The Maltese national selection for Eurovision, MESC, is going strong, introducing us 39 amazing new songs. One of the participants is the band The Busker, who is hoping to win a ticket to Liverpool with their song ”Dance (Our Own Party)”. Although the band undoubtedly is very busy with the contest right now, the band members Dav. Jr. (vocals, guitar), Jean Paul (drums) and Sean (saxophone) still had time to answer a few questions we asked from them. This is what the band told us about their relationship to Eurovision, the history of the band, their MESC song ”Dance (Our Own Party)”, and some other things as well:

Hello The Busker and thank you for giving me this interview! At first I’d like to ask what is your relationship to Eurovision? Do you usually watch the contest and do you have some favorite Eurovision songs?

Hi! 🙂 

First of all we would like to thank you for reaching out to us for this interview, it’s a great pleasure for us to answer your questions for you and your followers. Yes, we are indeed Eurovision fans ourselves and it is a yearly standing appointment for us to meet at someone’s place and watch it together. Dav.Jr (vocalist/guitarist) sometimes also does a running commentary on his Instagram account about his thoughts on the entries. Both MESC and ESC are our yearly tradition as they also bring a nostalgic factor for us, growing up and watching it with our families. As for favourite songs, each one of us has his own favourite, Dav.Jr’s are Aminata – “Love Injected” and  Duncan Laurence – “Arcade”, Jean Paul’s (drums) Måneskin – “Zitti e Buoni” and Sam Ryder’s “Spaceman”, and Sean’s (saxophone)  Kalush Orchestra’s “Stefania” from the recent years, then we also have our favourites from MESC entries like Destiny’s “Je Me Casse”, Michela’s “Chameleon” and an all time classic “Desire” by Claudette Pace.  

Could you tell us a little bit something about the history of The Busker? When and how was your band founded and from where does the name The Busker come?

The Busker was formed in 2014, and it started out as a duo (Jean Paul) and a former member (Dario), when they were busking in the streets of Malta (where the name originated). It is an ode to a busker who plays in a street making other people happy and unites them with music. Sean was the next addition to the group who brought a new dynamic to the band’s sound with his signature tone on the Saxophone. The last member to join the band was Dav.Jr (current frontman, who also has a solo career by the same name) who joined 3 years ago and together we have been working non stop by performing at local festivals as well as touring in countries like the UK and Italy.  

How would you describe your song ”Dance (Our own party)” and the message of it?

Dance(Our own party) is a funky tune mixed with The Busker’s signature sound. The storyline is a trip of someone triggered by social anxiety at a party, finding comfort in leaving with a couple of friends to go to a familiar and more comforting setting.  Since COVID hit, the three of us have felt more comfortable in our own environment surrounded by people that we are closer with. The song in general is a journey of how one gets out of such a party, and heads back to their home with their friends to throw their own intimate party.

What kind of stage show can we expect from you in MESC?

For the quarter finals, the stage is very minimalist as per instructions given to us by the production team. Should we pass for the Semi Finals, we are thinking of representing the song’s journey as we would do in a music video. Without revealing too much, it is going to be quite entertaining for us as we want our light spirited characters to come through on stage and pay respect to what The Busker represents. We have teamed up with professionals to help us make our visions come to life, and at the moment we are working hard to make sure we deliver the best show possible. (So fingers crossed we make it to the semi finals/finals 🙂 )

Who are your musical role models or artists you look up to?

The three of us come from different backgrounds. Dav.Jr is more inspired by singer/songwriters, Jean from the alternative/band scene and Sean by Jazz infused to Hip Hop. You can check out our ‘10 albums that shaped our music taste’ posts on our Instagram account! 

What do you think are the greatest achievements in your career so far and what would you like to achieve in the future?

One of the greatest achievements was winning an award for the best album of the year from Lovin Malta (a popular local online media platform), playing and headlining local festivals as well as organising tours abroad. What we would like to achieve in the future is to keep on releasing original material and share our music with our listeners. Also having our song being chosen as one of the top 40 songs for the MESC has also been a great achievement. 

If you could do a song with any former Maltese Eurovision representative, who would you choose and why?

Given that our band is recently writing more soul infused music, a perfect fit and honour would be to share a song with Destiny!

What do you do when you don’t do music?

We all have our own day jobs apart from music which takes almost the majority of our time! We come from the background of the health care, managerial and marketing industries. 

What would it mean to you to win MESC and represent Malta in Eurovision 2023?

For us it’s a dream to have the opportunity to represent our country and ourselves on a big stage watched by millions of people! That is something that we strive for. Having a platform where we can showcase our original material to that amount of listeners would be insane! Not only would we be making our country proud, but also our younger selves who once were watching the ESC while dreaming that one day it might be us performing on that stage! 

What would you like to say to our readers and your fans from all over the world?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this interview! We know that nowadays we are constantly scrolling from one thing to another, but the fact that you dedicated 5 minutes of your time to get to know us means a lot. Hope you will enjoy our song and performance and good luck with your journey in whatever you are doing in life! 🙂 

Thank you very much for the interview and the best of luck to MESC!

You can listen to snippet of the song “Dance (Our Own Party)” by The Busker here:

If The Busker is your favorite in MESC 2023, don’t forget to vote for them in our poll:

[democracy id=”168″]