EUROPE frontman Joey tempest recently spoke with Marko Syrjala at Metal-Rules.com. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Q: It was just announced that you’re going to celebrate the bands 30th Anniversary at Sweden Rock festival in June. Would you tell us something more about it?

A: "Yeah, it was announced and we were just talking about it, on our Facebook we blew it up and… because we are very honored, very pleased and very happy. It feels like we made it you know, we have one of the headline slots. RUSH one night, KISS one night and Europe the other night and we’re going to make the most of it. Play two and a half hours, have some guests, play songs from three decades, bring in some big light shows. It’s going to be – it’s going to be magnificent, we’re going to have a great time."

Q: I was just going to ask how do you count the birth date of Europe because wasn’t the band actually formed in 1982?

A: "Yeah it’s the first – it’s actually 30th, since we released the first album. I think… yeah it’s hard because we changed name to Europe in sort of this late summer 82? and we won a rock competition 13th of December 82? under the name Europe. So I suppose that could be a start but I always think the first album is a good start you know. Lucia competition, the 13th of December 1982 was the night we won the rock competition to record the first album and 2013 is 30 years since the first Europe album was released."

Q: Do you have other plans to celebrate the Anniversary other than at the Sweden Rock show?

A: "Not really. In Stockholm a few weeks ago we played 'In The Future To Come', the song we played on the Lucia night, 13th of December when we won that rock competition with that song so we played that. So that was kind of fun but then we haven’t done anything else because we want to focus on the Sweden Rock, we want to do everything there. There won’t be any 30th anniversary tour or anything, that’s it, that’s the event – that’s the event."

Read the full interview at this location.

As discussed above, in 2013 Europe celebrate the 30th anniversary of the year in which they released their first album and they have confirmed a special show at Sweden Rock Festival 2013. This will be their only Swedish performance of the anniversary year! And it will be a grandiose event indeed, promises singer Joey Tempest. The stage show will be one of the greatest, if not the greatest of the band's entire career (certain very special guest stars will also appear). The setlist will be specially composed from Europe's entire nine-album discography. Including their cult debut Europe (1983), multi-million seller The Final Countdown (1986) and their most recent outing Bag Of Bones (2012) which has now reached gold status.

The performance will also be filmed for a DVD-release, so make sure you'll be present when a piece of Swedish rock history will be both created and preserved for posterity.

For the record: today's version of Europe is identical to the classic The Final Countdown lineup: Joey Tempest (vocals), John Norum (guitar), John Levén (bass), Mic Michaeli (keyboards) and Ian Haugland (drums).

Sweden Rock Festival 2013 will take place June 5th - 8th in Sölvesborg, Sweden.

Confirmed acts now include: ACCEPT, AMARANTHE, AMON AMARTH, AUDREY HORNE, AVANTASIA, AXXIS, BULLET, CANDLEMASS, CIVIL WAR, CRAZY LIXX, DEMON, DORO, JON ENGLISH, FIREWIND, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, HUNTRESS, HYPOCRISY, IHSAHN, KISS, KREATOR, KROKUS, MORGANA LEFAY, LENINGRAD COWBOYS, LEPROUS, MANILLA ROAD, MARTIN PRAHL'S SKELTER WHEEL, NAGLFAR, NINE BELOW ZERO, PARADISE LOST, RAUBTIER, RUSH, SATAN, SAXON, THE SCAMS, SISTER SIN, SONATA ARCTICA, STATUS QUO, TANKARD, THRESHOLD, UFO, VADER, WITCHCRAFT.

Sweden Rock Festival is a four-day festival with a total of 80 bands performing on five outdoor stages. More info can be found at Swedenrock.com.