EARLY YEARS

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The boys were 18 years old when the Product Manager of CBS Thomas Erdtman decided to organize the greatest rock competition ever held in Sweden, a national Contest for emergent Rock bands, the Rock-SM, as the one organized in Norway by Arnt Pedersen. To do this, he left CBS it and he founded "Hot Records" as a base for the Contest rock. He found many sponsors, and the cooperation of the famous newspaper Aftonbladet which was a great recall for every emergent band. Aftonbladet published the rules at the beginning of 1982: every band who intended to take part in it would have had to send a tape cassette with two original tracks. The response was great: 4000 bands answered. Among these, without knowing it, there was also Force: Joakim's girlfriend, Anita Katila, convinced the band to record a demo tape and to participate. They recorded five songs: "The King Will Return", "Paradize Bay", "Seven Doors Hotel", "Children Of This Time" and "Rock On". But the tape didn't convince them and they renounced to participate. Anita sent the tape anyway, and they were selected for the second phase of the contest. Force worked hard for the competition and changed name into Europe. Force wasn't a good name to begin a rock career, they wanted a name that it could be recognized everywhere, and meant the same thing in the entire world... Another very interesting band participated to the same contest, a band with a very good left handed drummer: the band was Trilogy and the drummer was Ian Haugland! Trilogy didn't pass the second phase, while Europe reached quarter-finals in Uppsala. Semi-finals took place in Södertälje and Europe reached the finals! And at that time they had a big supporter group in their retinue. Joakim decided to start using his new name Joey Tempest. Tony also decided to change his Finnish surname, so difficult to be pronounced, in Reno. The day of the finals was on December 13^th, National Swedish holiday, at Grona Lund, in Stockholm. Europe vs. Café Midnatt, among judges there were Thomas Erdtman and some celebrities as Michael Rickfors, Thomas Ledin and Hasse Carlsson. Europe won everything! Not only the Championship, but the two major prizes to Joey Tempest as best lead singer and to John Norum as best guitarist. The final prize was to record an album for Hot Records. Their new manager Thomas Erdtman tried to convince them to sing in Swedish, and maybe polish their music and look a bit. Joey was just about to do it but John didn't agree at all. John and Erdtman have never been in good terms since the very beginning...Hot Records reached an agreement with Grammfon AB Electra and the first album of Europe, "EUROPE", was recorded in a studio in Kista, few kilometres north of Stockholm. The songs were long, lyrics were complicated and melodies were pure hard Rock, influenced by UFO, Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple but totally revised in a personal and particular way. Budget was low, only 100.000 Crowns (about 9.000 Euro) and at that time, the Swedish hard Rock production was at the beginning and it was very hard to find a producer or a technician who was able to mix that kind of music: the band together with the technician of Rock SM and Erdtman himself did their best. Worth to mention is the fact that it was recorded in one weekend only, most of it was recorded live in the studio and for example, "Boyazont" took 30 minutes only to be recorded. When the album was released at the end of February 1983, nobody considered the possibility Europe could become such a well-known name in the entire world: conquering Swedish market was already a very difficult target to reach at that time... Europe became very famous after their victory, reviews were really good and the album sold about 30.000 copies during the first weeks, which was good in Sweden for a hard Rock band. They were invited to the famous Swedish TV show "Casablanca", and that night they performed "Children Of This Time": this increased the interest of the audience towards Europe and the band started a Swedish Tour reaching 25 public parks warming up the night*. Meantime as in a dream, in London a Japanese Rock journalist, Masa Itoh, found by chance a copy of the LP "EUROPE" in a shop of importation albums. He was shocked, and when he went back to Tokyo, he contacted a friend of him at Victor Records, T.T. Tsutsumi, who called immediately Hot Records and Tomas Erdtman because he wanted to release the album in Japan. The possibility of an international success was finally concrete!  In Japan the single "SEVEN DOORS HOTEL" was a big success: it became a best seller and Europe made a video for "In The Future To Come". It seems that the video wasn't so good and Japanese TV was the only one that broadcast it. It was also released "LYIN' EYES" as single, withdrawn shortly after.  

In November John went again in tour with Eddie Meduza and The Roaring Cadillacs for two months and in that occasion it was recorded the album "DÅREN É LÖS - THE ROARING CADILLAC'S LIVE".

On February 23^rd 1984 "WINGS OF TOMORROW" was released, it sold 60.000-70.000 copies in Sweden only! Other three singles were released: "DREAMER", "STORMWIND" and "OPEN YOUR HEART". Gunnar Michaeli, from the band Avalon - better known as Mic Michaeli – was brought in to play live keyboards during the upcoming promotional tour, and he became the 5^th member of the band. Without the band knowing, Thomas Erdtman fired Tony by letter. Håkan Jan Haugland (Ian Haugland for short) was brought in. In the same year, John recorded two more guitar solos (in "Hold Your Fire" and in "California") for Eddie Meduza's album "WEST A FOOL AWAY".

In 1985 there were two projects that Europe were involved in. They starred in a 30 minutes movie directed by Staffan Hildebrand and made by the Social Democrats Union - LO, it was called "ON THE LOOSE" and Europe's role it was just to be themselves (oh dear!...). Joey wrote three songs for the film: the title track, "Rock The Night" and "Broken Dreams". The cover of the soundtrack accidentally said EUROPE but it was a Joey's own work. "ROCK THE NIGHT" was however released again later with the whole band playing. In the name of LO (Trade Union Conference) they made a quite embarrassing tour with only these three new songs... The audience didn't show up (except for the hardcore fans, of course). Later in the same year, Joey wrote "GIVE A HELPING HAND" for SWEDISH METAL AID, a benefit single for the starving in Ethiopia. The élite of the Swedish hard Rock bands gathered to record that single, and on top of that there were six lead singers: Robert Ernlund (Treat), Björn Lodin (Bedlam), Malin Ekholm (Aphrodite), Tommy Nilsson (Easy Action), Joakim Lundholm (220 Volt) and Joey Tempest. The music was performed by members of Treat and Easy Action. This was also the first time Joey worked with Kjell Lövbom (better known as Kee Marcello) from Easy Action, who produced the single.  John sang in the choir consisting in 150 members from different bands.

In August, John played in collaboration with Joey as producer, in his sister Tone Norum’s  debut single “STRANDED” – that became a big hit – and in her first album "ONE OF A KIND". John played also in the other single "CAN'T YOU STAY". John teamed up with some other rockers and they did a small tour called "The Boys Are Back In Town" - as a tribute to Phil Lynott, dead  on 4^th January 1986.
"THE FINAL COUNTDOWN" was recorded, but delayed. Yet another tour (booked before the album was delayed) without the new album backing them up. No audience this time either. Everyone knew the 3^rd album would be the most important. Were they just another one-album band, could they repeat the success or was it just pure luck with "WINGS OF TOMORROW"? But then - on May 26^th 1986 "THE FINAL COUNTDOWN" was released and sold gold before it hit the shops (thanks to the single) and in two months it sold 100.000 copies in Sweden only, and 7 millions copies in the world. They did a tour in Japan: Scandinavia and Japan were in love with Europe. New tour in Sweden - TV filmed a show on the first leg (in Solna on May 27^th) and it was broadcast two months later just to hype them even more. Wherever you went that summer you heard "THE FINAL COUNTDOWN" being played. It was on the top of all the charts, and in everyone’s mind... While Europe opened their eyes and saw this amazing band, so a tour took place there as well. Just one videoclip featuring John was released: “THE FINAL COUNTDOWN”, filmed in Solnahallen, Solna (Sweden), and other singles were released: "LOVE CHASER" (later reissued with "CARRIE" as the lead track; "Love Chaser" was played in the Japanese movie "Pride One") and "CHEROKEE".

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* let’s pass over… J

Biography written by the webmistress. Infos taken from checked music sites.