This Saturday Iceland continues the search for its representative for Eurovision 2023. Five participants will perform in the 2nd semi-final of Söngvakeppnin and we had the opportunity to talk with Langi Seli og Skuggarnir about their entry “OK”, you can check out our interview below.

Hello Langi Seli og Skuggarnir and thank you for taking your time for ESCBubble! First of all, how was your reaction when you heard you will be at Söngvakeppnin 2023?
To begin with, thank you for the interest in our rocking little combo. It’s always a good feeling playing music for anyone, be it at a competition like this one on tv or at a packed rockclub. We are very excited.

You are quite a popular band in Iceland, being in the music industry for a while. What made you decide to enter Söngvakeppnin and what are you expectations from the contest?
We had a really good song that we´d been working on for a while and thought that it would be a fun idea to test the waters by sending it in to the jury, it was actually one of the first songs to be chosen into competition as a competitor. We look at the competition as a way to reach an audience that normally wouldn´t hear about us.

We know Eurovision is quite popular in your country and in recent years Iceland got some good results by sending a band, does that make you feel more confident about your chances in the selection?
Hard to say really, we´re coming from a totally different mindset and approach than the usual Eurovision competitor, we´re a band that´s been around for quite a while (1988) doing our thing on our own terms, we´re trying to navigate how this competition works but the mainpoint is that we have a really good tune and we always play our hearts out on stage so it´s gonna be great anyhow.

Your song for the National Selection is called “Ok”, could you tell us a little bit about the song, what is it about?
The song is about dealing with the unexpected and everything that follows that, how to deal with that without losing touch with one self, in the end everything will be OK!

How will the staging be at Söngvakeppnin 2023? What can we expect from your performance?
You can expect a rocking combo playing their instruments and singing their hearts out while looking very sharp, you can´t beat that!

Do you think it will be to your advantage singing in Icelandic and not having an English version for the selection? And in case of winning Söngvakeppnin do you consider releasing one in English?
We have always sung in Icelandic and we think that it´s a good thing, we haven´t felt the need to change language. Too early to say what would happen to the lyrics if we win, we´ll see.

What are your favorite Eurovision songs of all time?
Abba, Waterloo

Any other plans for 2023? Can we expect new music from Langi Seli og Skuggarnir?
We are always working on new tunes and recordings, most likely we´ll release some new material this spring, we have a couple of hits up our sleeves.

In the end, I want to thank you for your time and please, if you have a message for your fans and our readers here on ESCBubble?
Thanks for the interest in our band, we really hope that you dig our tune “OK”, if you don´t that´s OK too! Do check us out on Spotify, we have a bunch of albums there for all of your listening pleasures and we´re sure that you´ll find more great tunes of ours there!

You can listen to Langi Seli og Skuggarnir’s song for Söngvakeppnin here:

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