Ahead of his journey to Rotterdam, we spoke to Gjon’s Tears about the last 12 months. Gjon and Nathan took the time to catch up following their conversation last spring, and discussion centred around how he kept himself creative throughout lockdown, what his favourite movies are in this Awards Season cycle plus – of course – the story behind Tout l’univers.
“Honestly it was like a disaster for me”
We asked Gjon about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on his songwriting:
This year was a pretty weird year for everyone but I feel super lucky as with Eurovision, I had the possibility to always stay active. Then, of course, when it comes to the songwriting process… honestly it was like a disaster for me. My biggest inspiration are people, so I need to meet new people and to go to restaurants, the cinema, and to live my life fully as this inspires me the most. So having nothing, it was hard to compose something.
“We first wrote Tout l’univers in English”
We also talked about the decision to translate this year’s entry into French:
We started with the expression of Ground Zero – the centre of an atomic explosion, and the symbolism of that expression changing following 9/11. I love the fact when you say ‘ground zero’, it brings images of returning to nothing. I had the feeling that I wanted to try it in French too, it gives me more of an ability to put the interpretation of the story at the forefront. For me, it was pretty clear that the song could be in French, but it changes from genre to genre – some songs, we wrote first in French and then chose to translate into English, but this was the other way around.
“I wore a suit to school every day while I was still at primary school”
And you don’t want to miss out on discovering who Gjon’s favourite Desperate Housewives character is… maybe you can work it out from the header above?
You can watch the full interview with Gjon’s Tears on YouTube: