26 Mars 2016 - 22:28
As press, our work for the finale week of Melodifestivalen 2016 had already started on Wednesday. The publicists listen for booking interviews with artists during Melfest were not really doing their job properly, consider we only got reoplies from two of them. But, we managed to get three interviews booked beforehand. Our first interviews of the week were scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the artist hotel. Jenevia and I arrived in Stockholm around lunch time, after we which we topped up our SL card so we could get to the hotel by the "tunnelbana".
Once we arrived at the hotel, we tried to scope out a location where we could conduct our interviews. All of the hotel's conferences rooms were fully booked, so we ended up doing them in the lobby. I was a bit worried that it would be too much noise since a lot of people were arriving to check in, and the lightning kept changing in a strange way. But everything turned out fine in the end.
The first interview of the day was with Robin Bengtsson. Since he competed in semi-final 1, the support for him and his music has increased a lot so it was nice to hear what he had to say about the response he has recieved for his performance in Melfest and get a greater insight of his work.
I'm so glad for Robin's sake of all his sucess and the new support he has gained through Melodifestivalen this year. I'm really happy that I got to see his journey in the competition more closely than I would if I hadn't been able to do press.
It felt like Robin was more comfortable during the interivew this time since he got a bit sassy, and we also got some 'exclusive' information about various things which you can see in the clip below.
We waited around at the hotel until our second interview since we didn't want to lose our spot and also because we had all of our luggage with us. We also didn't feel like going anywhere else.
The second one-on-one interview we had booked was with Lisa Ajax, which was booked through the same publicists as Robin.
Despite already being familiar with Lisa from her participation in Idol 2014, I didn't knew a lot about her as an artist or her music, so it was nice listening to her answers to the questions Jenevia had for her. She's such a sweet girl and she's very professional for her age. I think she has a lot of potential to become more internationally successful when she gets a bit older.
In our interivew, hear Lisa talk about her song "My Heart Wants Me Dead", her thoughts about her staging, and whether she any interest in acting. Also be sure to check out her tips for taking a good selfie in the clip below.
While we were waiting around in the lobby, Panetoz arrived to check in before they would go on to their rehearsals. They spotted Jenevia and recognized her from her video reviews on her YouTube channel. Panetoz came over to say they were fans of her videos and asked when they would get to come on her YouTube channel. She told them she had tried to book an interivew with them but hadn't received any response from their people. They got very upset since clearly someone wasn't doing their job properly.
Panetoz really wanted to set up an interview with us for when they'd return from their rehearsals. Since more people had sat down in the lobby and some reporters had taken over the sofa we had used for the two interviews before, we had to change spots. Since the hotel didn't have a room to spare, we ended up in one of the members of Panetoz's hotel rooms. The lighting was super bad in the room, but we made it work as well we could.
I've always loved Panetoz, their music, and their incredible positive energy. I really enjoyed their song "Efter Solsken", which they competed with in Melodifestivalen back in 2014. To be honest, despite loving their music as much as I do, I didn't know a lot about them. I think it might be because I rarely watch interviews in Swedish anymore.
In this interview, I got to hear what they had to say about various things such as their background, the hard work they put into their music before the big record labels started contacting them, and also how it is to work as a group with ethnic diversity in the Swedish music industry.
The interview might be a bit long, but I can assure you that it's worth watching because they have really good things to say and you get to know who they are as artists on a deeper level.
This is probably my favorite interview of all of the ones we did during our work as press through the whole competition. I stood there listening to everything they said, and nodded throughout the whole interview because I agreed with the things they said, and because I thought it was very interesting to hear their point of view of how things are working with a record label, how it is for them to work as a group and just hear deeper thoughts about everything.
Panetoz had a lot of important topics to talk through and it was inspiring to hear them get into the deeper message of their work and music, which isn't something you get to hear much from other artists in the Swedpop industry.
Now, after the interview, I like Panetoz even more than before! I look forward to keep following their journey as artists, and seeing how far they will go!
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