On Saturday, February 27th, the last semi-final of Melodifestivalen will take place in Gävle, and hard rock band Eclipse will open it with their entry “Runaways”.
Eclipse is the only one rock act this year, which is not typial for Sweden. ESCBubble had a chat with the Eclipse’s guitarist Magnus Henriksson about their music, road to Melodifestivalen and future plans.
Hello Magnus! Congratulations for making it to the semi final stage of the Melodifestivalen 2016!
Thank you!
How did you decide to enter the contest this year?
We had no thought whatsoever to be a part of Melodifestivalen. It never crossed our minds until we got an invitation. It was hard to say no once we got invited.
You are a new band for our readers outside Sweden, can you please tell us more about yourself: what should we expect form the band Eclipse? In what musical style do you perform?
Eclipse is a Melodic hard rock band that has existed since 1999. We’ve released 5 albums so far. The most recent one is called “Armageddonize” which was released in Feb 2015. There will be a new deluxe package of the album that’ll be released on Feb 28:th after the competition. It’ll include the album + Runaways and 4 more unreleased tracks. And a full live album.
You can expect an all-in hard rock experience with a bombastic show from Eclipse.
Every artist (and band) has something special, people say “he/she/band hast it”. How can you describe “it” about your band?
It for us would be the craftmanship of our songs and the way it’s executed. Full on rock show with lots of energy.
Can you please tell us more about your entry song for Melodifestivalen 2016? What’s the main message of it?
It’s an uptempo and very catchy hard rock song with a contagious chorus. Timeless. The message of the song is about always chasing something, but you’re never satisfied. A constant journey thru life. It’s not the final destination that
is the goal. The goal is the journey it self.
Can you tell us something more about the team behind this song?
It’s an Eclipse song written and played by Eclipse. We had full freedom of doing our own thing. We wouldn’t have done this if we were “forced” a song upon us from an outside songwriter. We are doing our own thing 100%. And we
are very proud of that.
Eurovision is a competition for every musical style, but most of the songs are usually performed in pop style. In your opinion, what are the advantages of non-pop styled songs in Eurovision?
The advantage would be that we will stand out and do something completely different. People will remember us cuz we’re not doing the run of the mill pop song. We offer something new to the table. We will add some balls to
Melodifestivalen.
What is your inspiration for singing?
Whitesnake
How would you describe your ideal song that you would like to perform?
It’s called Runaways. There’s our perfect song. That’s the style we wanna do we’re the best at it 🙂
Thank you, Magnus, for your time and your answers! ESCBubble wish you and your band Eclipse good luck on Saturday!
Don’t forget to watch the snippet from Eclipse’s rehearsal later today on Melodifestivalen’s fb page.
