Special - Mikael Konttinen: I trust a good song to be enough | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2009 Moscow, Russia 

Mikael Konttinen participates in this year's Euroviisut, the Finnish preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest aspiring to represent his country in Belgrade. He spoke to esctoday.com's Ilari Karhapaa about his life, preferences and his 2008 bid.

You were born in Sweden like one of your idols Jari Sillanpää and you are quite similar showman performers. Is it just by accident or something more sought after?

It is true that I have a lot of common with Jari: the Swedish years, Tangomarkkinat (the Finnish Tango market talent show where every year a new Tango Queen and King is crowned), and some say we even look a little alike. It’s all just a coincidence really. We both had the dream of becoming an artist and if I manage to become as successful entertainer as Jari I will be very satisfied. He is indeed one of my idols as a performer and show artist. I also like great Finnish singers like Kari Tapio, Eino Grön, Reijo Taipale and Olavi Virta. And also Frank Sinatra and Paul Anka for example.
 
Sinatra and Anka as idols, and your music is happy 60’s influenced schlager pop. Is it what you like most and want to do, or are you planning to go to some other direction?

When we started planning on my debut album we were thinking what kind of music it should have. I have always liked schlager, which I think is a very wide description, and include both traditional schlager as well as pop and show tunes. The most logical choice was to collect new songs that were arranged in an old fashioned way, so to speak. I think the result is excellent!
 
Year 2006 was a real turning point in your career. How come you ended in that Helsinki Day Eurovision concert that lead to the president’s Independence Day’s celebrations and record deal?
 
True! My career took off on fast forward in 2006. The Eurovision concert on Helsinki Day was a joint project by Kaartin Soittokunta (a Finnish army’s orchestra) and my school. I was asked to sing in four concerts during that spring but as I moved to Stockholm to work after my military service in winter 2005-2006 I couldn’t. However my colleague of mine couldn’t sing on June 12th concert and I was asked to replace him. It was a wonderful experience. We performed classics like Diggi-loo, diggi-ley, What’s another year, Waterloo, Ding dinge dong, Volare and Eres tu. I guess it all went very well as the conductor called me later that summer and asked if I would like to be their soloist in the annual Independence Day ball in the president’s castle on December 6th. Of course I agreed on the spot. I guess that went very well, too, as several record companies contacted me the following days. I signed to Universal Music and when we were finishing recording the album I was asked if I was interested in doing Euroviisut. Well, of course! It also meant my album’s release was postponed for 6 months but it doesn’t matter. Such a great opportunity for a young artist!

The president’s annual ball is every year the most watched TV program in Finland scoring about two million viewers live for all evening. How did it feel to perform there?

It was unforgettable. It felt almost crazy to think half of the Finnish population was there on the other side of the TV-screen watching and listening to me. I noticed it was better not to think about it as I was about to lose my concentration and mess up the lyrics… Luckily I think it happened only once and maybe no one noticed really. It really was a wild experience! But thinking that Euroviisut will be watched by hundreds of thousands of Finns, too, makes me feel really ready and excited, too.
 
Where were you when Lordi won?

I was in Turku at Tangomarkkinat semi final, where to my big surprise I just had qualified for the final with my first try. We finalists were singing in a local dance restaurant where in the downstairs people were following the Eurovision final. I hurried down as soon as my turn to sing was over and it was incredible good feeling. Lordi won and I qualifed. What a night!

 Is there and Eurovision song you would have wanted to perform?
 
Well, of course there are many I can think about, songs that have lived on after Eurovision all around the world but I must say right now I am so happy with my own song that I rather sing that.

You are from a musical family and study music. You have been performing already all over the world from Japan to Argentina and from Brazil to Russia. Tell us more.
 
Yes indeed. Musicality must come from my genes as I’m 4th generation musician. My great grandfather and grandfather were traditional folk musicians and also my dad had music as a hobby. After high school I had only one goal: to get into Sibelius-lukio in Helsinki to finish my school and get away from the middle of nowhere in central Finland. It was a very good choice in every sense. I got a lot of new friends and great foundation for a musical career. I was in the school’s choir and we performed weekly and toured also abroad that was wonderful as I love travelling. UK, Estonia, USA, Argentina… Later on also Brazil and Germany with Grex Musicus choir that I was part of, too. Those travels are unforgettable experiences!

You also sing in a cover band called Must. What kind of music do you perform?
 
Our repertoire is very wild and varied, because we perform for example in weddings where we start with traditional dance music like waltz but towards the end of the evening we do rock classics like Bon Jovi, CCR and Finnish pop music as well. Some Eurovision is also included, like Diggi-loo, diggi-ley, Hengaillaan and Sata salamaa.

What did you think when YLE asked you for Euroviisut?

Of course I was first surprised, but then I started working for it immediately with my record company, figuring out how to make most of it. As my album was ready we thought we would take a song from there but in the last minute we got a demo for Milloin, written by Kerkko Koskinen and Kyösti Salokorpi that felt perfect.
 
What can be expect? The composer was behind Annika Eklund’s Shanghain valot for example, and that’s a real fan favourite. How about the staging? Can we look forward for costume changes, wings, fire works and dancers?

The song is very good with its massive arrangement and it’s quite dramatic and groovy. Kerkko composes very visual songs so one must be careful not to mess up a great composition with too much staging. We will concentrate on singing and I will have four very talented female backing vocalists. Of course there is a bit of choreography but we all felt this song doesn’t need a huge show on stage!
 
Do you believe one need in Eurovision also the show factor or is a good song enough?
 
Of course the staging is also important. In my case I trust a good song to be enough, with a good performance. That is also a good show, you’ll see! 

Tell us more about your new album.

My debut album will be released on February 27 and will include 12 great songs, including last summer’s hit Pilvet and the follow up single Kerran, and of course the Euroviisu song Milloin. The rest is a collection of songs we felt was the most suitable ones for me from a very large number of songs and if I may say so myself it is a very fine album! A few of them were in line to be the Euroviisut song, but Milloin was the most suitable one.
 
If you win, will you sing in English in Belgrade and will you rework your staging?
 
I can’t say anything about the language as yet. It would be great to sing in Finnish of course but it is also a risk. On the other hand a great song doesn’t need to be linguistically understood but the message comes through anyway. If the Finnish voters will send me to Belgrade the staging will be spiced up a bit for the international arena.

Tell us your best Eurovision memory and name a few favourite songs of yours.

I cannot not mention Lordi! It is also wonderful one can these days find old songs and performances on internet. Those archives reveal many interesting treasures and I still have many years to explore!
 
What is your opinion on the language freedom? Orchestra missing? About the foreign singers and writers in various national finals?
 
The freedom of language is good but also a challenge to the voters and juries. Europe has many languages and it would be great to hear all of them instead of most singing in English. I have had the opportunity to sing with the big orchestra several times and it would be great if Eurovision had it, too. But on the other hand the musical styles in Eurovision have become so varied over the years and it would be quite difficult to think all of them performing with the orchestra, like hard rock and Euro disco. World changes! The appearance of foreign singers and writers has to do with European unification I think. Eurovision is very big for example in Sweden so it is quite natural there are so many Swedish writers that they can even export them! Of course all should be taken with some sense, that at least some of the writers in a team or the artist would be from the country they represent, just to make sure the local artists and song writers have a change to be heard in Europe.

Any greetings to the readers of esctoday.com?

Thank you for the interview and to the whole esctoday.com team and readers. I wish you a very sunny spring time full of Eurovision. Let the best one win and see you in Belgrade! 