Special - Esctoday talks to Eirikur Hauksson. | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2009 Moscow, Russia 

Eirikur Hauksson, 47 years old, is representing Iceland at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Valentine lost. At the same time he is, however, also doing the Nordic Preview shows, judging all the songs he will be competing against, as the Icelandic representative in a Nordic panel of “experts”. Esctoday.com has talked to him about this double role – and of course we also asked what we could expect from him in Helsinki.

It is rare that a participant in the Eurovision Song Contest talks about the songs he or she is competing against. What made you continue as the Icelandic expert in these preview shows now that you are taking part in the contest yourself?

For once I like challenges and often do things which I know I really shouldn’t do. Another thing is that I manage not to take the Eurovision Song Contest so seriously, though I love it in my own way. These programs are just guesswork and should be for fun.

Do you think about which reaction it might cause among your competitors that you have publicly spoken about all the songs and directly judged them by giving points?

Yes, definitely. Some might take it in a negative way, but it is important for me to make this clear: Everyone who takes part in this has either won by points from the local population or has been chosen by the TV company. Therefore I have 100% respect for them as artists though the music might not appeal to me.

I guess many had expected you would award yourself with the maximum 5 points, but in the first of the four preview shows we saw that you decided not to give yourself any points. Why?

I might be a bit “crazy”, but I am not so cheeky that I would give myself points. There is a limit!

How did you react to your Nordic colleagues comments about your song? (Iceland clearly won the first of the Preview shows with 24 out of 25 possible points)

We Icelandic are used to being positively mentioned – though it usually doesn’t always show when the points have been counted. 

Many are curious about what we can expect in Helsinki. Do you have anything special planned for your performance or can we expect something similar as we saw from you in Iceland?

The Icelandic chose the show you saw in the Icelandic final – that is what I will give them internationally also then, just even better. No dancers - no Theater, just
plain and powerful hard-rock. I never perform the same twice so it is impossible to do any chorography here. My hands are completely free when it comes to the stage show.

Do you have a message you would like to give to the readers of esctoday.com?

If there is anyone out there who takes offence by the fact that I am on both sides of the table this year, then I am sorry. I have taken part twice before and one thing I have learned is that there is just one rule; be yourself! Have fun like that and never enter this competition thinking about the result. If you are self confident and positive you will come out of this with your head held high no matter the placement. I think I have the best song, but there are millions out there who thinks different, I know that and I accept it. Be kind – do as I do and look at the whole competition with a twinkle in the eye. Basicly it is not possible to compete in music so it can be a bit frightened.  

With those wise words in mind esctoday.com would like to thank Eirikur Hauksson for taking this time to talk us and we wish him all the best for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.