2012’s Swedish pop landscape promises a big new addition. Aided by the biggest launch a pop act can get these days – Melodifestivalen – Sweden’s newest boyband in a long time will be introduced on a large scale. They’re Youngblood, and they’ll be competing with their self titled song composed by the man who has written the winning Melodifestivalen song for three of the last four years, Fredrik Kempe (alongside David Krüger).
We’ve already had a brief introduction to the boys when they released their debut single ‘Blame It On You‘ on the same day as the Melodifestivalen press conference that announced them to be taking part. Plus, Swedish TV viewers got to see them trilling a couple of festive tunes last week, when they appeared on Bingolotto to perform ‘Last Christmas‘ and duet with Molly Sandén on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You‘.
We met up with the chaps (left to right – Simon Johansson, Henric Flodin, Oskar Kongshöj, Marcus Sjöstrand, and Christer Sjølie af Geijerstam) at the aforementioned MF press conference. There were some things we wanted to know. So we asked them;
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scandipop: Hello to you guys!
Youngblood: Hello to you!
scandipop: How are you feeling about today? And about the next four months in general!
Youngblood: It’s fantastic. And we’re excited.
scandipop: This morning is the first time I’ve heard of Youngblood. And it’ll be the same for everyone else. So can you tell us a little bit about you? Let’s start with how you all got together.
Youngblood: The group is a result of auditions, so that’s how we got together. But we all really clicked on a personal level. And there’s a good chemistry within he group. So we don’t feel so much that we were all put together randomly. It feels more natural than that. We’re five individuals who have been made into a group – but we’re more a group than five individuals.
scandipop: That’s a good way of putting it. And can you tell us something about the song that you’ll be competing with, also called ‘Youngblood’?
Youngblood: Well it’s a pop song with very much energy. So we’re gonna sing and we’re gonna dance – so we’re gonna show a lot of us. Actually, EVERYBODY is gonna wanna sing and dance! It’s gonna be awesome. And it’s gonna be a new sound.
scandipop: Ah ok. Well my next question was gonna be if you could compare it to anything, what would you compare it to. But you say it’s a new sound?
Youngblood: Yeah, we think it’s a new sound. It is. It’s a Fredrik Kempe song, so of course you can hear many traces of him in it. But it’s still non comparable to what he’s done earlier. It’s new but it’s still him.
scandipop: Ok. So what can people expect from Youngblood after Melodifestivalen, for the rest of 2012? Is there an album or EP on the horizon?
Youngblood: We’re working on an album, yes. And then we will probably go out on tour.
scandipop: When did you guys actually start working on music together? Just recently, or has it been a while?
Youngblood: Together – just recently yeah. But each of us have always done music, since childhood. As a band though, we’ve been working together for some months now. An important thing to stress is that we’re not just made up for this competition. It’s a longterm group. We think that the album will come out in Spring. And we’re working on songs. We know it’s gonna be great!
scandipop: Cool, I look forward to it. Right well it was nice to meet you guys. Thanks for your time, enjoy today, and I’ll see you in February!
Youngblood: Thanks! See you.
