It’s truly an honour to welcome Melodifestivalen royalty to the podcast today. Our guest has participated in Melfest nine times already – four times as a solo artist, and five times as part of Alcazar.

Andreas Lundstedt will make it an even ten Mello apprearances when he opens Heat 4 in Malmö with his new song Vicious.

Andreas wrote Vicious for Mello this year with a team that inlcuded another previous Melodifestivalen contestant — LIAMOO. When we asked Andreas what the song is about, he said the message is not ruthless at all:

“The song ‘Vicious’ is about celebrating sexual freedom. It’s about finding someone you can be yourself with, feeling free sexually and emotionally, and letting go of labels.”

— Andreas Lundstedt

No conversation with Andreas would be complete without mentioning his time with Alcazar, particularly so soon after their Eurovision appearance in Malmö last May. This is some of what Andreas had to say about it:

“Sometimes we wonder if people still remember Alcazar. Performing ‘Crying at the Discotheque’ during Eurovision last year showed us that they absolutely do.”

— Andreas Lundstedt

We even took Andreas back to Eurovision 2006 when he competed for Switzerland as part of the group Six4one. We wondered how that came about:

“It was crazy because Ralph Siegel […] called me, well, his people called me and asked if I wanted to join this group that they were going to call Six4one with six different artists from six different countries. […] So for me, getting that question, like one, ‘Do you want to sing for Switzerland?’ I thought it was a bit strange at first, but then they’re like, two, ‘We’re going straight to Eurovision.’ Three, it’s going to be in Athens. I’m like, ‘Tough one, I’ll be there!’ […] It was crazy to represent Switzerland at Eurovision. We didn’t win, but we had so much fun, and it’s an experience I’ll always cherish.”

— Andreas Lundstedt

Be sure to check out our full interview with Andreas Lundstedt in the latest episode of Building Bridges (link above)! You’ll hear stories about his previous Melfest participations, when he represented Switzerland at Eurovision 20 years ago, and about Alcazar’s legacy.

Best of luck to Andreas — we can’t wait to see his performance on 22^nd February! Let us know what you thought of the interview in the comments and on our social media profiles @buildingbridgespod !