  joey tempest (born rolf magnus joakim larsson; 19 august 1963) is the vocalist and main songwriter in the swedish rock band europe. he has written hits which include "the final countdown", "rock the night" and "superstitious." ==early life== before becoming the artist joey tempest, joakim larsson learned how to play the piano and the guitar. he played football, ice hockey and competed in go-cart; he once came in fourth place in the junior cart race, a swedish championship. like many of the other europe members, he grew up in stockholm suburb upplands vÃ¤sby. his biggest idols were thin lizzy and led zeppelin. during his teens, he played in a number of bands such as jet, blazer, made in hong kong and roxanne. at that time he alternated between playing rhythm guitar and bass, in addition to lead vocals. ==career== in 1979, he formed the band force with guitarist john norum, drummer tony reno and bassist peter olsson. force immediately began building a reputation and a fanbase in the suburbs of stockholm. in 1982, they changed their name to europe and won the music competition rock-sm. the first prize was a record deal with hot records. europe released five albums between 1983 and 1991, with joey tempest as the singer, frontman, and songwriter. ===the final countdown=== during the years with europe, joey wrote numerous international big hits. "the final countdown" was the biggest; it topped the sales chart in 26 countries, sold 8 million copies, was played at the closing ceremony of the 1988 summer olympics, became the musical theme of the millennium celebrations and is now a ringtone in hundreds of thousands of mobile phones all over the world. after 
1963_births Europe_(band)_members Living_people Singers_from_Stockholm Swedish_expatriates_in_England Swedish_heavy_metal_singers Swedish_male_singers Swedish_rock_singers Swedish_singer-songwriters Swedish_tenors