Popular Dutch band L.A. The Voices has submitted 2 songs for the Swiss preselection. One of the band’s members, Gordon Heuckeroth, took part already in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest as a member of De Toppers. We talked to Gordon about his 2009 participation and his dream to take part in the contest once again.
Gordon, how do you look back on your participation back in 2009?
Gordon: ‘Those were the best 2 weeks of my life. It gave me some sort of Olympic feeling, as I consider the Eurovision Song Contest to be the Olympic Games for singers. I only have good memories, although we didn’t do very well. I took my mother with me to Moscow, because she knew it had always been my dream to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest. Unfortunately she passed away a couple of years ago, but I’m thankful I was able to share my Eurovision dream with her.’
Why did you leave De Toppers and start a new band?
Gordon: ‘That’s a long story. To be honest with you I was totally fed up with De Toppers. I wanted to explore new music styles, instead of the somewhat cheesy music we made with De Toppers. All three of us had successful individual careers too and there were quite some ego’s involved. With my new band, L.A. The Voices, there are no ego’s, no jealousy, it doesn’t matter who stands in the middle or whose name is written first on an album; it’s so different! Of course, I could have made more money by sticking to De Toppers, but that has never mattered to me. I just wanted to do something else; something more creative.
Why did you decide to take part in the Swiss selection?
‘Wel, I contacted Dutch broadcaster TROS a couple of months ago to let them know we were available, but they had already started negotiations with Anouk. Then somebody told me the Swiss broadcaster allowed foreign artists to take part in their national competition and we decided to give it a try. I just want to share the fantastic Eurovision experience with the other guys. It doesn’t really matter to us which country we represent; it’s all about the experience. However, wouldn’t it be hilarious if the Dutch ‘douze points’ went to Switzerland instead of Turkey?’
Are you also aiming for an international career with L.A. The Voices ?
‘Well, everybody knows I’m a huge Eurovision fan, so in first place it’s all about passion of course. On the other hand, we’ve been aiming for an international career for a while already indeed. Due to lack of time I couldn’t really invest into it. We already recorded an album in German language, but we didn’t have time to release it. You know, I host several TV shows, we have our concerts in the Netherlands; I just can’t do it all. However, if we manage to make it to Eurovision we will focus on an international career as well. I already discussed that with the broadcaster I work for.’
At the very last moment you decided to submit 2 songs instead of 1. Why was that?
‘The Dutch fans chose Wild White Horses as the best option for the Eurovision Song Contest. However, we thought Change is gonna come might be an interesting song for the contest as well. Personally I love the lyrics of it. But I agree with our fans that Wild White Horses would be the most suitable song for the contest. It’s such an uplifting song; we can really show our musicality with this song. I hope we’ll get the chance to sing it live in the Swiss final.’
The online voting of Swiss broadcaster SF ends on Monday, October 29 at 18.00 CET. You can still vote for your favorite songs here: www.eurovisionplattform.sf.tv/videos
You can watch Wild White Horses here: LA The Voices – Wild White Horses
