JOEY TEMPEST of EUROPE Reflects On New Single “Hold Your Head Up”: ‘We Always Like to Take Fans On an Adventure’

Europe has recently released its new single, “Hold Your Head Up,” ahead of a 2024 documentary film about the band’s meteoric rise to becoming one of the greatest rock bands in history.

The song is a vibrant rocker reminiscent of their early hits and captures Joey Tempest [vocals], John Norum [guitars], John Levén [bass], Mic Michaeli [keyboards], and Ian Haugland [drums] continuing to be one of the most influential forces in rock music today. It was produced by Klas Åhlund (Ghost) and mixed by Stefan Glaumann (Rammstein, Def Leppard), who also mixed Europe‘s “Secret Society” album. To purchase “Hold Your Head Up” head over here.

Europe plans to head to the studio this winter to pull their song ideas and riffs together for a new album due out in late 2024 / early 2025. It will be their 12th and first studio album in five years since “Walk the Earth.”

The brand-new documentary entitled “Europe – The Movie” will tell the story of the band, from formation until the present day, telling of their rise to success in the mid-’80s, through hard times and heartache, to coming back in the millennium and the current successes the band has achieved.

Correspondent Robert Cavuoto spoke with Joey Tempest moments before they hit the stage at The Palladium in London last month for their second to last show of their Time Capsule, 40th Anniversary Tour. Joey shared how the band has been compiling song ideas and plans to go into the studio this winter. He also discusses content fans can expect to see in the documentary and reminisces on their heyday of the 80s when they were besieged in the street and the on-stage mishap that led to enlisting Mic Michaeli to handle the keyboard duties in 1984. Listen or read the transcript of their conversation below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

You are playing at The Palladium tonight in London, a show for your Time Capsule 40th Anniversary tour. It must be close to show time.

It is only an hour and a half from showtime, so it’s getting exciting.  We are on this 40th-anniversary tour of 21 shows. It’s going so well, and I’m excited about playing in London. It’s a hometown gig for me, as well as Stockholm. I have two hometown gigs!

We spoke in 2017 for “Walk the Earth”, so getting some new music from the band has been long overdue. It’s a great song, and we are excited about it.

Thank you, we are pleased about it. We made it in the studio this summer before the tour kicked off. Since we weren’t touring during the pandemic, I was collecting ideas, and this is the one I felt strongly about. I sent it to the guys, and they all liked it and wanted to work on it. We managed to quickly get it done in a few days.

I read you will be putting out a documentary in 2024. I wondered if the new song “Hold Your Head Up” is a retrospective tribute to the band’s career that will be used in the film?

We are featuring the song in the documentary. It just came together that way, and it’s a good observation! It was luck that the song tied it all together. Early in the documentary, you see us in the studio today, but then you get transported to the suburbs of Väsby when we were teenagers dreaming of becoming a touring band and coming up with the band’s name. We also found old footage on VHS tape from hotel rooms and recording studios. We had more material than we initially thought. It all formed into a really good story at the end of the day. We are in the final stages of completing it, and it’s almost there. It w