Maria Sur: “I’m an uptempo girl and we needed to do something like this.” | Exclusive Interview
Andreas Papayiannakis and EurovisionFun is accredited by SVT to follow the Melodifestivalen tour for a third year in-a-row. In Göteborg we got the chance to meet a few people involved in this year’s Melodifestivalen. Among those was Maria Sur who had us over at Clarion Hotel Post, the appointed artist hotel in Göteborg on an extensive interview, during the Thursday welcome party.
Maria Sur is not somebody you don’t already know. She took part in last year’s Melodifestivalen with the song “Never Give Up“. This year she does a back-t0-back comeback with the song “When I’m Gone“. She feels good to be back. Her rehearsals on Thursday and Friday went quite well and even though she felt a bit overwhelmed, she though that it will be cool and things will be fine-tuned.
“There are some moments to improve, but we will fix it.”
Last year, the song she participated with was not totally her style of music. She was more trying to pass on a message to the audience, given the circumstances with her moving from Ukraine to Sweden, seeking for a better life after the – still ongoing – clash between Ukraine and Russia. She comments on her song this year:
“I definitely feel like in the right place, I think. I was saying to everyone that I’m an uptempo girl, everyone knew, and that we need to do something like this. And I think when we were writing this song, I knew more exactly what I want to do and the songwriters got to know me better. They felt me and they felt what kind of style I want. The whole team and me we just got to know each other better. And we found, my style that I really like and that I think like it’s my natural environment.”
Julie “Kill J” Aagaard, Jimmy “Joker” Thörnfeldt, Anderz Wrethov and the artist herself wrote the song. Maria is the first that she is involved in the song writing process and she is collaborating with Anderz Wrethov for a second time after last year. When and how was the song written?
“It’s actually my first song where I’m also involved in the process and where I’m also a songwriter to. So this feels also like a level up and feels like more my thing, you know. We were in a songwriting camp and it was in August, we wrote the song very fast but again it was because we knew kind of what we want, we had a vision, I had the references and the great songwriters of course helped.”
Last summer she took part in the Digiloo tour with other artists, among which LIAMOO, who is a really really close friend of hers. What are her plans for this year after Melodifestivalen?
“I’m gonna do have gigs 100 percent. And of course, we’re gonna write more music. So I hope we’re gonna work more on my own material and write in this kind of style. Because for my own tour, I have to have a lot of songs to perform with. For now we are focusing on Mello and I’ve also recently signed with Livenation. So I’m gonna have my booking agency for the gigs.”
Her song reminds me a bit of the style of Becky Hill, but her actual icon and inspiration is someone else. She tells us more about that:
“My inspiration was Rihanna, I just I feel I like her vibe and her kind of songs and they can give a lot of self-confidence. Which is which is I think great. I really wanted to have this kind of song this year to just represent myself more on stage as an artist because last year it was like more storytelling about me and presentation of me as an artist for the audience and this year I want people to see myself on stage and I think this song can really show what I can do.”
She is really good friends with LIAMOO and she tells what she thinks about his song too:
“I like LIAMOO’s song as well and we have the same songwriters and it was the same songwriting camp when his song was written. We’re really good friends with Liam and he’s such a nice guy and I really like him and his song this year. We are really supportive for each other and I hope it will go well for us.”
Lastly, she gives a heartwarming message to all her fans in Sweden and Internationally:
“I hope you like my song this year and it’s message about self-respect. Hope it can give you a boost of confidence as I was struggling this year with some insecurities and I felt like I really needed this song to boost my confidence and energy. And I hope people when they’re gonna listen to this they can also feel this kind of powerful attitude they can feel their power they can they can be boosted by confidence. This is very important. And to stay humble.”
You can watch our exclusive interview with Maria Sur at the video down below:
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Photo: Andreas Papayiannakis
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