Whatever happened to Joey Tempest? The unenlightened may have suspected the formerly bouffant-styled hair-metaller of ‘Final Countdown’-fame had long since hung up his cowboy boots. In fact, these days the slickly-coiffed singer is the proud leader of a reformed Europe, currently preparing for a UK jaunt with three albums under their belt since reuniting in 2003.

But that’s another day’s story. Joey, in the midst of rehearsals at home in Sweden, is talking to Hot Press for the express purpose of paying homage to one of his heroes.
“When Europe started out in the music business we had the great fortune of meeting Phil at a secret gig in Stockholm,” he reminisces.
“I was very nervous approaching him. He treated me like one of the guys. They say, ‘don’t get too close to your heroes, they might let you down’. Not this guy! He made me feel like what I said mattered. He set aside a few moments for me. I hope we treat our fans as well as that. It was my first important lesson in the business.”
Joey was a Lizzy fan from the age of 15 and stresses how important the band were to the evolution of Europe.
“When we started, we really honed in on Lizzy,” he states. “Live And Dangerous was very important to us. We listened to it over and over again. As a live album it’s my favourite of all time.”
Joey was fortunate to catch the real live experience three times, on the first occasion travelling 24 hours on a boat from Stockholm to London with former Europe drummer Tony Reno.
“We were about 16-years-old and it was a fantastic experience,” he smiles. “Phil really made the crowd feel welcome, that you were special. The band had a tough attitude. There was also lots of emotion. The meldoic solos and riffs were brilliant. They had everything.
“As a frontman, Phil had a great way of communicating,” he adds. “He had that hard man attitude, but was also very warm. I remember coming away from the shows with a really strong feeling anything was possible. They were the kind of band that made you believe in yourself.”
As a songwriter, Joey was smitten by the sense of adventure and drama with which Lynott infused his music and lyrics.
“His songs were so emotional too and you believed the words he was singing,” he says. “It’s a sign of a great singer that whatever he sings about, you believe it!”
The craft of constructing guitar solos was also a skill Tempest studied from the Lizzy maestros.
“The melodic guitar solos were fantastic,” he asserts. “The guitar solo was a song in itself. I learned a lot from that, to try to make the solo have a beginning, a melodic part and an ending. That really inspired me.”
And the difficult question of his favourite Lizzy axeman?
“Gary Moore was probably technically the most gifted, and he had so much passion. But Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson were the winning team!”

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