Medina: “We feel that our song is really made for the big arenas!” | Exclusive Interview
Andreas Papayiannakis and EurovisionFun is accredited by SVT to follow the Melodifestivalen tour for a third year in-a-row. In Stockholm we got the chance to meet a few people involved in this year’s Melodifestivalen. Among those was the duo of Medina who are participating at the fifth heat of Melodifestivalen and had us over at the artist hotel in Karlstad and spoke with us on an extensive interview.
Medina were in a very fun mood and they passed it on to me, they spoke about their song, their staging and about them being potential winners of Melodifestivalen 2024. Their song “Que Sera” is going to involve an explosive show and a lot of things are going to happen. It’s gonna be about dancing and partying. It’s an arena song. What do they feel about their song?
“We feel that this song really is made for the big arenas. We didn’t want to waste our time there. We did the song in gibberish, like Spanish. And then we were gonna rewrite it in Swedish, but it didn’t feel good. It didn’t sound good. So we just kept it with the language that we just sang it in, Spanish, French and Italian that is not perfect but it’s just the vibe. It’s easy to sing with it.”
Medina will have a big speaker prop, as it is written in Melopedia. They’re gonna have dancers, bicycles but they don’t wanna say much. They tell us a bit more about the vibe of their staging though:
“Things will be around us. We have some choreography. But maybe we will see if somebody uses the bike or the drum. How things are gonna be interacted with. We don’t want to reveal that. We will see how we integrate with what’s on the stage and how it will be used. That’s gonna be the fun part.”
They made the chorus in the same sense as “In i dimman“, a big chanting chorus, like a football anthem.
“It’s three choruses. So for the last chorus maybe everybody has already learned the chorus and can sing along with us.”
How would they describe their song to those people that haven’t listened to it yet?
“It’s not that much different than “In i dimman”. The intro starts slow, we have the words like mama in it, but this is more explosive and this is more happy and it’s not so dark as “In i dimman”. We have parts of happy-sad moments in the verses, I can’t find the word in English, it’s a bit of deepness in it and then it evolves into that big happy thing, that’s what I wanted to say.”
They wrote the song together with Jimmy “Joker” Thörnfeldt and Anderz Wrethov. They explain a bit how the creative process was like:
“They were with us in the studio and they created the track with us, so Jimmy comes in, I have this great idea and he started humming on the melody to this song, like we changed it a bit, but the first thought was him in the room, it was all silent, I have the song for you and he started singing that chorus and if felt like this was a football chant chorus and we started working on the song from there, from his vision.”
They are gonna close the fifth and last heat of the year. They feel very honoured that SVT chose them to be the closing act and they describe why they feel this way:
“Yeah it’s a bit pressure of course, because we heard afterwards that the last one out it was always artists like Loreen and Måns, all these big profiles and we feel like everybody is gonna expect you to get to the finals. We just want to do our thing, but it’s an honour to be last. It feels like they put the icons, how are we gonna carry that? That’s the pressure.”
They would be extremely happy if they won and got the chance to represent Sweden. They point out the fact that Swedish people don’t easily vote for entries in Swedish, like they would vote for example back in 2006 when they voted for Carola. And even then, the song was changed to “Invincible” with English lyrics. They could make the perfect host entry.
“Now I started thinking about it, I’ve never thought about it, because it’s so far away, now I just want to get to the finals first, you know, and do our best there, but to win, yeah historically it’s hard, but let’s be hopeful.”
They really hope they can do good in the international jury vote, like they did two years ago:
“If we come to the finals, then the party starts, because then Europe can also vote, and that’s the fun part. Last time we got a wonderful result from the international jury and we think the international crowd might like the song hopefully.”
Finally both Ali and Sami reach out to all their fans in Sweden and internationally and give their message:
“I hope you’ll have fun and our spirit will reach you and that you perhaps gonna stand up and dance and have fun. Que sera, sera, what happens, happens try to just enjoy life and accept what you can’t fix. And vote for us if you can.”
You can watch our exclusive interview with Medina at the video down below:
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Photo: Stina Stjernkvist/SVT
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