In late October 2004 representatives of Swiss public regional broadcasters SF DRS, TSR and TSI reviewed the entries for the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 and came to an unanimous decision: Switzerland would be represented by the Estonian girl-band Vanilla Ninja at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest. On 5th March Vanilla Ninja presented their song Cool vibes, written and produced by Basel-born David Brandes.



Esctoday.com talked to Piret, Katrin, Lenna and Triinu and asked the Vanilla Ninja girls about their Eurolaul 2003 experience, the Swiss and Estonian feelings, their Eurovision Song Contest entry Cool vibes and about their plans for Kiev.

Can you shortly introduce yourself?



We are four girls from Estonia who all have been involved with music since we were little. As a band we came together at the end of summer 2002. Piret and Katrin were deskmates
in school and Lenna and Maarja were best friends in their school. So basically two couples of best friends met and with the help of one Estonian producer and a local record company we started Vanilla Ninja.



At first we made a couple of songs in Estonian but the Estonian audience wasn't too exited about our rocky style at first. At the end of 2002 we decided to take part in the Estonian Eurovision Song Contest selections Eurolaul and we made a song called Club Kung-Fu, which was our first song in English. We made it to the Estonian Eurovision prefinals with that song and finally the popularity came.



We released an album in Estonia and toured our home
country half a year. In autumn 2003 we were introduced to a German producer David Brandes who was willing to work with us and as a result we released our first international album Traces Of Sadness. By now this album has received a platinum status in Germany and a Gold status in
Austria. It has also been released in countries like Japan, Brazil and Poland.



In summer 2004 our member Maarja left the band because she got pregnant and a new member Triinu joined us. In March 2005 we released our second international album Blue Tattoo.