-album of old songs in the future. Or maybe the whole group together...

DISCOGRAPHY:

1983, Feb "EUROPE"

1984, Feb "WINGS OF TOMORROW"

1986, May "THE FINAL COUNTDOWN"

1988, July "OUT OF THIS WORLD"

1991, Sep "PRISONERS IN PARADISE"

1993, "1982-1992"

(c) 1998 Andre's World II