Europe: We Were Lager Louts

Europe frontman Joey Tempest reveals the band’s youthfuladdiction to the amber nectar – and his own obsession with Long Island Iced Teas.

Europe’s latest album Bag Of Bones is released on April 30 via earMusic – and they play Download on June 8.

But at the height of the band’s success, with the album The Final Countdown peaking at No.8 in the US and selling three million copies, there was temptation at every turn.

As singer Joey Tempest reveals in an interview in the brand new issue of Classic Rock:

“We were on the road for months on end and did our share of partying. Really, our wildest times were in the very early days, when we were 16, young boys, doing all these crazy gigs in the Swedish woods.

“We’ve always liked our lager – we thanked a beer company on our first album. But we were never much of a drug band.”

Women were a different matter. “I usually had regular girlfriends,” Tempest says, “but there were periods when I didn’t and then it got out of control a bit. I really enjoyed being in a long-term relationship. But when I wasn’t, it was mayhem.”

Later in his career, Tempest developed a surprising addiction: to Long Island Iced Teas, a highball made with, among other ingredients, vodka, gin, Tequila and rum.

“I’d started drinking them on the last tour [Europe went on hiatus in 1992], and I kept drinking them when I moved to London. I missed my friends in Sweden more than I thought I would. And I’d drink so much that I’d wake up in the mornings with my clothes on.”