Only a few days to go, and the three guys of Austrian band Tie-Break not only have to deal with a last-minute lawsuit from Waterloo & Robinson, but they are also complaining about a “lack of support” from broadcaster ORF and their own record company. “Under these circumstances, we do ask ourselves if it still makes sense to travel to Istanbul”, band member Thomas Elzenbauer said to news agency APA.

In an APA interview, Elzenbauer declared not to be pleased with the support the band has gained so far. “We had the illusion that a professional performance and a professional promotion would be created for the Song Contest”. Instead, they had to care about their vocal and choreographal coaching themselves. “We don't understand that we are going to represent Austria, but have to pay for it ourselves”, Elzenbauer's band mate Tommy Pegram added. They also complained that no promotion was done for their single Du bist and no professional videoclip was produced for the song. “Austria is the only country apart from Albania that only has a live clip”, they declared.

ORF's head of entertainment, Edgar Böhm, replied to APA that “the three have the same support than Eurovision Song Contest participants of earlier years. They just have some very romantic ideas about the whole ado.” Böhm added that Tie-Break might not have the right amount of support from their record company (Warner), as the manager responsible for the band has quit his job a few days ago. “But ORF can not compensate for that.”

Adding to this, Song Contest veterans Waterloo & Robinson, who came second in the Austrian final, filed a lawsuit against Tie-Breaks participance in Istanbul as their performance of Du bist in the national final was eight seconds longer than all others. “If skiers battle over the tenth part of a second, we must be allowed to go to court because of a time exceeding of 5%”, the duo declared today in an attempt to fight the image of being sore losers. “We don't have anything personal against the singers of Tie Break”, Hans Kreuzmayer (Waterloo) said, “but there are rules everybody has to follow”. Peter Janda, composer of Waterloo & Robinson's song, added that he still thinks Tie-Break's Du bist is a plagiarism of Yvonne Catterfield's song Für Dich. “But this is hard to prove. The time exceeding is easily comprehensible”.

The veteran duo declared to be “perfectly prepared for a performance in Istanbul”, should the court vote in their favor. They even have changed the arrangement of their song You can change the World and their stage presentation.

Unimpressed from all that hassle, Stefan di Bernado of Tie-Break is still confident that the trio will “give a perfect performance” in Istanbul. “We are three blokes who do not let ourselves down so easily!”

Also check our previous article about this story.