EUROPE are back

By: Jörgen HolmstedtFrom: Aftonbladet - December 26, 2002Translation by: Suzy

Will release anniversary box, and are discussing a comeback

In January EUROPE will get together to celebrate their 20th anniversary as record artists. First there will be unreleased songs on a new album. "After that it would be fun to play together if the feeling is right," says Joey Tempest.

In 1983 EUROPE's first self titled album was released. An instant success in the Swedish charts for the winners of Aftonbladet's talent hunt "Rock-SM", where the first price was a record deal. It’s been 20 years since then, and Joey Tempest, John Norum, Ian Haugland, Kee Marcello, John Levén and Mic Michaeli think that needs celebrating.

Not just the hits

"We will soon get together to choose songs for a mini-box with two CDs and a DVD. It will not only be the hits, but also live songs, demos and unreleased material," says Joey Tempest. It’s mainly from 1989 - 1991 that we have spare songs like "Wanted Man", "Never Gonna Let You Go", "Little Sinner", "Don't Know How to Love No More" and a version of "Stranded" that Joey wrote for Tone Norum.

"Some of the songs are already spread among the fans by copying, but we can release them with the best sound quality possible," says Joey.

Good package for the fans

"We also have one song that was left out from the 'Final Countdown' album, that isn’t quite finished," he says about the song "Where Men Won't Dare".

This is what he says about the DVD: "Among other things there will be live recordings and private movies. It will be a really good package for the fans."

Sometime during 2003, when EUROPE will release this anniversary package throughout the world, concerts will of course be near at hand. All the members of EUROPE want to do it, and Joey Tempest is not working on a new solo album. But Joey doesn’t want to promise too much, even though he sounds really tempted: "If everything feels good it would be great to play together again," Joey says carefully.

The singer of the band has noticed an increased interest for the band and most of all more respect for EUROPE in recent years.

Distance to the 80's

"Many people who really aren't EUROPE fans, come up to me and says that this or that song was actually good. Those things didn’t happen earlier," says Joey Tempest and laughs happily.

"People have a distance to the 80's and have noticed that we made many strong melodies with EUROPE," he adds.