{"id":5264,"date":"2012-05-29T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=5264"},"modified":"2013-07-20T12:01:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T12:01:48","slug":"feature-europe-05-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-europe-05-12\/","title":{"rendered":"EUROPE – Meant To Sing The Blues (May 2012) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

EUROPE – Meant To Sing The Blues<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nMay 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

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Europe (l-r): John Leven, Mic Michaeli, Joey Tempest,
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Pic: Michael Johansson<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Touring September 2008 full-length Last Look At Eden<\/em> \u2013 their eighth overall \u2013 Swedish rock outfit Europe penned the composition \u2018Doghouse\u2019. Once touring for that record concluded, vocalist Joey Tempest began writing in London while Europe\u2019s other members assumed songwriting duties in Stockholm, Sweden. Tempest initiated several songs, including \u2018Bag Of Bones\u2019 and \u2018Riches To Rags\u2019. \u2018Not Supposed To Sing The Blues\u2019 arrived early in the process. Tempest travelled to Stockholm to rehearse with Europe. The group met producer Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden \/ Led Zeppelin<\/a> \/ Dream Theater \/ Black Country Communion) at an old studio in the city during October-November 2011, worked with him for one month, and subsequently began recording.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard the good stuff Kevin did with Joe Bonamassa,\u201d reveals Joey Tempest, vocalist and co-founder of Europe. \u201cWe heard his production on songs like \u2018The Ballad Of John Henry\u2019 (from the February 2009 album of the same name), and \u2018Blue And Evil\u2019 (from March 2010\u2019s Black Rock<\/em>). When we heard those songs, we realised he was on the same page as we were. We were on the same mission, doing warm classic rock music. We had the idea. We called him, and he said \u2018Yeah, I\u2019d love to produce Europe. They\u2019re a very underrated band.\u2019 That clinched it for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really takes care of every member of the band. He likes musicians, and he also believes in great songs. He pushed us to do better; we did four or five takes of a song, and he\u2019d say \u2018Hang on a second. You guys have one more. Let\u2019s do it this way, and try that approach.\u2019 He really pushed us, and he also made us work in the old-fashioned way \u2013 song by song. That means you more or less finish a song before you start the next one, which means you give everything to one song. You have a different sound for that song. You get into the world of that song, that lyric, that sound, and then you finish that and move onto the next one. That means all the band members are there from day one until the last day. Everyone\u2019s a big family chipping in with ideas, so it\u2019s really a great atmosphere to work in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Europe\u2019s relationship with a given producer usually doesn\u2019t stretch beyond one album, though in Kevin\u2019s case the assortment could possibly make an exception. \u201cIt\u2019s funny you asked that, because we were talking about it the other day,\u201d the singer notes. \u201cWe always change producers, but with this one we might make an exception. I was joking with him when I said \u2018We always change producers, but this time it\u2019s gonna be difficult to change (laughs).\u2019 He said \u2018You do what you like, but I had a great time in Stockholm and a great time with you guys.\u2019 He really stepped up. He does a lot of records; he can do ten records in a year sometimes. He works fast, but I saw it in him. He really stepped up, and put in a lot of hours on the Europe record. He really did a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Look At Eden<\/em> was arguably a watershed album for Europe. \u201cIt really opened things up for us,\u201d Joey agrees. \u201cIt was our third comeback album and eighth album overall, and it really started bringing the younger audience and some rock magazines onboard. Different countries started coming onboard for the new Europe, and Bag Of Bones<\/em> I think will do that even more. We\u2019re getting more and more countries jumping on the bandwagon to like the new Europe, and it\u2019s kind of cool. The UK has been onboard for a few years now, so we\u2019re quite pleased with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In cutting Bag Of Bones<\/em> however, the frontman feels that the band \u201ctook it a step further, and went over the edge. We let go of the past, and even had to destroy the past to do this. If you hear \u2018Riches To Rags\u2019 you just realise that we were writing the song, and thought \u2018Hang on. Let\u2019s destroy the past, and move on.\u2019 We had a song called \u2018Requiem For The 80s\u2019 as well. It\u2019s only called \u2018Requiem\u2019 now, but it was a feeling we had. \u2018Let\u2019s move on. We\u2019ve done that bit, so let\u2019s do something else.\u2019 A few songs on Last Look At Eden<\/em> touched upon this a little bit, songs like \u2018Catch That Plane\u2019 and \u2018Only Young Twice\u2019. They touched upon this more bluesy, straightforward rock side, and that\u2019s what we wanted to do with this album \u2013 classic rock with a blues influence. This is more honest; it\u2019s more real, more spontaneous, and recorded live. We haven\u2019t fixed much on this one; it\u2019s a very open and honest record.<\/p>\n

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Joey Tempest<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Pic: Michael Johansson<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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\u201cI think we\u2019ve progressed, we\u2019re a bit more crazy, and we\u2019ve developed as songwriters. I think playing wise we\u2019re getting deeper, and our lyrics are getting a bit deeper. I think there are more dimensions to the band, and Bag Of Bones<\/em> shows those different dimensions and different depths. That\u2019s what I think personally, lyrically and musically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though striving to let go of the past, fans aren\u2019t always receptive to such a direction. \u201cThey put up a little bit of resistance,\u201d Joey confesses. \u201cBands like Rush though changed their style so many times and their fans are there and they\u2019re there in droves. There are so many because you want a band to take you on a journey as well, but you get a little bit of a shock sometimes. I\u2019m like that with a band; if I hear they\u2019ve changed their styles but still doing good stuff, I will follow them. I still think we have some great tunes on there. I actually think there are stronger tunes on this one than on Last Look At Eden<\/em>, but Last Look At Eden<\/em> had some great ones too. We\u2019re going on a journey, and I hope the fans will follow us.\u201d<\/p>\n

One past track associated with Europe time and time again is \u2018The Final Countdown\u2019 (from the May 1986 album of the same name), arguably the group\u2019s signature tune. Having performed the number live on countless occasions, one would forgive Europe should they find \u2018The Final Countdown\u2019 tiresome nowadays. \u201cNo, no,\u201d the mainman responds, however. \u201cWe love playing it live. We don\u2019t play it at home, rehearse it or anything, but we do play it live. I think there\u2019s a place for nostalgia, a little bit of nostalgia with live shows. If I went to see Black Sabbath<\/a> or something I\u2019d love to hear \u2018Paranoid\u2019 (from the September 1970 album<\/a> of the same name), and if I went to see Led Zeppelin I would like to hear \u2018Rock And Roll\u2019 (from November 1971’s Led Zeppelin IV<\/em><\/a>) or \u2018Kashmir\u2019 (from February 1975’s Physical Graffiti<\/em><\/a>). There are certain songs that you\u2019d like to hear, and we realised that with Europe fans there are certain songs like \u2018The Final Countdown\u2019, \u2018Rock The Night\u2019 (also from May 1986’s The Final Countdown<\/em>) and \u2018Superstitious\u2019 (from August 1988’s Out Of This World<\/em>) that they\u2019d perhaps like to hear. That\u2019s cool, but we are also incorporating more and more the new songs because they\u2019re working and because we\u2019re having some success. We can put some new songs in the set, and it\u2019s amazing. We have four new albums to put in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Older fans unfamiliar with Europe\u2019s newer material will be pleasantly surprised. \u201cA lot of people are familiar with our new stuff, but there will be a small portion of the audience that come to see the older songs,\u201d Joey concedes. \u201cThis is a decent rock band, and I think they get taken aback with hearing the new songs and hearing them live. It seems to be working. We\u2019re gaining momentum, and we\u2019re getting more and more fans. Whatever we\u2019re doing seems to be working (laughs). If you have good songs though, you can express them slightly different. That\u2019s what we\u2019re doing with our albums, because then it keeps ourselves happy and we push ourselves a little bit. We can\u2019t do albums that sound the same. Some bands do that like Mot\u00f6rhead and Iron Maiden, and I respect that. They do great stuff, but for us it\u2019s kind of different. We like every album to be slightly different; we have new producers every album, and new skills. We just wanna go on a journey all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have done all these albums if they were similar. I mean, if we had started in 2004 and just done one 80s-styled album then that would\u2019ve been it \u2013 we would\u2019ve done just one album. We said though \u2018Let\u2019s go on a journey. Let\u2019s do different types of albums, and let\u2019s make it an interesting journey for us and the fans.\u2019 It has worked; we\u2019ve done four different types of albums now but like you said, there\u2019s something in there. There\u2019s decent tunes which means you can do that. There has been some timeless stuff on the last few Europe albums, definitely. We\u2019re getting the hang of it, and there are some great tunes. I\u2019m really proud of some of the tracks on Bag Of Bones<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Europe (l-r): Ian Haugland, Mic Michaeli, John Leven, Joey
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Pic: Fredrik Etoall<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

In discussing Bag Of Bones<\/em>, the wordsmith reckoned that Europe finally expressed themselves \u2018completely without restraint.\u2019 \u201cI think everything you do is a learning curve, a journey, but now we\u2019ve arrived we just let it flow,\u201d he shares. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even analyse it or try too hard. It just started to come naturally to us; the English language, the playing, the blues influences. It\u2019s amazing when you get to this stage as a rock band when you can do albums like this. It\u2019s absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Album track \u2018Doghouse\u2019 was previewed during touring commitments for Last Look At Eden<\/em>. At Sj\u00f6historiska Museet in Stockholm, Sweden on August 3rd, 2011, blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa \u2013 also of rock supergroup Black Country Communion \u2013 guested live on the tune. \u201cWe got to know him,\u201d Joey informs. \u201cHe\u2019s a great, down to earth guy, and we asked him through Kevin if he wanted to play on our record. He wanted to, and put slide guitar on the title track \u2018Bag Of Bones\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lyrics to title cut \u2018Bag Of Bones\u2019 were the first that the vocalist authored in preparation for studio album nine. \u201cI was very tired, and feeling a bit melancholic after the Last Look At Eden<\/em> tour,\u201d he discloses. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what the hell to write about, so I started from a darker place. I just felt like a bag of bones, and that was the first set of words that came out. \u2018Bag of bones, I\u2019m a bag of bones.\u2019 It started like a nursery rhyme, and turned into this huge, humungous track in the end. That was just a feeling though. It was great to be able to write lyrics from that state of mind. I\u2019ve never done that before. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Bag Of Bones\u2019 was about an empty feeling, but it was also written during the London riots. The chorus \u2013 \u2018My city lies in ruins \/ In the stone cold light of day \/ And I\u2019m sifting through the rubble \/ How did it get this late\u2019 \u2013 just slipped in because I was watching TV, and I was sitting in London. Being a Swedish person and this happening around me with a young son and my wife here it was quite different, a strange feeling for me. That turned into that lyric. The reflections I have are more from being a Swede though. I\u2019ve never been in contact with that growing up outside Stockholm, and it\u2019s like I said in the lyrics. How did it get this late? How can it be like this today? It was also a different feeling for me though, having a young son in the house. This was going on in the same town I live in, which was quite strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Generally speaking, the lyrics throughout Bag Of Bones<\/em> are of a personal nature. \u201cThey\u2019re very honest, straight,\u201d Joey acknowledges. \u201cThey\u2019re about being in a band or about having friends like I have, and the situation we\u2019re in. The last song on the album was written after seeing a Martin Scorsese directed movie called The Last Waltz<\/em> (1978), which is about The Band doing their last performance (on November 25th, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco). They had a lot of friends come onstage, and I was toying with the song I wanted to be played at the last Europe show as the last song. That\u2019s the idea of the closing song of all closing songs, \u2018Bring It All Home\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Directed by Patric Ullaeus of Revolver Film Company, a music video was filmed for the song \u2018Not Supposed To Sing The Blues\u2019. \u201cIt\u2019s more of a 70s Led Zeppelin kind of video,\u201d the composer surmises. \u201cWe were in an old castle outside of Gothenburg. There\u2019s a warm 70s feeling to the whole thing, like this album. It\u2019s a tribute to classic rock basically, and that video is cool. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll do one or two more music videos. I really hope so. \u2018Not Supposed To Sing The Blues\u2019 is the first video and the first single, but we are definitely keeping this as a long campaign. We\u2019ll be touring all this year and all next year, so there\u2019ll be a lot of time to release stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018Not Supposed To Sing The Blues\u2019 alludes to purveyors of the style. \u201cThere are basically different meanings to the song, one of them being these people coming from nowhere like Jimmy Page from the county Surrey,\u201d Joey elaborates. \u201cHe came out and changed the music world forever, forming Led Zeppelin. Malcolm and Angus Young came from the streets of Glasgow, coming out into the world, forming AC\/DC, and turning the world upside down. Elvis Presley did the same thing. Were they supposed to do this? I don\u2019t know, but it\u2019s amazing what they did. There\u2019s a lot of tribute. I do a lot of references in the lyrics. It\u2019s also autobiographical; it\u2019s about our lives, and our relationship to classic rock and rock music. It\u2019s a bit of a life story as well. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, in the beginning we were turned down by a lot of record companies. They wanted us to cut our hair, and sing in Swedish. We thought it was kind of impossible because we wanted to tour in the UK. How in the hell can we do that if we sing in Swedish? All of our influences were British bands. It started with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but then it went onto UFO, Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, and Whitesnake. All of us in the band met when we were 14, 15, 16-years-old, and we\u2019ve known each other all our lives. We have all this in common, and we believed in ourselves. We believed that we could be a touring band like Thin Lizzy, and that was the main thing. \u2018Not Supposed To Sing The Blues\u2019 is a little bit of a middle finger to those record companies as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer\u2019s fervent admiration for seminal British rock groups has influenced Bag Of Bones<\/em>\u2019 lyrical content. \u201cFor the first time on this record, I\u2019ve written as an Englishman,\u201d he professes. \u201cI think, dream and talk in English. I\u2019m married to an English girl, and I\u2019ve lived there on and off for 20 years. For the first time, out of a melancholic state I started writing and it just flowed. I didn\u2019t even translate, or write things down. I just let it flow, and it was amazing for the first time. I can hear Swedish bands or Norwegian or Danish \u2013 Scandinavian bands \u2013 and I can tell immediately if they\u2019re Swedish or Norwegian and so on, but I can\u2019t tell with Europe anymore. This is an international powerhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cover artwork duties for Bag Of Bones<\/em> were handled by Ulf Lund\u00e9n. \u201cHe lives in Gothenburg, and you can check his work out,\u201d Joey encourages. \u201cHe did an album cover (March 2011\u2019s Hisingen Blues<\/em>) by a band I like called Graveyard, and they\u2019re from Gothenburg too. I saw this album cover, and I heard the music. I really fell in love with his work. It\u2019s a fantastic album cover he did, and I just thought \u2018We have to get this guy.\u2019 We called him up and he was really into it, wanting to do a Europe cover. It took a few months back and forth, but then we ended up with this great cover that\u2019s gonna work great for vinyl and posters. It has a lot of details, a lot of hidden messages, and a lot of cool stuff. It goes back to the vinyl days of making a cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople just think \u2018Let\u2019s do something simple so people can see it on the shelves,\u2019 and I don\u2019t believe in that. I believe that you should put some work into your cover; it gives more depth to the whole project, to the music. If you blow our cover up on the screen in detail \u2013 in high resolution \u2013 there are so many things to discover.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin Shirley the producer emailed me to say \u2018This is an amazing cover. Every day I notice new things.\u2019 A lot of work has gone into this cover. We call that the Desk Of Doom. We don\u2019t know if that guy\u2019s dead or if he\u2019s sleeping, but he\u2019s been through a lot that guy. He only has a few keys on his typewriter, the keys to write \u2018Bag of bones.\u2019 He keeps writing it over and over and over again, just like Jack Nicholson in The Shining<\/em> (1980).\u201d<\/p>\n

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Europe (l-r): Mic Michaeli, John Leven, Joey Tempest,
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Pic: Michael Johansson<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

A new generation aboard, the future is seemingly bright for Europe. \u201cThey started coming after the Last Look At Eden<\/em> record, and that is amazing,\u201d the frontman beams. \u201cIt gives us new energy as well, as well as the old fans that have been with us all these years who also give us energy. So yeah, it\u2019s a broader audience now. Some younger people are coming to our shows, and the interest for this new album Bag Of Bones<\/em> on the back of Last Look At Eden<\/em> is amazing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building a momentum, and building up slowly. That\u2019s what we want to do. With every album we\u2019re getting slightly more fans onboard, and we\u2019re getting the media behind us a little bit more every time. I know we\u2019re getting some good support from Classic Rock<\/em> who have done a feature on Europe, as well as Metal Hammer<\/em>, Powerplay<\/em>, and whatever. We\u2019re getting some good magazines involved, and we\u2019re talking to a lot of press like yourself. You guys are helping to spread the word, and it\u2019s amazing. We haven\u2019t done this many interviews in ages, so it\u2019s an exciting time. It seems like we\u2019re reaching out to a younger audience as well. I think we can build it up slightly more though. I think we can come back to the UK every year, and build it up slightly every year. That\u2019s the best way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bag Of Bones<\/em> was released on April 18th, 2012 in Japan through JVC Victor, and on the 25th in Scandinavia through Gain \/ Sony. The album was subsequently issued on the 27th in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and then on the 30th in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, the UK, and Ukraine, all via earMusic \/ Edel. An Italian release occurred on May 2nd through earMusic \/ Edel too, with an Asian issue happening on the 29th through Love da Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in May 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EUROPE – Meant To Sing The Blues Anthony Morgan May 2012 Europe (l-r): John Leven, Mic Michaeli, Joey Tempest, John Norum and Ian Haugland Pic: Michael Johansson Touring September 2008 full-length Last Look At Eden \u2013 their eighth overall \u2013 Swedish rock outfit Europe penned the composition \u2018Doghouse\u2019. Once touring for that record concluded, vocalist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5264"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13127,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5264\/revisions\/13127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}