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POPCORN – April 2008

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Romania was their lucky charm. Even if they didn’t win the National Selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, the friendly components of the Swedish group Biondo were very well received by the audience and decided to continue here. Lars, Mattias and Jan filmed the video for “Shine” and they’re going to release their debut album in the fall.

WE CAME HERE BY CHANCE
Q: What is the story behind Biondo?
A: Should we tell the long version or the short one? To be honest, it’s not a very long one, everything started with the ESC and Shine. You might even say that Biondo was born in Romania. We’ve known each other for a while, but we’ve never worked together in this formula. When we had the opportunity to come and sing here, we’ve made the maximum out of it. We are a relatively new band, only a few months old.
Q: Will you sing in this formula, as a band, only here in Romania?
A: Here is where it all started because, at the moment, the maximum of interest for the group is in Romania. Maybe it will grow further. I think we’re the first foreign band formed in Romania. We can say that we are a Romanian band. We are Romanians although we don’t speak the language.
Q: Not even a single word?
A: We know a few words here and there: “salut” (hello), “ speram ca melodia noastra sa ajunga la sufletele voastre” (we hope our song will reach your hearts), “Shine va straluci pentru Romania la Belgrade” (Shine will shine for Romania at Belgrade). These are words we learned for the Eurovision Contest.
Q: What do you think about the way the Romanian public welcomed you?
A: We were very surprised, in a good way. We really didn’t expect any of it, we came here by chance. The guys from Rednex told us about the competition and how things work around here and we said “hey, let’s give it a try”. We were amazed that we won the first semi-final. It even shocked us.
Q: Did you hope to win after what happened at the first semi-final?
A: Of course we would have liked to win, in every competition! We were a bit sad we didn’t, but not upset, not at all.
Q: Will you also participate in the next year’s Eurovision?
A: We don’t know for sure.
Q: When will the album be released?
A: We want to finish recording the album until this year’s July or August and we’re hoping to release it in the fall.
Q: Who writes the lyrics and who composes the music?
A: Each of us writes songs, we work together on some of them, but we also have very talented composers that write for us, like the ones behind Shine. They know how our voices sound like and what we’re capable of. Together we make a very good team.
Q: What does the name of the group, Biondo, mean?
A: It means “blond man”. We know you too have a similar word in your language. I think it suits us, because we’re swedes and when you think Swedish the next thing that comes to your mind is “blond”. We wanted an Italian name that also sounds classical so we decided for Biondo.
Q: Which musician or group influenced your career?
Jan: I was influenced mostly by rock artists like Freddie Mercury, Queen …
Mattias: I’ve always been interested in opera because that’s what I majored in. I admire many opera singers like the Romanian Angela Gheorghiu.
Lars: I also listen to opera, but I prefer rock music. I think I was influenced mostly by the ‘70’s and ‘80’s music like Deep Purple, Whitesnake …
Q: Do you have a site where people can find out more about you?
A: We have a Myspace page – actually two, an official one and a fan-made page: http://www.myspace.com/biondogroup and http://www.myspace.com/biondo-fansromania
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?
Jan: I enjoy playing golf. You may call me a sports-geek. I do not play football anymore, but I enjoy watching the game. I also like scuba diving, shark-swimming …
Lars: I collect toy cars. It is a rather strange hobby, but also an amusing one. That’s what I do in my free time: I play with my cars. And I feel like an 8 year old…
Mattias: I like to paint, travel and meet new people, make new friends, nothing special.
Q: Can you describe for me a Swedish tradition?
A: Yes, I think we have a holiday you do not celebrate – Mid Summer (middle of summer). We build al kinds of statues, over 10 m tall, we decorate them with leaves and flowers, and then we gather and dance around them imitating all sorts of animals. It is crazy and everybody is celebrating! In fact, it would be impossible not to celebrate because it’s a lot of fun, we eat special things like raw fish, sauces and we drink enormous amounts of alcohol. We even have songs especially for that day. Everybody is partying and no one dares to sleep. I don’t think we, the swedes, do necessary need a particularly excuse to drink alcohol, we have many holidays … but this one is special, because in Sweden it’s dark most of the time and Mid Summer is the longest day of the year when we get to stay awake until the dawn. There are a lot of magical things happening in Mid Summer. It’s been said that young men and women may dream the person they are going to marry if they place a specific flower under their pillow. But maybe we should say no more.
Q: We have a holiday when we’re allowed to drink about 40 glasses …
A: 40 glasses? We’re definitely going to come for this one next year, but we better prepare ourselves seriously. I don’t think we can drink this much. 20 glasses maybe …
Q: What do you think about Romania? What are the things you like and dislike about our country?
A: We certainly do not like the traffic in Bucharest, but we’ve been so busy that we haven’t seen much for the moment. We are hoping to take a tour when we come back, because everyone keeps telling us how beautiful this country is. We’ve received a photo album of Romania from the fans that greeted us at the airport. Our first impression and a very strong one, is that people are very nice and hospitable.
Q: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done in your life?
A: Just one? We have to think about it …
Mattias: I think jumping off a plane with a parachute. It needs a good dose of craziness.
Jan: When I was a young boy I was very interested what lies beneath the ground in the sewers of the city I lived in. So together with some friends, we took torches and got lost through those canals. We’ve struggled a great deal to get out of there. It was adventurous, I don’t know if also crazy. I was a bit too young.
Lars: I don’t have something particular to tell. I’m not the kind of person who does crazy things.
Q: Could you please send a message to your Romanian fans
A: We are grateful to them for all their support, we’re hoping they’ll always be by our side and listening to our future songs. Well try to have concerts in all the major cities of Romania.

LARS SAFSUND
He’s been playing keyboards for a long time. He began his vocal career at the age of 20 and he’s been singing ever since. His hobby project, ”Work Of Art” recently released an album, with him as the lead singer. He also starred in some musicals: Rent (Mark Cohen), Sweet Charity (Daddy Cool) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Simon). He also toured with Rednex as backing vocals.

MATTIAS NILSSON
He graduated from The Royal Music Academy of Stockholm and The Opera Academy. He sang in “La Boheme” at The Royal Opera in Stockholm, “Carmen” and many others. Biondo is his first pop project.

JAN LEKEMARK
Although there have been many changes in his musical career over the years, he started singing as a rock artist. He played in several operas such as “Tosca”, “La Boheme”, “La Traviata”. He moved from the opera scene to that of theater and musicals, starring in several lead roles. His last one was in a rock-opera, an homage to the British band Queen: “Show must go on – A tribute to Queen”. He spends a lot of time in his personal studio, writing music for other artists.
They were one step from wining the Romanian Eurovision with “Shine” and now they have tried their luck again at the Golden Stag festival.The Swedes from Biondo are fascinated by the Romanian landscape, by the food and by the hospitality of the Romanians, but they are also dazed about the traffic.

PRO TV MAGAZIN, september 2008

Three tenors, the Scandinavian version
Until this year’s National Selection for Eurovision nobody knew about Biondo. Actually, this was the reason for which the bad was created, getting together the three Swedes: Lars Safsund, Jan Lekemark and Mattias Nilsson. Back home, each of them was known: Lars sings at the keyboard, played in some musicals (”Sweet Charity”, “Jesus Christ Superstar”) and acted as a backing vocal for Rednex in their tours. Jan was a rock singer but sang opera too (”La Traviata”, “La Boheme”, “Tosca”) and Mattias graduated the Royal Music Academy from Stockholm and the Opera Academy, playing roles like “La Boheme” and “Carmen” at the Royal Opera from Stockholm.They knew that Romania was “A country with castles, mountains, full of atlets and football players”, and they’ve listened on the internet Romanian music sang by Mihai Traistariu, O-Zone, Alina Sorescu and Angela Gheorghiu. Once arrived here, they got themselves a manager – Radu Fornea, and a record label – Roton. They got here in the middle of the Eurovision contest and managed to get from the first semi-final with a big score from the jury and lots of votes from the people: 2098, being among the favorites.

Filming in Pantelimon
The boys from Biondo didn’t gave up and came back in Romania to shoot the video for “Shine”, the sang that brought them popularity among the Romanians. The filming took place during the night at the “Lebada” (Swan) complex that was in renovation, and it had as the script the short variant of Stanley Kubrik’s horror movie “The Shining”: mysterious appearances, four ghost-like characters and an abandoned hotel transformed the video in a thrilling short film. And if they came here with work, Lars, Jan and Mattias couldn’t skip the chance to familiarize themselves with the Romanian backgrounds but with the gastronomic marvels, so Jan rushed into the sausages.

Destination: Brasov
The three tenors are back in the Romanian competitions, this time representing Sweden in the contest for the Golden Stag trophy: “We believe that is very good to be part of an event so big like the Golden Stag so, why not, we are here to continue what we started at the Eurovision”. After their representation from Brasov, Biondo are preparing a new single along with a video that they like to film somewhere in the Romanian mountains. Until then, beside the contemplation of the Romanian landscapes and the traditional food, the boys are trying to fit with the infernal traffic and, the most important, to learn as much words in Romanian as possible: “We know to say “I love you”, “We love you”, “How do you do ?”, “Palinca”, “We hope our songs gets to your souls”. The fans are helping us learning the Romanian language through the internet and we teach them Swedish”.

Lars:
Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Favorite music: Queen, Peter Gabriel, Jellyfish, Toto
Favorite movie: The Matrix, Lord of the rings, Fight Club
Favorite book: Harry Potter

Jan:
Zodiac sign: Lion
Favorite music: the sounds of the nature, classic music, rock
Favorite movie: Lord of the rings, Bourne trilogy
Favorite food: Lamb, Thai food and Romanian sausages

Mattias:
Zodiac sign: Aquarius
Favorite music: Pop, opera, classic, jazz, synth, R&B
Favorite movie: Elizabeth
Favorite food: Sushi, chicken, pasta, ice cream

STORY, september 2008

LIBERTATEA PENTRU FEMEI, september 2008

Q MAGAZINE, october 2008

[...] For the ones who don’t know, I tell the name of the three Stag winners: Razvan Krivach (called “kitch-rocker” by the press, the most contested prize from the modern age of the contest), Biondo (The Swedes were the best and I say that on my own responsability) and Tony Poptamas & Desperado (they deserved much too).[...]

ZAU, january 2009

[...] Neither Biondo retract from the year’s annual scandal called Eurovision. If last year they had huge success with “Shine”, the Swedes try this year too to get a high spot in the contest. [...]

VIP, january 2009

This year too, the national selection for the Eurovision born gossips and scandal. This time, the well known artists didn’t rushed to represent Romania in the world and they didn’t seemed attracted of an European success, like the Mihai Traistariu’s model. From 209 songs, 32 didn’t even make it into the contest because they infringed the rules. From this, not less than seven were composed by Dani Alexandrescu from K1. In this situation was also the song “I’ll be around”, sang by Biondo. The songs were longer than 3 minutes or they didn’t had the lyrics translated into French, which was a rule stipulated in the international order of the contest.
Even if Biondo had been seen like the favorite band for the 2009 Eurovision, they were disqualified. Our sources say that the members of the band found Dani guilty because he didn’t respected the rules, and called him unprofessional. [...]