OSCAR DRONJAK Explains Why HAMMERFALL Isn't Interested In Representing Sweden In Eurovision Song Contest

In a new interview with Rassilon Records, HAMMERFALL guitarist Oscar Dronjak was asked about rumors from years ago about his band possibly representing Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual singing competition where over 30 countries compete against each other with a variety of different genres and languages. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "This has been going on for 20 years — more than 20 years, actually. It has not been so much the last 10 years, I would say, but in the 2000s, there was a lot of talks about that, a lot of, 'Well, we have this perfect song for you. Come in and do this.' Well, number one was, why the fuck would we wanna do this? Why would we wanna degrade ourselves to do that? Because at that point — this was a high point of our career; we were still going up. But also the Eurovision thing was not very big then, not like it is now. Now it's a big business thing, which is… you can [have] whatever thoughts you want about that.

"I never wanted to do it, but we always had a way out because they never wanted to let us write our own song," he explained. "So we always said, 'If we can write the song ourselves and present a HAMMERFALL show, then we might do it.' And they always said, 'No, we want to have this and this [person writing the music and] lyrics,' whatever. And so, 'Okay, fuck it. We're not gonna do it then.' It was an easy out for us, because they'd never let us do that. Nowadays it's different, of course, but back then it was very strict, very controlled. They wanted to have this lyricist, especially, that always wrote for every artist, they wanted to have them involved in everything, and we were, like, 'Fuck, no. They don't know anything about HAMMERFALL. We're never gonna do that.' And I'm glad we didn't."

Oscar added: "We grew up with [Eurovision], and so it was a big thing when we were kids, and it still means something, but you have to put — at least, this is our thinking 15, 20 years ago, HAMMERFALL heavy metal is something. These people are doing their own thing, and, for me, I don't wanna have metal music in a schlager competition. It should be Eurovision schlager songs. I don't wanna have hip-hop in there either — I don't wanna have anything other than that type of music that fits in this spectrum. But that's just what I think. I don't follow it anymore. And luckily, my son is not interested either, 'cause he's 10 now. He's in an age when everybody in school talks about it. But he knows what I do, too. He knows I don't like it. I don't know if that weighs in with [him], but he he's not really big on that yet, I have to say. You never know. But if everybody's talking about something in school, all the kids wanna be a part of it, I guess. But I'm happy I don't have to watch it anyways, what I'm saying, 'cause his mom loves it. So they can watch it together."

Back in November 2006, HAMMERFALL singer Joacim Cans spoke to Mark Carras of Rock My Monkey about the talk of HAMMERFALL possibly being involved in the Eurovision Song Contest. Joacim said at the time: "Thing is that this is something they wrote in some Swedish newspapers one or two weeks ago. They were claiming that HAMMERFALL or EUROPE would be in the Eurovision Song Contest. They got this joker, what they call the joker position, that we don't need to qualify. We will be more or less in the finals directly. And that we have been having discussions with the national television in Sweden for a couple of years, and this is not true. We have not had any discussions whatsoever in regards to this. So I sent letters to the newspaper denying everything. I said, 'No, this is not true.' We were approached by a label guy who said, 'Hey, you should be in the contest.' And we said no. First of all, we do not want to perform any other person's song. And we don't see this as something that would benefit the band. Probably the other way around. So there were no talks whatsoever to be part of this. No. But, of course, they turn this around, and the next day in the newspaper said, 'HAMMERFALL just said that they're turning down the offer,' blah, blah, blah. We didn't turn down the offer. We never got the offer."

HAMMERFALL's latest album, "Avenge The Fallen", was released in August via Nuclear Blast Records.

In December 2022, HAMMERFALL, which started its career in 1997 on Nuclear Blast with its debut album "Glory To The Brave", announced that it was returning to the long-running German label.

HAMMERFALL's entire Nuclear Blast catalog, from "Glory To The Brave" to the 2014 album "(r)Evolution" was certified with a diamond award for over 1.5 million worldwide sales.

Following on from "Renegade" (2000),"Crimson Thunder" (2002) and "No Sacrifice, No Victory" (2009),HAMMERFALL's fifth studio album, "Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken" from 2005, became the band's fourth album to go gold in Sweden, while "Crimson Thunder" even went platinum, surpassing 60,000 sales in the group's home country.

In April 2023, HAMMERFALL released a special platinum edition of "Crimson Thunder" with tons of bonus material.

Photo credit: Tallee Savage (courtesy of Nuclear Blast)