Shortly before appearing in front of nearly 1,200 Eurovision fans at the UK Eurovision Preview Party in The Scala Club London, Poland�s Isis Gee spoke to esctoday�s Russell Davies. Isis discussed her feeling on representing her adopted country in the contest, her experience in the Miss America completion and future recording plans.
Hi Isis and welcome to London. I was wondering, how does an American get to represent Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest?
You’re not the first person to ask that question. Well I went to Poland two years ago, I met in my future husband and he is Polish. Also, I have Polish roots as my great grand mother is Polish. I think I have a lot of Poland in me, in my blood and in my roots – apart from that I am American who gets to represent the beautiful county of Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Your song For Life is your own composition, who or what did you have in mind when you were writing the song?
Love nothing but love. I have a lot of love in my heart and my soul and I wrote the song for my husband. It was a gift for him.
Did you write the song with Eurovision in mind?
Not at all, ironically, I wrote the song 9 months before the contest. I was encouraged to submit a song by hundreds of fans in Poland – so I chose For Life, because it is the dear and close to my heart.
Being American what does the contest means to you? When did you become aware of the Eurovision Song Contest?
Well I recently learnt about Eurovision by going through the whole selection process. My first encounter with Eurovision is rather funny. One evening I was flicking through the cannels on the TV, when I saw Finland and those monsters (Lordi). I thought it was an interesting concept and thought what is this! But I never turned in again after that, I just flicked to another channel. Now I’m very aware of Eurovision I can only say what a blessing it is to be here in London with all these amazing talented people.
How do you plan to present your song on the Eurovision stage in Belgrade?
I believe in not changing a good thing. I believe we have something tangible and beautiful. We plan to have a chorus, girls like before, but unlike the national final, this time they will be singing live, which should be nice. We have a lovely, loving presentation and I think it may even surprise a few people. We may even have a surprise for the audience, bit I don’t want to say too much at this point and my dress for the evening is being kept as a secret.
I understand that you have taken part in the Miss America beauty pageant competition.
Well back in the day, I was in the preliminary rounds of the Miss America completion. For me it was less about the beauty pageant and more about the scholarship money. This was great as it helped me pay for college, which was really the bonus of the competition.
Isis, please tell me about your recording career. Have you recorded any album?
Last October, I have recorded an album called Hidden Treasure. It was released in Poland at the same time as Dancing with the Star show on Polish TV; because of this the songs became well known. It is my only album and I gave it my all, I really put a lot of feeling into it. I wrote, arranged and produced the album myself – I guess you can call me a studio nerd as I programmed and engineered all of the tracks on the album. This involved 20 hour days sitting in front of the computer. I put a lot of love into it.
After Eurovision, do you plan releasing Hidden Treasure in the rest of Europe?
Yes, absolutely, I am actually working on a cross over album right now which will include For Life. I have a handful of material that I am cultivating and nurturing and I am looking forward to bring my music to the rest of Europe.
