Before the fourth semi-final of Melodifestivalen 2020 in Malmö, we had the chance to speak with Jakob Karlberg, who will take part with “Om du tror att jag saknar dig” (eng. If you think I miss you). The song is written by Henrik Moreborg, Isak Halldén, Nanne Grönvall and Jakob himself. We talked about the expectations, the creating process and what’s next with Jakob!
“I’m very happy and glad to be part of the competition”
The Malmö Arena for the forth semi-final is the biggest arena he played in so far. Jakob already looks forward to the people filled arena this Saturday. The song was created in a songwriting camp. There they got randomly put together without knowing each other. He talks about how easy it was for everyone to come up with the right ideas and that the song was done in about two hours. How he approaches the songwriting is always different. But usually, he starts with the melodies almost always.
In his performance, he has a lot of little gimmicks. He’s coming from bands, so it was sure for him to have other people on stage. Jakob will be on stage with Daniel on the drums and Mattias on the bass. Mattias Andréasson already took part in the competition before and is well known as a singer and songwriter. He produced Jakobs Melodifestivalen entry this year. He is happy to have such an experienced team with him.
On his own gigs, he only has two things he worries about. One is, that nobody is showing up for his gigs or that the technical stuff won’t work. Both things are very unlikely here, so he isn’t that nervous at all. He is getting nervous, not getting nervous. He can not wait for the show on Saturday.
Melfest tonight
The closer Jakob gets to the competition, the more he wants to win. On the other hand, he loves showing his song for a huge audience on Saturday and he is happy, that the song gets released right away. “Fan va bra” was his debut single in 2015. The song reached to date more than 40 million streams and is one of the biggest Swedish language songs on Spotify. He plans to release an album in autumn. So far he never said what year, but this year he is planning to really release the album because it’s also easier to tour with an album. Therefore, touring is also planned for later this year.
He is a big football fan, so he is really looking for to the Friends Arena with the same backstage area where his favorite football players were. He gets his inspiration from listening to a lot of music. Mostly, lyric-wise it’s from his life. Lots of parties, good and bad times. The own life writes the best stories.
Jakob describes the song as a classic Swedish pop song, energetic and lots of guitars. It’s gonna be great on Saturday.
You can watch the interview and what Jakob had to say below!
Thanks again for Jakob and his team for taking the time to speak to us before the semi-final in Malmö! Best of luck for the live show!
