Saturday, January 28, 2017
Finland 2017: NORMA JOHN!
Friday, January 27, 2017
United Kingdom 2017: Lucie Jones!
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Daði Freyr: An 80s funk/disco influenced synthpop alternative dance music producer
Photo: Eggert Þór Jónsson / Sævar J - RÚV
Im ready to post another Icelandic interview. This one is going to be the 4th Söngvakeppnin artist on the page and I have to say that I really like his song. (And I love his name!) Here are Daðis answers:Name: Daði Freyr Pétursson
Birthday: 30 june 1992
Height: 208cm
Favorite color: Emerald Blue
Favorite food: My moms fish soup.
Shoe size: 48
Where are you right now? In my studio in Reinickendorf Berlin.
3 things that make you happy: Food, Friends & Music
What’s your strangest talent? I’m a decent eyebrow dancer.
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? A guitar that I bought at Mauer Park in Berlin for 20 euros. Its custom made but not by anybody that knew what he was doing.
What are you really good at? Remembering lyrics to songs.
What are you really bad at? Remembering names.
Childhood idol: My dad.
Childhood memory: When I was little, Magnús Scheving (as Sportacus) tried to get me on stage to dance with a girl. I was too shy to do it.
Celebrity crush: No one really right now, but once it was Emma Watson.
Tell me something no one knows about you: I just came home after a quick run, and I am sitting in my underwear now on my way to take a shower.
What would you do if you were invisible? I would become the assistant to a magician and blow peoples minds.
Favorite movie: The Boat That Rocked (Pirate Radio)
Favorite TV series: Survivor, Adventure Time and Rick & Morty.
Tell me a super power you wish you had: Flight probably, would look epic on stage.
What is your guilty pleasure? Reality TV
If you were a girl for a day, what would you do? I probably wouldn’t change my day that much :)
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Boy From School by Hot Chip
Can you teach me some interesting words in Icelandic? Pöbbarölt (BarCrawl)
Hi, I am doing very well thank you!
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
I would say that I am an 80s funk/disco influenced synthpop alternative dance music producer.
I had made the backing track to the demo a while back and never used it for anything. I decided to write some vocals over that to send in to the competition and here we are.
“Hvað með það?/Is this love?” is the title of your song, what’s the story behind it?
The story is pretty simple. Boy meets girl. Boy is shy. Talks to girl. Girl says: lets go home. Basically its about doing something even if it feels uncomfortable. Just try out stuff, who knows what could happen? Take a chance.
Synthy, Geeky, Happy & More
What can we expect to see on stage for the performance?
You can expect to see custom clothing and self-made electronic instruments. Wind machine, some dancing, lots of singing and maybe confetti.
Svala’s Paper is a powerful tune.
What do you like about Eurovision?
I like that it brings europeans together for a night of music. And the bigness of it. The stage is always amazing and the performances are super entertaining.
Sometimes I don’t like the songs.
Art: Music
Breakfast: Coffee
Nightmare: Dark
18+: Sexy
UFO: Alien
Stage: Mine
I am finishing my Bachelors degree at dBs Music in Audio Engineering and Music Production in May. After school I’m planning to live in Berlin with my girlfriend for the summer, making music and making friends. After the summer me and my girlfriend are moving to Cambodia for a while. Maybe half a year, maybe a year, were not quite sure yet. 2017 is going to be a busy year.
Is there anything you want to say to close the interview?
If you are interested in playing the game that goes with the song, where you can help me rescuing the rest of the band (Daði & Gagnamagnið) so we can make it to Söngvakeppnin, go to www.dadifreyr.com <3 <3 <3
Photo: Eggert Þór Jónsson / Sævar J - RÚV
Thanks to Daði for the interview! Good luck in the semifinals!
Facebook:´https://www.facebook.com/dadimakesmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dadimakesmusic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dadimakesmusic/
Facebook:´https://www.facebook.com/dadimakesmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dadimakesmusic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dadimakesmusic/
Aron Brink: "Love can save you through hard times"
Photo: RÚV
New day, new interview! He has one of the catchiest songs in this years Söngvakeppnin and there's no doubt he will make you smile with his performance. Here are Arons answers:Name: Aron Brink
Birthday: 15th February 1995
Height: 1.80cm
Favorite color: Purple
Favorite food: Lamb
Where are you right now? Home
3 things that make you happy: My friends, my girlfriend and my family
What’s your strangest talent? I can make very scary sounds
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? Half-eaten chocolate bar
What are you really good at? Smiling
What are you really bad at? Math
Childhood idol: Ronaldinho
Childhood memory: Playing football with my dad.
Tell me something no one knows about you: I didn't start singing until I was 15 years old.
What would you do if you were invisible? Scare my friends
Favorite movie: Lion King
Favorite TV series: Friends
What is your guilty pleasure? Jessie J songs
If you were a girl for a day, what would you do? Try out my new voice!
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: September - Earth wind and fire
Can you teach me some interesting words in Icelandic? I love Eurovision- Ég elska Eurovision
Im really good thank you.
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
An artist that still hasn't showed everything he got
Me and my stepmom wanted to make a cheerfull upbeat song after hearing Justin's Timberlake song "Can't stop the feeling" and here we are today.
“Þú hefur dáleitt mig/Hypnotised” is the title of your song, what’s the story behind it?
Its about love and how love can hypnotise you, especially when you are having a hard time in life. The love can save you through hard times.
Love, cheerfull, upbeat, happy.
What can we expect to see on stage for the performance?
Happiness, happiness, happiness.
Yes all of them. I think Júlí Heiðars song is really catchy and good
The atmosphere around the competition is so great
What do you dislike about Eurovision?
That we (Iceland) have never won it :(
Fangirling: A fan that's a girl
Warm weather: Spain
The voice: So much fun
+18: Finally a grown up
Football: Liverpool
Dreams: Be a successful singer
Hopefully win the Eurovision!
Is there anything you want to say to close the interview?
Thanks for having me :)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aronbrinkmusic/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aronbrinks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrinkAron
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Júlí Heiðar: "I’m just full of melodies and I love to create things"
Name: Júlí Heiðar Halldórsson
Birthday: 22. march 1991
Height: 182 cm
Favorite color: Red
Favorite food: Lobster
Where are you right now? @home
3 things that make you happy: Music, acting and the people I love
Home alone and you are bored. What do you do? Watch tv and eat a lot of junk food
What are you really good at? Dancing
What are you really bad at? Money
Childhood idol: Justin Timberlake
Childhood memory: When I won a metal in the Arsenal football camp
Celebrity crush: Emma Watson
What would you do if you were invisible? I would spend some time around great artist and try to learn from them
Favorite movie: Forrest Gump
Favorite TV series: Black Mirror
What is your guilty pleasure? McFly
If you were a girl for a day, what would you do? Freak out
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Don’t threat me with a good time - Panic at the disco
Can you teach me some interesting words in Icelandic? Fugl - Bird
I’m great, thank you.
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
I’m just full of melodies and I love to create things, It doesn’t matter if it is a character, song or dance.
Well last summer I was at work and this melody came in to my mind and like last year I just wanted to see if the song was good enough for the competition.
Tell me something about Thordis Birna, how did you meet each other?
Well she is my best friend, my favorite singer og I love her very much. We met on a dating app, very romantic!
Well he is my best friend and a lyrical genius so…
Its about Guðmundurs relationship with his girlfriend that lives in Austria. Skype love.
Country, happy, dance and love.
Beautiful people and many small lights.
Have you heard any of the other songs in the competition? Any favorite?
Yes all of them and I’m still trying to find out which one is my favorite.
Meeting people, I love people
What do you dislike about Eurovision?
Iceland has never won :(
Nightmare: Death
Dinner: Pizza
Fangirling: Love
+18: Horror movies
Northern lights: Iceland
Stage: Acting
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliheidarh
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliheidar/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/juliheidar
Axel Schylström: "When I set up goals for myself I refuse to give up until I have reached them"
Name: - Axel Schylström
Birthday: - 24 February, 1993
Height: - 186 cm (ish)
Favorite color: - Pink
Favorite food: - Italian, I love most kinds of pasta.
Where are you right now? - I'm on a train towards Stockholm.
3 things that make you happy: - Singing, sports (Football) and my girlfriend
What’s your strangest talent? - I am weirdly good at FIFA, unbeatable!
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? - I guess it would be a home made clock on the wall that my dad made out of a drum.
What are you really good at? - I'm good at working hard, when I set up goals for myself I refuse to give up until I have reached them. It's something I really like about myself.
What are you really bad at? - I would say I am a terrible loser. I get angry when I lose. Also I REALLY suck at bowling.
Childhood idol: - David Beckham
Childhood memory: - Mostly playing football out in the yard with my best friend.
Celebrity crush: - Margot Robbie
What would you do if you were invisible? - All kinds of stuff, probably watch what people are doing when they're all alone.
Favorite movie: - Intouchables
Favorite TV series: - How I met your mother
What is your guilty pleasure? - Chocolate, too much chocolate..
If you were a girl for a day, what would you do? - I would go to a nightclub and see what it's like being a girl in that kind of situation. I guess I would do all kinds of things and just experience them as a girl.
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: - September - Earth, Wind & Fire
Can you teach me some interesting words in swedish?- Certainly.
1. "Lagom" - A unique Swedish word, means something is medium good. Like, is the burger too hot or too cold? Its "Lagom".
2. Jävlar - A curse. When you screw up, say "jävlar".
3. "Fika" - Also a unique word. It means grabbing a snack, prefereably coffe with a side of something sweet, like a bun.
There you go!
- Very good, thank you!
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
- Well, I do Pop-music and I do it in my own language because I think lyrics are very important.
- It began a cold morning in 2015 with me standing in line for the auditions of Swedish Idol. I ended up in fourth place. So I started writing songs, and I sent some of them to the Melodifestivalen jury and they obviously liked this one.
- Just great, this was the first time we worked together and we haven't known each other for that long. So our success rate writing together is 100%.
What’s the story behind the song?
- Well I met the writers at a party. And we wanted to write something with a positive vibe that day. So we wrote an uptempo song with positive, inspiring lyrics.
- Uptempo, dancy, happy, GOOD.
What can we expect to see on stage for the performance?
- Positive vibes, lots of energy and some dancing.
- I like the greatness of it. Its so big and all the artists bring big numbers and Its just such a well-planned show.
What do you dislike about Eurovision?
- I cant come up with anything really.
Idol: - My own journey in Swedish idol.
Breakfast: - Sandwiches
Fangirling: - Honoring.
+18: - Party.
Melodi nummer 5: Awesome
Life: - Fragile, valueble
- My first tour this summer, I hope to release more music and hope to keep working with what I love.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Axel-Schylström-892923440754693/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axelschylstrom/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/axelschylstrom
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Svala: "I´m not gonna back down because of my fears"
Photo: Einar Egils
Time for our 1st Söngvakeppnin interview! The Icelandic fans are very excited to see her in the competition this year, and I am too cause she is not only a great artist, she is also a lovely person. Here are Svalas answers:Name: Svala Bjorgvinsdottir
Birthday: February 8
Height: 165 cm
Favorite color: White
Favorite food: Sushi
Where are you right now? In Iceland working on The Voice. I´m one of the four main coaches on the show.
3 things that make you happy: Family. Friends. Music.
What’s your strangest talent? I have super flexible fingers and I can bend each ligaments in every finger separately.
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? My super furry miniture persian cat Lucy. She looks like a mini furry buddah.
What are you really good at? Sewing clothes
What are you really bad at? Math
Childhood idol: Michael Jackson
Childhood memory: Making my own radio show on my cassette player with my brother Krummi when I was 8 years old.
Celebrity crush: Ryan Gosling
Tell me something no one knows about you: I don´t like to be alone
What would you do if you were invisible? I would like to spend a whole weekend in Diana Ross´s closet and try on all of her clothes.
Favorite movie: Blade Runner
Favorite TV series: The Walking Dead
What is your guilty pleasure? Bad reality tv shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
If you were a boy for a day, what would you do? Fall in love with a girl.
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Slave To Love with Bryan Ferry
Can you teach me some interesting words in Icelandic? "Pylsa með öllu" means "hotdog with everything on it" and "hvað segirðu" means "what´s up" and "ég veit það" means "I know" and "nákvæmlega" means "totally" and "ég elska þig" means "I love you".
Photo: Jeaneen Lund
Hello Svala! Welcome to the Eurovision world! How are you?I´m doing awesome.
How would you describe yourself as an artist?
I´m a songwriter and a singer. I´m a very visual artist and I work a lot on my own music videos and photoshoots. I´ve been in music for a very long time. Basically since I was a little girl. Released solo albums and started recording when I was only 7 years old in Iceland. I was in the band Steed Lord from 2006 to 2015. I´m most known for making electronic music. My new band is called Blissful and I´m in that band with my husband Einar who is a songwriter, producer and director. He was also in Steed Lord with me. My music is very personal and my lyrics are as well.
We actually didn´t write Paper for Söngvakeppnin originally. We wrote it for our band Blissful but then decided that it would fit perfectly for Söngvakeppnin and sent it in very last minute and here we are.
Photo: Einar Egils
“Ég veit það/Paper” is the title of your song, and it’s written by you, Einar Egilsson, Lester Mendez, Lily Elise and Stefán Hilmarsson. How was it working with them?Einar is actually my husband, Lester and Lily are good friends of ours. We have been writing with them a lot and this is one of the songs that came out of those writing sessions. We actually wrote the song in a couple of hours in february of 2016 in Los Angeles where me and my husband have lived for 7 years. Me and Einar write a lot of music together and have done for 10 years. The last three years we´ve been writing a lot with other songwriters and producers, writing for our band and for other artists. We had a lot of fun writing Paper and the vocals on the track are actually the original demo vocal I recorded a couple of hours after writing the song. We kept the vocals because they had so much feeling in them and intensity. A week later I recorded all the backing vocals. But it wasn´t until many months later when we got into the Söngvakeppnin that we had to record the song in icelandic cause you have to have the song in both icelandic and english for Söngvakeppnin. And I had my friend and amazing artist Stefán Hilmarsson write the icelandic lyric for us. He has competed in Eurovision twice on the behalf of Iceland with the songs Sókrates and Nína years ago.
I really wanted to write a song about someone who was going through a very rough and difficult time like we all do sometimes in life. I wanted people to be able to relate to the song in different ways. And we had this idea to use the word paper as a metaphore for a soul or someones life. Because you can take paper and burn it, cut it, rip it, draw on it, glue it together, make art out of it and much more. And so that´s how the idea began. I wanted my experience with severe anxiety to be a part of the lyric in some way and we found a way to do that. So this song is very personal for me. But it also makes me feel strong when I sing it cause I feel like I´m facing my fears while singing it. Like I´m not gonna back down because of my fears.
Survivor, love, life and human.
What can we expect to see on stage for the performance?
It´s a secret but I can promise you that it will be unforgettable. My all time favourite thing in this world is to perform live.
Yes I´ve heard all 11 songs that are competing in Söngvakeppnin and I think they are all very good. I especially like the song by Hildur. I think she´s a great artist and very talented.
It´s a great platform for songwriters to show their skills. And I like the fact that you can unite people with music.
What do you dislike about Eurovision?
Sometimes it´s more about the gimmicks on stage then the actual songwriting skill.
Northern lights: Iceland
Cat: My favourite animal
Nails: Acrylic
Stage: Bliss
Dreams: Inspiriation
Photo: Einar Egils
What are your plans for 2017?Right now I´m taping The Voice in Iceland and Team Svala is in full force and doing amazing in the competition. My team won last year so I´m defending my title this year on the show. We are relasing our second single with our band Blissful called "Find A Way" and our music video. Our first single "Elevate" has gotten over 230 thousand plays on Spotify and we are in talks with a couple of record labels that are interested in Blissful. So that´s very exciting. I´m competing in Söngvakeppnin in the beginning of march. Doing some shows in LA with my band Blissful. And lots more.
You can follow me on my instagram https://www.instagram.com/svalakali/ and also here is my wikipedia if you need any more info on me https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svala
Monday, January 23, 2017
My First Band: Five long time best friends who love to make music and travel the globe with it
Photo: YLE
The UMK 2017 final is on Saturday and Im ready for these guys to take me to paradise *wink wink*. Here are Anttis answers:Name: Antti
Birthday: May 15th
Height: 181cm
Favorite color: Red
Favorite food: Involtini de Melanzane or Aurbergine rollups, it’s an italian veggie dish.
Shoe size: 10US
What do you do in the band? I sing and write lyrics
3 things that make you happy: Running, singing and sleeping
What’s your strangest talent? I can run for many hours and breathe fire.
What is the strangest thing you have in your room? A russian doll that looks like our keyboard player Heikki
What are you really good at? Singing
What are you really bad at? Numbers
Childhood idol: Jay Kay of Jamiroquai
Childhood memory: Catching my first fish with dad.
Celebrity crush: There’s been many and still is Björk, she was the first real deal.
Tell me something no one knows about you: I could spend hours just by watching trees in the wind.
What would you do if you could stop the time? I’d travel the world and marvel the present moment.
Favorite movie: Inception
Favorite TV series: That’s a really hard one but I’m picking up Curb Your Enthusiasm
If you were a girl for a day, what would you do? Defend other girls
What is your guilty pleasure? Potato chips, that’s my weak point for sure.
Name a song that never fails to make you happy: Eurythmics: There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)
Can you teach me some interesting words in finnish? My top1 finnish word is ‘warmer’, in finnish ‘lämpimämpi’. It’s just feels great in your mouth! The other great word is 'screaking', ‘kirskuva’. There are lots of words in finnish where the word and it’s phonetics really describe the action of the word itself.
Thanks for asking, I’m just great. Just woke up and the UMK final week has just started, nervous in a good way!
How would you describe the band?
We’re five long time best friends who love to make music and travel the globe with it. Some of us have known each other from childhood.
It goes all the way back to high school times. I guess we all were into the same kind of music (Pop, Funk, RnB, Prince, James Brown, Jamiroquai etc.) and decided to form a band. We did covers at first but straight at the first semester we ended up playing to this big freshmen’s party that was in Tavastia (a legendary rock venue in Helsinki). The place was sold out and that experience gave us confidence to start writing our own music!
We were writing songs for our upcoming album and at the same time we realised Yle was searching for songs for UMK 2017. We had just written Paradise and just decided to send the song. Participating UMK had been on our minds before but the timing of the contest or the music we wrote would always seem off to us. This was the perfect song and and the perfect timing.
It’s not exactly what I’d call a story song, but like always, there are real life events that inspire the song. For me, this one is definitely a relationship song, where the storyteller wants to kiss and make up after a petty argument by doing something good to the other half. An act of love if you will. There’s been also some pretty wild lyrics interpretations by the ESC fans and they’ve been fun to read!
Fun, sexy, honest, playful
What can we expect to see on stage for the performance?
Well, we’re first and foremost a live band. That’s our forte in this contest and in general. So the performance will be based around the traditional way of bands performing songs. However, what I’ll be doing in the performance is something different that is usually seen in pop/rock bands performances.=)
Tell me about the official video of “Paradise”:
We wanted to keep it simple 'playing performance’- type of music video. There’s also another story going on with the help of this great dance couple, who are actually a real life couple as well. We wanted them to have that real chemistry between them and I think it really shows. By accident, we ended up shooting the video in the same high school the five of us met back in the day, so it was kind of sentimental moment altogether!
I love the amount of feeling and enthusiasm that’s surrounding the whole universe of Eurovision. It may be a cliche but seeing how music and performances bring the people together is an important european phenomena to me. I remember as a kid staying up late and watching the song contests although it was a school day next day. Watching them has always been a habit of mine.
I’d love to see the Eurovision songwriting evolve to a direction where the personality of the song counts as much as the performance does. Especially in the lyrics department. There are lots of great and in a good way, weird older eurovision songs that also have lyrics that speak to you. My personal favourite perhaps is I Treni di Tozeur by Franco Battiato from 1984. It’s wonderfully a weird song, performance and lyrics and that’s what makes it magical for me.
Sauna: Home
Nightmare: Resident Evil-games (??????=D=D=D=D=D))
+18: Afterparty
Bacon: Heartburn
Stage: Possibilites
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myfirstband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/my_first_band/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/myfirstband
Official website: http://www.myfirstband.net/