In a new interview with Barry Robinson of Classic Album Review, vocalist Joey Tempest (born Rolf Larsson) of Swedish hard rock veterans EUROPE was asked if he ever gets tired of performing “The Final Countdown”, which has proven to be a far more enduring song than any of the band’s other tracks. He responded:  ”It’s a strange relationship we have with that song. It has its own life and lives out there. And we don’t listen to it privately at home. I asked the guys the other day, actually, ‘So, do you mind playing it?’ No, they all love playing it live. So the relationship we have with that song is with the audience in the live setting. So therefore the relationship to the song is okay. We actually enjoy playing it live. Listening to it at home, no. Of course, you can hear it maybe on an advert that we’ve approved or a Formula One… My dad was into Formula One, and he was so proud when they used it for those kind of things, and that’s kind of nice and heartwarming for me, too. London Symphony Orchestra recorded it, and my dad was, like, ‘Oh, this is so awesome.’ So that was quite nice. It’s been used for a lot.”

Tempest added: “It doesn’t matter if we play a family festival in Denmark or a heavy metal festival in Germany, people give us energy back, and we give energy with that song. And people gravitate towards the stage, and it is a great song live. It is fantastic.”

Asked what advice — as an artist — he would give to his younger self now if he could go back to that time, four decades ago, when he was making “The Final Countdown” album, Joey said: “As an artist, well, it’s difficult because you evolve over so many years. ‘Cause if I was nitpicky, I would start thinking, ‘Why did you write that? Why didn’t you write that lyric line instead, and why didn’t you change that?’ Whereas today I would’ve changed it. But I’ve always had the philosophy that you do the best you can at the time with what you’ve got, with the knowledge you’ve got. And we revisited it the other day for rehearsal, and it was quite fun. There were some songs I liked, actually. I liked ‘Time Has Come’. I haven’t played that in a long time. And ‘Love Chaser’ was quite interesting. What advice would I give myself? I don’t know. I would just say to all younger selves to relax a bit. Don’t take things so seriously. Because we became so big with that third album that I had sort of become so serious: ‘We have to do the next one. We have to concentrate.’ Today I would say, ‘Relax a little bit. It’s okay.'”