‘Spandex and big hair weren’t my thing’: how Europe made The Final Countdown

Joey Tempest, singer, writer

When I was young, I wanted to be an astronaut. I loved flying and space travel. My dad was a flight captain and he’d take me up in his plane. I remember having to be quiet in the cockpit because of the black box, so nobody knew I was there.

The first single I bought was David Bowie’s Space Oddity and I always wondered why the Major Tom character was up there in space, floating “in a tin can”. When I wrote the Final Countdown lyric in 1984 or 85, I started thinking maybe the human race is leaving Earth because it’s dying and the song is about the countdown to the last ship leaving the planet.

I came up with the keyboard riff years earlier in college. I borrowed a Korg Polysix synthesizer and made a demo of it one night on a Portastudio in my parents’ basement. I kept the tape in a drawer for six years. There was a club in Stockholm where we’d hang out and drink. They had a laser show at midnight and we had an idea to play that tape as an accompaniment. And the bass player said to me: “Maybe this could be a song.”

Some people think The Final Countdown was our first release, but there were two albums before it. We’d done a lot of touring, been to a lot of record companies, heard “no” from a lot of people. Our hair was too long, the guitars were too loud. I don’t know if The Final Countdown is a happy or sad song. It’s got a positive feel but it’s melancholic. It’s used for weddings and also funerals. I think that’s born out of being Scandinavian. In old Finnish and Swedish music, the minor chord was very important.

But it’s also got that “galloping” feel of British heavy metal by the likes of Iron Maiden and UFO. The producer wanted a four-on-the-floor rhythm but I stuck to my guns – that would have been too straight. That galloping rhythm makes you want to jump.

We released The Final Countdown in ’86 but nothing much happened at first. Then we got a fax saying it was No 1 in the Netherlands, and all the other countries followed. Some people thought I got a bit cocky. But I was actually thinking: “What the heck do we do now? We’ve got to keep this going and I’ve got to get back to writing.”

Given what’s happening to the planet now, the lyrics seem more relevant than ever. I’m waiting for a phone call from SpaceX or Nasa, saying: “We need a song … because we’re moving!”

John Norum, guitar

When Joey first played me the demo for The Final Countdown, I thought it was dreadful. I was into heavy rock: hearing that synthesiser melody over and over drove me nuts. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the song. To me, it was like: “Are we turning into Depeche Mode?”

But after a few more listens I thought: “Why not?” I like to try new things. And, once we put the real gear on there – real drums, bass, Marshall stacks – it turned out quite good. I’m pleased I changed my mind.

View image in fullscreen

There was a lot of focus on speed for guitar players back then. In the early ’80s, you had Yngwie Malmsteen, Gary Moore, all burning like crazy. The start of my solo was inspired by [Deep Purple’s] Ritchie Blackmore, the same kind of technique and picking style. I put my usual pentatonic blues run in the middle, then did the whammy bar bend at the end, on a 1965 Fender Stratocaster. I recorded that solo in about 15 minutes and I’ve played it thousands of times now – I can do it in my sleep!

I’ve never been into fame. I’m quite introverted. When management told us The Final Countdown was No 1 in 25 countries, I said, “Great, I’m going back to practise guitar.” The other guys were a lot more excited than I was, opening bottles of champagne, jumping up and down. Many times, we had people beating on our car windows. The first time we went to Japan, you could forget about leaving your hotel room. I tried it once. The elevator doors opened to the lobby and hundreds of fans started running towards me. I just pressed the button real quick, went back to my room and ordered room service.

I left the band after The Final Countdown [Norum rejoined Europe 17 years later]. I wanted to do more guitar-oriented stuff. I also had personal problems, drinking pretty much every day. It was the image, too. Suddenly, we were on the cover of every teenybopper magazine. The spandex pants and the big hair, it just wasn’t my thing.

I like the song a lot more now than I did in the ’80s. And we play it so much better now. It swings. It has a better groove. And it’s much heavier now because we tune it down a half step, which makes it darker. I think we have better songs, but The Final Countdown is up there, at least in the Top 10. Or maybe the Top 15.