Europe's Ian Haugland Talks Potential North American Tour

09-23-2026

(MS) Europe drummer Ian Haugland recently joined Mark Strigl for a Zoom interview on Talking Metal, where he discussed the band's new album, Come This Madness, the band's history, as well as the possibility of Europe finally returning to North America for a proper tour and more.

Come This Madness, Europe's 12th studio album and first since 2017's Walk the Earth, will be released this Friday, September 25, via Silver Lining Music / Hell & Back Recordings. Produced by Tom Dalgety, the album features the longtime Europe lineup of Joey Tempest, John Norum, John Leven, Mic Michaeli and Haugland.

During the interview, Strigl asked Haugland, "Do you think we could at some point, fingers crossed, get Europe back here in North America?"

Haugland responded: "Oh yeah. We would love to come and play in America. We've been traveling all over the world, but for some reason, it's always been hard, tougher to get tours together in America.

"I think the problem is that we didn't spend enough time in the '80s when The Final Countdown and those albums were hot. We never laid the groundwork in North America really. I mean, if you take Journey and Styx and all those bands, everybody just loved them and they're gods in America.

"While we were just there for a short while, we had a couple of hits, but still that's not enough to win the audience over and to get a solid ground to be able to tour around like the other bands that I mentioned. But I mean, we always try to get tours together and it was so annoying once we had this tour with Kansas and Foreigner, which was gonna be like for weeks and weeks, really, I mean, a real American tour. And then it came, you know, the COVID and yeah, well, it happened to everyone. So it was what it was, but we're working on it. We're working on it."

The complete interview with Ian Haugland is available on Talking Metal Episode 1008, released September 22, 2026. In addition to the possibility of a North American tour, Haugland discusses Come This Madness, his early days with Europe, the band's rise during The Final Countdown era and more.

The episode is available through Apple Podcasts and other major podcast platforms.