In our first interview since the end of national finals season, we are so thrilled to bring you our exclusive chat with ADONXS who is set to represent Czechia at Eurovision in Basel this May with Kiss Kiss Goodbye.

Adam Pavlovčin was born in a town Slovakia just over the border from Czechia. He’s been interested in music from a young age, leaving Slovakia for Prague to study opera, and eventually earning his bachelor’s degree in Songwriting and Creative Musicianship at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in London.

In 2022, Adam chose the mononymous stage name Adonxs, pronounced ‘Adonis’. The ‘x’ adds gender-fluidity to the name. Adonis, of course, was the Greek god of beauty and desire, and depicted as sexually ambiguous or androgynous in Greek literature. Adam created this sort of ‘alter ego’ to liberate himself on stage and overcome his fear of performing in front of a live audience.

Adonxs’ Eurovision song for Basel is Kiss Kiss Goodbye. The song tells the story of the end of a relationship, but not necessarily a romantic one:

“It is saying goodbye to someone who doesn’t appreciate you enough, doesn’t give you all the love that you deserve, and pretty much takes you for granted or is keeping you in this hot and cold behavior constantly. So this is me saying goodbye and closing that chapter. [..] The deeper trigger I realized later in life was a fully missing father figure in my early childhood… and this is something I didn’t realize years later, that all of my romantic relationships were based on this behavior and this template pretty much.”

— Adam Pavlovčin (Adonxs)

With the recent release of a very cinematic music video for Kiss Kiss Goodbye, we wondered if Adonxs would try and take some elements from the music video and bring them to the stage in Basel:

“We knew before we wanted the music video to be a world of its own, we will definitely not try to replicate it – we are bringing something else. I’m definitely having my dancers but also not all of the time, so I will be appearing on stage by myself. Everything is being put together right now, we’re focused, this is obviously our next priority and it’s already happening and we are working closely with Matyas Vorda who was doing staging for the past years for Czechia, I think we’re talking about five years in a row, so he knows how this works. I think he was delivering a fantastic job every single year and I trust him in this.”

— Adam Pavlovčin (Adonxs)

Before letting Adonxs run off to his next interview, we challenged him to practice his reactions to hearing those magic words “Czechia, twelve points, La Tchéquie, douze points !” and also how he might react if he could win the whole Contest (you can see his reactions on our socials):

“To bring Eurovision to Prague—it feels unreal and at the same time so close and so desired… It would mean the world to me to actually, you know, wake up on May 18^th knowing that this is coming here.”

— Adam Pavlovčin (Adonxs)

Be sure to check out our full interview with ADONXS in the latest episode of Building Bridges (link above)! You’ll hear more about Adonxs’ career, how Kiss Kiss Goodbye was created, what it’s like preparing his choreo as an award-winning dancer, and even an exclusive Easter egg he’s hidden in the music video!

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We wish ADONXS the very best of luck, as we look forward to what’s sure to be an amazing performance of Kiss Kiss Goodbye during Semi Final 2 on 15^th May! Let us know what you thought of the interview in the comments and on our social media profiles @buildingbridgespod !

Podcast thumbnail image: David Urban