eonmusic recently spoke with former Europe guitarist Kee Marcello. A few excerpts from the in depth chat follow:

On the first taste of Europe's success in 1987: "There were 7,000 people outside the airport. They were crazy, and the walk from the arrivals hall to the cars, it was war. I’m still surprised that we got into the cars alive. It was a huge shock."

On the changing musical landscape in 1991: "We were one of the only bands that could have stood against the grunge actually, because after the two very successful albums Out Of This World and Prisoners In Paradise, not a lot of people realized that. A lot of journalists especially, thought these two albums were failures because of the massive success of The Final Countdown."

On missing out on Europe's reunion in 2003: "And as far as the talks about the situation with two guitar players, that’s what we talked about, and then, I don’t really know what happened. The next thing was that their manager visited me at my studio in Gothenburg, and tells me that they’re going to go for the five [piece line-up], and’; “you’re out”. It was always in the back of my mind that it would be fun to do the ‘Revenge On Grunge’ tour! “We’re back, and you’re f*****g dead!”  (laughing) I hate grunge; grunge destroyed rock and roll."

Read the full interview at this location.

Kee Marcello’s new studio album, Scaling Up, will be released tomorrow, October 14th. With Scaling Up, Marcello is using his past as a springboard to take a giant leap into the future! With the new music firmly grounded in the songwriting tradition that made him a multi-platinum rock star in the first place, Kee explores the boundaries of melodic hard rock with a contemporary performance that nods to his past and employs sizzling production. This is an album all his fans will have to pick their jaws up off the floor after hearing.

Kee Marcello is a unique artist in the hard rock genre. He has never stopped evolving and growing as both a writer and a guitarist and the new album illustrates how much he has managed to raise the bar yet again with both his guitar playing, singing and writing.

Conceived and recorded in the winter and spring of 2016, Scaling Up encompasses all the influences and genres in which the Swedish musician has been involved in since the start of his career. Besides the obvious resemblances to Europe’s classic sound, Kee also gives a nod to his past in Easy Action.

Speaking of Europe (particularly the Prisoners In Paradise era), Kee took two officially unreleased songs, “Wild Child” and “Don’t Know How To Love No More”, and re-arranged and re-recorded them from scratch. Beyond those two tracks, you can hear a touch of sleaze and more classic hard rock on songs like “Fix Me”, “Blow By Blow”, and “Soldier Down”.

Kee Marcello says: ”The whole idea of Scaling Up is to, very respectfully, use the music of my past as a canvas to paint a picture of where I stand today and what I aim for in the future as a guitarist/singer/writer. I think we've got the balance of now and then just right, and it's performed by the best group of musicians I've ever had the honour of playing with!"

Kee Marcello is one of the most renowned guitarists from Scandinavia and has an amazing history to his name. He's best known as the guitarist - from 1986 to 1992 - of one Sweden's biggest musical exports, Europe. In the late '80s and early '90s, Europe were one of the biggest rock bands in the world. They sold over 30 million albums, landed at #1 on sales charts in 26 countries and shared the biggest stages with acts like Metallica, Def Leppard and Bon Jovi. Kee is now also enjoying a new wave of success as a TV persona in Sweden, as well as being involved in other musical projects.

Scaling Up tracklisting:

“Black Hole Star”
“On The Radio”
“Don’t Miss You Much”
“Fix Me”
“Wild Child”
“Finger On The Trigger”
“Soldier Down”
“Scandinavia”
“Good Men Gone Bad”
“Scaling Up”
“Don’t Know How To Love No More”
“Blow By Blow”

“Wild Child” :

“Don’t Miss You Much”:

“Scaling Up”:

Kee Marcello: Guitars/Vocals/Keys
Ken Sandin: Bass
Darby Todd: Drums

Special guests:
Mattias Eklundh - guitar solo on “Good Men Gone Bad”
Michele Luppi - keyboards on “Wild Child”

Produced and arranged by Kee Marcello, mixed by Tobias Lindell.

Look out for Kee Marcello playing in a town near you soon. Confirmed tour dates below, with more to be added soon.

October
14 - Göteborg, Sweden - Scandinavium*
15 - Helsingborg, Sweden - Helsingborg Arena*
21 - Stockholm, Sweden - Globe Arena*
22 - Sandviken, Sweden - Göransson Arena*
28 - Malmö, Sweden - Malmö Arena*
29 - Karlskrona, Sweden - ABB Arena*

* Rock Of 80’s Arena Tour (featuring Kee Marcello, Thomas Vikstrom, Joacim Cans and more)