News - Melodifestivalen going Heavy Metal? | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2010 Oslo, Norway 

According to Swedish newspaper, Expressen, SVT are planning to have Hammerfall or Europe to take part in Melodifestival 2007. Heavy metal is popular in Sweden, and both Hammerfall and Europe, along with Melodifestivalen 2006 finalists, The Poodles, are enjoying success in the charts.

The two rockbands are very popular in Sweden. Hammerfall was one of the guests at the 50 years anniversary last year at Circus where they performed the Swedish 2000 Eurovision Song Contest entry Vindarna viskar mitt nam together with Roger Pontare, the original singer at the competition, held on home ground at Stockholm's Globen Arena.

Europe was one of Sweden´s most successful hard rock band in the 80´s with monsterhits such as The final countdown. At the moment they are on a revival tour in Europe and hope to do the same in the US sometime during next year.

Both bands have had long going discussions with SVT for the last couple of years, and both bands are very interested in taking part. Hammerfalls leadsinger says that some people feel that hardrock has no place in the Eurovision Song Contest, but he thinks this is wrong. "Melodifestivalen is a great opportunity to play for such a big audience. Look at Lordi from last year as a great example. The people of Europe wants more rock and roll in the contest".

Martin Österdahl,  this years producer of  Melodifestivalen says that "we are having discussion with a wide range of artist to make the mix as interesting as possible. This means we still have to wait another few weeks before we know how the four wildcards will be".

Heavy metal won through to the Swedish final of Melodifestivalen this year, where the Poodles finished in a credible fourth place.