John Levén

John Levén saw the light of day in Stockholm 25.10.1963. During school he liked drawing, but obviously music got most interest and an acoustic guitar was his first instrument. His first record was Kiss "Hotter than hell". As an adult he has developed a great knowledge about wine.

Naturally even John Levén continued to play music after the breakup with Europe in 1992. He was apart of two recordings with Brazen Abbot, and one with Clockwise. He also took part in a project together with Mats Levén, Richard Evensand and the driving force Fredrik Ĺkesson. The band was called Southpaw, which played hard rock the heavier way. Mats are mostly known for being singer in the Yngwie Malmsteen band. Fredrik have been guitarrist in Talisman. They got a record deal in England on the label Z Records, and released a selftitled album in 1998. The mix of songs have a wide range between the Led Zeppelin influenced "Holy water" and heavy metal like "Christmas" (a song you don´t play for grandma). During the end of October 1998 and beginning of November they made a short Swedish tour as opening act for DIO. Places they visited was among a few others Jönköping, Ljungby and Göteborg. In Göteborg on October 23 they headlined with Human Race as opening act. Pictures from that gig can be seen in the picture gallery 03.

This is what John has to say about the other guys and some of the records.
Joey Tempest is exceptionally serious, he always does his best.  He is a very good friend of mine whom i respect very much. We´ve known each other since the childhood.
Kee Marcello is a man with a great sence of humor, which makes me laugh, he´s also a very good guitarrist.
Ian Haugland is a crazy man, a very funny dude. A mad man in every kind of way. Great drummer.
John Norum is a guy who lives his own life with his guitar. He has developed into a great songwriter.
Mic Michaeli is the diplomat in the band,  actually the most organized of us all.

Europe was recorded while i did the military service, when i was on leave i had to take the buss and subway from the forrest to get to the studio. However the recording didn´t take long because we had been living with the songs for a while so it was no problem.
Wings Of Tomorrow have some great songs. As on the first album we had no idea of what we where doing, but we had been touring quite a lot so the band was tight.
The Final Countdown is the first album we recorded with a greater ambition to do something good. We lived in a big house which also contained the studio, which gave a good atmosphere with alps just outside the door. A fantastic experience. We where well prepared, but Cherokee and The Final Countdown waas written just before the recording started.
Out Of This World gave us a great deal of pressure since the huge sales success of The Final Countdown, but i don´t think we failed to make a great recorded nevertheless. One of my favourites. The following tour is the best we´ve done, a nice and expensive production.
Prisoners In Paradise is at times a very good record, however it is an uneven production. All Or Nothing, Halfway To Heaven and the titletrack are recorded at a later time which can be heared of a different and better sound.

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