EUROPE--LIVING DOWN THE LOOKS

He was right. It sounded awful.

Joey Tempest, the chatty lead singer of the Swedish hard-rock band Europe, was giving an impromptu demonstration of why singing rock in Swedish sounds horrible. In a crowded Century City cocktail lounge, Tempest started wailing “The Final Countdown,” the band’s Top 10 single and the title song of its million-selling album, in Swedish.

It was hard to hear him above all the noise but it was obvious that in in his native language, the only Top 10 the song would have made was on the chart listing the worst singles of the year.

“It’s not just this song,” explained Tempest, who speaks perfect English. “I could sing others in Swedish and they’d sound just as ridiculous. The language just wasn’t meant for hard rock. That’s why we only sing in English.”

Even in that brief lounge concert, Tempest’s voice was impressive--high and remarkably clear. He’s not a shrieker. His vocals have an appealing melodic quality, much like Journey lead singer Steve Perry’s.

“I’m a pretty good singer,” Tempest insisted, looking somewhat sheepish after making such an immodest statement. “I’ve worked hard to get my voice to where I want it.”

As he talked, Tempest exchanged smiles with a pretty young admirer--not for the first time during the interview.

Many women were eyeing him, which is no surprise since the 24-year-old singer is strikingly handsome. His leather outfit made him look even more dashing. Even his long hair--in fashion in the hard-rock world but outmoded in the real world--didn’t dissuade the stream of female admirers.

Tempest is the best-looking member of a group that includes four other handsome young musicians, all from the same area, near Stockholm. His colleagues are keyboardist Mic Michaeli, bassist John Leven, drummer Ian Haugland and guitarist Kee Marcello.

Though Tempest doesn’t especially like to hear this, Europe hasn’t made it on music alone. “I know people say we’ve made it on our looks,” he said. “I’m tired of people saying that. It’s not true. Our music is the main thing. If people didn’t like the music, they wouldn’t buy the records.”

Many critics, though, remain convinced that Europe is made up of a bunch of no-talent pretty boys who’d be nowhere without those handsome faces.

Europe just began its first American tour, which includes a Wednesday concert at the Wiltern Theatre and a Thursday show at San Diego’s California Theatre. The band plays melodic hard-rock--or, in Tempest’s terms, hard-edged melodic rock--that falls somewhere between the music of Journey and Bon Jovi.

When Europe’s “The Final Countdown” album came out last May on Epic Records, nobody cared. But that was before Bon Jovi’s heavy-metallish hard-rock megahit album “Slippery When Wet” forced pop radio to drastically change its attitude toward that music last fall. Largely because of the success of the Bon Jovi album, Europe finally got the air play that made hits of both “The Final Countdown” album and the single of the title song.

“Bon Jovi helped open things up for us,” Tempest acknowledged. “The success of his album made it easier for other hard-rock bands to get air play. I know we share a lot of fans with Bon Jovi.”

Remarkably, all Europe’s American success has happened without any touring. That’s because the band was aided by another vital source--MTV. “ ‘The Final Countdown’ video came out a few months after the album,” Tempest recalled. “That created a lot of interest.”

Translation: Young female rock fans saw these good-looking guys and absolutely flipped. With this band, it seems that sex appeal really has been as important in attracting fans as the music.

Europe was formed near Stockholm in 1982. Tempest (a name he adopted because his real last name was too complicated for most people to remember) has always been the leader. His fascination with music started when he was 7 and was so intense in his late teens that he dropped out of technical college to pursue a music career.

The group’s debut album was released by a small label in 1983. “It was very raw,” Tempest admitted.

The second album, “Wings of Tomorrow,” was better, even more strongly reflecting the influence of bands like UFO, Rainbow and Deep Purple. That album helped establish the band as a promising newcomer in some countries, but not in America. It was the band’s debut Epic album, and it died.

Tempest is still somewhat bitter about that. “We were amazed that nothing happened with that album in this country,” he said. “We weren’t happy about it. There were some strange things going on then involving what happened with that album, things I’d rather not go into.”

Europe has suffered through a parade of membership changes. Creative differences have been cited as the main reason musicians have left. The most recent change was guitarist Kee Marcello’s replacing John Norum. Reportedly, Norum wasn’t happy with the band’s accent on commercialism.

“You have to sell yourself,” Tempest insisted. “You have to let people know you’re there. We had to have someone who didn’t mind doing promotion and publicity.”

Though very popular in this country, Europe still isn’t the top band in Sweden. It is, however, the most popular band that plays in English. “There are all of these well-established bands that sing in Swedish,” Tempest said. “That’s what Swedish people like to hear. But we have always sung in English. That’s what people in the rest of the world want to hear.”

Tempest spoke highly of the Swedish people but downgraded both his country’s weather--too cold for too long--and the dreaded Swedish tax structure. “When you earn a lot of money in a short time like we have, you can pay 90% of what you make in taxes,” he pointed out. “I love my country, but that’s ridiculous. We may have to move out of Sweden to avoid the taxes.”

They are now considering moving to the Bahamas or Monaco. “We want to save some money but it’s hard when you pay that kind of tax,” Tempest explained. “This is a crazy business. Who knows how long this popularity will last? We could be nobodies in an album or two. If that happens we want to have something left. We have to leave Sweden just to survive.”