NEWS – Europe’s Joey Tempest Says ‘We Just Want to be Up There Playing Something We Love’

Following on from their triumphant appearance at the iTunes Festival in London Europe performed at Sonisphere, where NME caught up with frontman Joey Tempest and guitarist John Norum. When asked about how they choose their set lists and balance the classics with their more recent work Norum stated; “Well we kinda just picked the songs that we like to play, fun for us to play, and obviously we have to do the hits from the ’80s, otherwise we’re gonna get beaten up, y’know. and throw eggs and tomatoes and bananas on us and stuff.”

Tempest added; “We play about four or five new songs usually and then maybe a few songs from older albums, even before The Final Countdown. And then maybe two or three songs from The Final Countdown. That’s usually what we do. But we are very much a band that we want to play the songs we love, so sometimes our fans will be like, ‘Why don’t you change the set list a bit more?’ We do change it, but slowly. We just want to be up there playing something we love.”

Tempest also revealed that the group had initially considered leaving The Final Countdown off their 1986 album as they felt it did not fit with the overall sound of the record but eventually agreed that they needed a strong opener for their shows. Read our exclusive interview with Joey Tempest here!