Eurovision: Chatting To The Entrants - Joker Out

Eurovision is just around the corner and we can barely contain our excitement as we meet the first of this year's contestants.

Slovenia has had a little bit of a mixed history at Eurovision, but we personally feel they may have struck gold in bagging the award-winning Joker Out to represent them this year in Liverpool. We caught up with the band to learn a little more about them...

Hi, first and foremost, how are you?

Amazing! We’ve spent the last couple of days in Liverpool, where we filmed the video for our next single New Wave’ a collaboration with Elvis Costello, that is coming out in mid-April.

We’ve done some media interviews in Liverpool and presented Carpe Diem (our ESC song) live on BBC Merseyside as the English version has just been released.

What an exciting 2023 so far... You must be thrilled with how it's playing out. What's been the highlight?

We’ll… We’ve got involved in ESC and we’re doing a duet with a freaking Elvis Costello!!! We were awarded as the best-selling live artists in Slovenia in 2022, were nominated for best regional rock band and performed at the regional (ex-YU) At the MAC Awards show in Belgrade Arena, and after winning the title the last two years we’re again nominated for artist of the year in Slovenia. Impala just listed us as one of ‘100 Indie Artists in Europe to Watch in 2023’ (along Wet Leg, f. e.), we’re getting some amazing festival bookings for the summer. We’ve already almost sold out a 12.000 capacity arena show in Ljubljana that we’ll be hosting in October… We’ve spent last weekend in Barcelona, we’re flying to Warsaw on Friday, to Tel Aviv on Sunday, stop at home for a day on Wednesday and then we’re off to Madrid, Amsterdam and London.

It’s hectic but we’re getting a lot of positive response from all over the World so we have to work hard to seize the opportunities. BTW: You can follow and get to know us better in our web TV-show Joker Out Carpe Diem Series on our YouTube channel with fresh episode every Monday.



We absolutely love Carpe Diem. Tell us a little about the process behind the scenes in creating the song?

We were doing an album session in Hamburg where we got locked in a studio for 10 days with our two producers, Žare Pak (very successful rock producer in Slovenia in the last 25 years) and Californian Todd Burke (of Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, The Kooks, Belle and Sebastian, M83 and The Temper Trap fame). This happened just a week or two after we confirmed the ESC project. We worked out the music from an idea that we didn't put on our second album and Bojan wrote some really inspiring lyrics to it, which captured our feelings at time: "to dance all night, make love and play video games".

We've just released English version of the song, which is not a direct translation but it captures the idea and feeling of the original very well.

Did you always intend the song for Eurovision?

We planned to apply for the national selection as one of our main goals for 2023 was to release an English album and thought that we could use the additional spotlight promoting it all over Europe. But then we were offered to go to Liverpool without a national competition as Slovenia did not have good results in the past couple of years and our national TV decided to approach the ESC differently this year, putting all its weight behind us. We had a demo of the song with some gibberish lyrics when we were approached and later finished it in Hamburg. We always knew this should be the song to represent us on Eurovision and we didn't concede to the pressure of making it "Eurovision friendly", it could work as a random track from any of our albums, it's a typical Shagadelic Joker Out song.

Have you always been a big fan of Eurovision?

Yes, all of us are big fans of Eurovision, we have watched it since we were kids, we know a lot of songs, not just the obvious winning hits, artists and trivia. We are a proper pop-rock indie band but our taste in music is very eclectic, so we follow ESC as well.

Who is your favourite Eurovision entry of all time?

It’s hard to limit yourself to just one. Each has one of his own. It’s Waterloo, Molitva, Wild Dances, Sentimentai and Fairytale.

If you had to file it between two other songs, what would they be and why...

They would be Soldi and In corpore sano. Because they clap and they slap!

Who do you feel is your stiffest competition?

Käärija, the Finnish contestant, seems to be really popular (we also like his song) and Loreen from Sweden who already has a big ESC legacy. But we don’t worry too much about that. We know we’ll do great.

What can we expect from your Liverpool performance?

Expect an upgrade from what you can see in the live video we recorded in the TV Slovenia studio in front of the audience when we revealed the song. Our biggest strength are live shows, so we’ll try to pack as much energy as you can experience at our gigs in those three minutes on stage in Liverpool – with some sick visuals and lightning.

What is your Eurovision ambition?

We are in for the win. That’s how we approach everything we do. Though consolation prizes at ESC are not bad either. This is one of the biggest music shows and at the same time music showcases on the planet, so hopefully at least some people in the music industry will recognize our talent and quality and give us a chance to conquer big international stages and radio waves in the years to come.

You are re-releasing the song in English - which version will be performed at Eurovision?

We’ll compete with the original in Slovenian language. We’ve done the English version mostly as people like the song and ask a lot about the meaning of the lyrics. The English version might be more interesting also for international radio, but at the ESC we’ll sing in Slovenian.

And lastly, aside from Eurovision, what other 2023 plans do you have?

Next major step for us is to release a duet with Grammy winning iconic UK artists Elvis Costello titled New Wave in mid-April. After listening to our second album Demoni (Demons) he offered to rework the final song of the album with us – which is a big honour. The track has become a generational anthem in Slovenia and with this duet we’ll give it a new spin. We’ve already mentioned the arena gig in October, but till then we’ll do a lot of summer festivals in Slovenia and ex-YU region: at the Sea Star Croatia we’ll share stage with The Prodigy and Robin Schulz, at Arsenalfest in Serbia we’ll rock along The 1975, we’re doing Belgrade Beerfest with Morcheeba … and this is all before we have even stormed the ESC stage in Liverpool. We plan to release our first English album (reworks of Slovenian and Serbian hits in English) at the end of the summer or early autumn …