After speaking to Ana Rucner from Bosnia & Herzegovina we head south to Cyprus at speak to the 2016 participants Minus One. The band have been internally selected to represent Cyprus in Stockholm, we spoke to Chris J who is the drummer for the band.
Can you introduce yourselves and tell us how you formed as a band?
We formed Minus One in 2009. Our current members are Francois Micheletto on vocals, Anthony Loizides on Bass, Chris J on drums,Con Amerikanos and Harry Pari on guitars. Basically we were all friends and had worked with each other on different projects in the past. We happened to be free at the same time and created Minus One. We saw a gap in the live scene here in our hometown so we went for it.
Who are your music influences?
Hmmm….. Well listen…there are five of us so you would get five different answers. The sure thing is that we all grew up pretty much with the basic classics like Zeppelin, Sabbath, Maiden, ACDC etc. This of course evolved whilst growing up and other genres were added along the way. Personally (Chris J here) I was also a big pop fan growing up, listening to Duran Duran, AHA and Depeche Mode fanatically. I know that others in the band were really in to the blues or Jazz. Influences you say??? I would either have to answer “anything and everything out there” or i could sit here writing until everybody gets extremely bored.
I understand you were a cover band when you first started out, what is your favourite artist and/or song that you like to cover and why?
We have done so many that it’s hard to choose, but we can say for sure that covering pop songs is the most fun and creative. That’s when you really feel that you have turned a song around, and when you see the crowds reaction it’s priceless (or surprising uncomfortable sometimes because lets face it, we have failed a couple of times when covering songs like “It’s hot in here” or “Call me maybe”). We have done great things with Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Michael Jackson though. Here is a cover we did with a project we have called “Marianne’s Wish” (It’s a long story) and was included on our first album.
How did your Eurovision participation come about?
We were asked if we were interested in participating in the 2015 Eurovision Project that took place. The truth is we were at a bar when we discussed it.Woke up the next morning and found ourselves participating. We just went like “what the hell, let’s do this”.
Do you think your experience within the Cypriot national selection in 2015 is helping you prepare for next year’s contest?
It was like an intro I guess to what is coming up.
How did you form a collaboration with Swedish composer and musician Thomas G:Son?
It was CYBC that came up with the idea actually and we loved it. We have all been part of many original albums or projects and are perfectly capable of writing our own stuff but we also love collaborations. We met Thomas and we hit it off immediately. We saw that we were totally on the same page and that gets us really excited about what the result may be.
Can you give us an insight as to how you will go about choosing your song for Eurovision?
It’s in the works. We didn’t really choose the direction of the song or stick in any gimmicks just for the sake of it. We sat down in our rehearsal room and just let ideas flow. It’s an honest result that really is “us”.
Is there anything else you would like to add for our Eurovoix.com readers?
No, (just kidding) but yeah….no.
We look forward to speaking to the guys from Minus One again during the build up to Eurovision 2016 once their song has been released. You can find out more about Minus One on Facebook and Twitter.
Split JESC voting is revealed