Kee Marcello outlines which Out of This World song was meant to be on Europe’s ‘Prisoners of Paradise’

Kee Marcello outlines which Out of This World song was meant to be on Europe’s ‘Prisoners of Paradise’

Out of This World and former Europe guitarist Kee Marcello was recently interviewed by Marcelo Vieira for Brazil’s Marcelo Vieira Music.

Marcello was asked if any songs from Out of This World‘s self-titled debut album were meant to be on Europe‘s album Prisoners of Paradise that was released back in 1991. The guitarist replied (as provided by Vieira with slight edits):

“”In A Million Years” — the video. I knew it was a good song, because our manager then, Herbie Herbert, who was also managing Journey, he loved the song, but it never made [it into] that album. It was only when I met Tommy Heart that the song came alive. His voice just made it so perfect, so that’s why we recorded that one. And “Not Tonight” was the song that I wrote together with the singer and drummer of Easy Action for an Easy Action album that never made that. But the rest of the songs, the eight songs, were written during the pandemic.”

Sleaze Roxx stated the following in its review of Out of This World‘s self-titled debut album: “The similarities with Europe‘s Out of This World first really creep up with the third track “In A Million Years.” The song starts off with some keyboards which are tastefully followed by Heart‘s vocals before a catchy chorus. The background vocals to Heart‘s singing really works well on this track. I could have easily seen this on Europe‘s Out of This World and as it turns out, this was a left over track from the band’s Prisoners in Paradise. Marcello‘s solo is a great one and shows that he hasn’t lost his guitar chops roughly 30 years after Europe first imploded.”

With respect to working again with producer Ron Nevison who produced Europe‘s Out of This World (1988), Marcello stated: “Oh, it was absolutely amazing. I definitely wanna do more of that. It’s fantastic. We didn’t work for 30 years or something, and when we picked up again, it’s like no time has passed, you know. We talked on the phone like ‘Yeah, okay, let’s do that’, ‘Okay, bring that up in the bridge, all right’, you know, like nothing happened, no time has passed. And we did a fantastic job. It started off with us wanting to have an Out of This World sound for these Out of This World songs, and Thomas suggests ‘Why don’t you call Ron?’, I mean, it would make sense we called it Out of This World and he’s your favorite producer, so I called Ron and he said ‘Okay, I’ll tell you what, send me one song, just mail me the files on Dropbox and I’ll make you a mix. If you don’t like it, no problem; if you like it, we can discuss.’ So I sent him all the files for the song “Twilight”, and, of course, he sent us back a mix which is absolutely amazing, you know, blows our minds completely. From that point on, there was not a doubt, we gotta do this, you know.”

In terms of Nevison‘s working style that matches Marcello‘s musical goals, the guitarist indicated: “I think it’s his organic thinking. I mean, I was actually online watching him work with his mixing board, and he’s actually working with the levers, like he used to do back in the times. He’s not sitting [in front of] a computer, drawing lines. He’s playing the mixing board like a real producer, you know, like he’s supposed to do it. And he just levers everything so amazingly perfect. He’s my favorite mixing guy, actually.”

You can read portions of the interview with Kee Marcello in the Portuguese language at Marcelo Vieira Music‘s website and/or the entire interview at Guitar Load‘s website (for subscribers only).

Out of This World‘s  “In A Million Years” video: