“The two Johns very began to hate doing TV shows that wanted us to mime. For a band that worshipped Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy and UFO, it became a really big problem”: The huge 80s hard rock hit that drove a wedge between the band that made it

Europe posing for a photograph in the 1980s.

It’s among the most celebrated riffs in popular music – an uplifting keyboard fanfare that ushers in the song that briefly turned a bunch of Swedish rockers into one of the biggest bands on the planet. The band in question are Europe, and the song is their 1986 mega-hit The Final Countdown. Yet that simple but brilliant keyboard riff dates back even further, before Europe released their debut album.

“I was still at college back then. And there was a guy I knew called Mic Michaeli who was in a band called Avalon,” recalls Europe singer Joey Tempest. “I walked up to him one day and asked whether I could borrow his keyboard. Mic must have thought I was a complete loony, but he said yes.”