Rocket Magazine was a short lived Swedish music magazine in the mid-80's. It was written in Swedish, but here is an article translated to English for you.
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EUROPE
ILLNESS & MISERY
Was the price they had to pay for the new LP!
Not many hard rock records go gold in Sweden, and none of them have been Swedish yet. Will The Final Countdown be the first?
Europe's own Gary Moore is sitting opposite me, he has a cold, something that all the band members have had at times during and after the recordings of what will be their big breakthrough.
- I don't know when the record will come out, he smiles, and I don't want to know either. To avoid getting stressed, I usually cover my ears when they talk about release dates. But the last LP came out in February 1984 and within two years we have said that the new one must come out.
Well, when you read this it will be very soon February so you know what John didn't know when we spoke. Europe was distilled from the northern suburbs of Stockholm. Even before the Europe era, all the guys knew each other, even if they played in different bands. But talent and will brought them together. They were the elite. Today, their old playing buddies are still in the basements north of the capital. Some of them have made records, others only have a demo to show.
But Europe is a band that belongs in the big arenas. The real heavy rocker of the gang is the lightning-fast guitarist John Norum. He is the one who grew up with Purple, Sabbath, UFO and Thin Lizzy.
He leans forward over "Ärtan's" desk and there is a flash in his eyes when he says:
- I like heavy guitars and occult chords.
- Yngve has a style that I have great respect for.
Joey, Mic and John Levén also like rock, but they are not as heavy in soul as Mr. Norum.
Håkan Haugland has a past in jazz-rock and the music his previous gang, Trilogy, played was advanced hard rock, related to Rush.
"Ärtan's" office is large and spacious. In the middle of the floor is a white desk. John has taken a seat in "Ärtan's" chair and I am sitting in the visitor's chair. (I bet it's the more uncomfortable of the two.)
Do you think you can get "big" on the harder kind of rock music?
- That depends, says John and leans back. After a short pause he continues...it's impossible to be commercially successful. The audience is too small. But if I had made an album like that, I would have put in a soft ballad, released it as a single, and had hard songs otherwise.
The Final Countdown is actually a hard album. Or rather, it has a lot of hard songs, but producer Kevin Elson has used a coarse file and sandpaper to smooth out the sharp corners. In addition, there is a lot more keyboard on the album than on its predecessors.
- We have a keyboard player in the band now, explains John, and keyboards sound good on the radio.
The story of the LP that was delayed is long and painful. The first order was that it would come out in November. The group had been given Dieter Derks as producer. The man behind the successes of Scorpions and Accept, Germany's best producer. The album was supposed to come out in November, well in time for the Christmas rush. That didn't happen. Dieter betrayed them, he was supposed to make the extremely mediocre band Bullet first and they took longer than expected.
If he was to take Europe after Bullet, the Swedes would have to wait until February with the release. Nobody wanted that.
- So CBS in the US came up with a couple of suggestions. One of them was Kevin Elson, who had previously worked with Journey, among others. And we took him.
But important weeks had already been lost. The release was moved a little cautiously until the end of November/December. With Kevin, the guys would no longer record in Germany, a Swiss studio was chosen; Powerplay.
- Powerplay, yes. They lived in the studio and it was luxurious and all, but it wasn't my thing.
John looks slightly tormented and continues: It was far out in the country, on a mountainside. It was wonderfully warm and nice and so... But we were locked in there. No city, nowhere to go out, nowhere to relax, just the studio. We were there for five weeks and I was only in Zurich twice.
It didn't get any better when Håkan brought a cold with him, which he generously offered everyone.
Kevin, on the other hand, was liked by everyone in the band. He was a tough producer who demanded that the songs be played "live", with only vocals and solos added afterwards.
- It gives a much better live feeling, notes John.
The fact that the guys caught a cold wasn't a disaster either, until Joey also caught a cold. Then it was all sung. Home to Sweden. And new delays knocked on Hot Management's door, stepped in and settled into the release plans.
Joey tried to resist, next month there will be a new big stand. Soundtrade, a Solna studio, was rented when Joey had recovered. Unfortunately, to no avail. The germs spread across his vocal cords and his voice quickly lost its power. Now it was no use fighting back. After various courses of medication and half a week in Soundtrade, Joey and Kevin gave up. There was no Christmas release.
An American doctor was consulted. He recommended a warm climate and sunshine. So Kevin went home to Atlanta, USA. And two weeks later Joey followed. It would be either a studio in Florida or one in Kevin's hometown, Atlanta. Both are well located from a sun and heat point of view. And that's where the song was finally recorded. The gold record candidate could finally be packaged in a suggestive cover painted by a young American artist.
However, the album does not contain any songs by John Norum. All the compositions are Joey's, one of which he shares with Mic. It was intended that John would have had an instrumental song on it.
- But I pulled it in, he explains. This will be the album that will make us break through internationally and I think it's important that we include as many songs with vocals on it as possible. Maybe I'll use it on the next album.
- In fact, I don't even think about songwriting anymore, he continues. I work on the guitar and practice, that's what matters to me.
We're looking forward to hearing that guitar live again, John, because you belong on stage. In fact, a new big European tour is set to start next month. 20 ice rinks are booked all over Sweden, The Final Countdown tour.
We thank John for the chat and look for the tape recorder that is drowned in papers and gadgets on the desk, and return the room to Europe's manager.
Outside, snow, cold and darkness await, but life is hard.