San Di Ego – rock band, who’s competing at EMA for a very first time – are one of the younger bands on Slovenian rock scene. Their first single, “Stayin’ Alive” – cover of Bee Gee’s song – amazed Slovenian audience since first minute of listening. Boys definitely do have special energy during performing at the various stages in Slovenia & around Europe, and we’re more than happy to see that they are competing at this years’ Eurovision preselection in Slovenia. We’ve been talking to them, so feel free to check an interview below, as well as their greetings, said by their vocalist Sergio here:

Firstly, congratulations for qualifying for EMA 2016! How did you decide to enter the contest this year?
Thank you for your congratulations. Speaking about our decision concerning the participation on EMA, we were not quite sure, that a rock band belongs to that kind of festival but, on the other hand, we took our participation as a kind of mission. We think this could be an important step in the move toward approaching rock music to largest audience. This is the reason why we are absolutely sure about our decision.

Apart from EMA, what would you say is your biggest achievement in your music career so far?
As Slovenian rock band we can surely say we are quite satisfied with the obtained results in our 3 years long musical career as San Di Ego. We play the music we love, we have realized our first album and, currently, we are recording the next one, we have three successful concert seasons behind us (most of these concerts happened on the most important stages in Slovenia), wherever we play we get very positive responses, we have a lot of  loyal fans, our team is great and we have a lot of fun. So, to sum up, we can definitely say our biggest achievement in music so far is the possibility to do what we love the most.

Have you ever sent a song for the Slovenian Eurovision pre selection in the past as well?
Yes, actually it happened two years ago and the story is quite interesting. Our band has been invited to participate to the pre selection sending one of already recorded songs. The problem was that there was no appropriate song! We had the possibility to obtain the studio only for one day so we had a very short time to record something good starting from absolutely nothing. And we did it! All happened very fast but it was fun. At the end the song was not selected but we were satisfied about our work and we placed it on our first album.

EMA is already a festival tradition in Slovenia, have you been following it in the past years and if so, do you have your all-time favorite song?
We like to watch EMA very much if we have time or if we are not playing on a concert of ours. EMA revealed a lot of excellent songs so far but our favorite is the one San Di Ego is going to perform this year, of course.

Let’s talk more about your song. What’s the main message of it, and what type of a song can we expect from you?
The title of the song is Brez tebe (Without you) and it reveals two sides of love: the happy one, when we have love and the sad one, the desperation if we lose it. Even if we are a rock band, we are not afraid to show our gentile side, so we chose a love song but we are not going to lose our rock side.

Can you tell us something more about the team behind this song?
The author of the music is Nino Ošlak, the lyrics were written by Igor Pirkovič and the arrangement was prepared by the members of the band.

Do you already have some stage plans? How is everything going to look like on the night of EMA?
We already have some ideas about our performance. The most important thing for us is to show to larger audience the real way we are and how they can see us performing on our concerts.

What would winning EMA and representing Slovenia in Eurovision mean to you?
To win EMA would mean the confirmation of the rock music’s high position in the music scene. Of course, for San Di Ego winning would represent a great responsibility but we are prepared for that.

Do you usually follow Eurovision, and do you have a favorite Eurovision song?
We like to watch Eurovision as much as we like to watch EMA and, if we had a concert on the same day, we would probably watched it from the backstage. We don’t have a favorite Eurovision song because we think there were a lot of good ones in the past editions but we in particular appreciated ABBA and the great results they obtained in the world music scene.

How would you describe yourself in three words?
DEDICATION, EGO AND ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!

What do you usually do when you are not singing or performing?
The music and our band are co-related to every part of our lives. When we are not on the stage, we create new music, think about next projects and try to have as much fun as possible.

And finally, do you have a message for all of the readers of ESC Bubble, who will support you in EMA?
Do watch EMA, support us and believe that rock ‘n’ roll is still alive!

We would like to thank San Di Ego for their time for doing this interview with us! While we are waiting to hear their entry in this year’s EMA, let’s listen to their “Stayin’ Alive” cover – the song, they’ve been debuting at the Slovene music scene!