Interview With Belgium's Witloof Bay

Interview – This may the a capella group “Witloof Bay” will represent Belgium in Düsseldorf in the second semi-final. Their song is called “With love baby”. The six singers and musicians decided to start a new musical project in 2005. As they love jazz and pop a capella music, their style is centered around these musical genres. The band consists of members from all parts of Belgium and thus represent a unified country. Benoît, one of the six members of the group answered our questions:

Hello Benoit, could you please introduce yourself and your group “Witloof Bay” to our readers?

Hello, I’m the Baritone of the group and I wrote the song “With Love Baby” with my colleague RoxorLoops who is the beatboxer of the group. The other members are: Alexia Saffery, soprano, Florence Huby, Alto, Nicolas Dorian, Tenor and Etienne Debaisieux, Bass. We are Witloof Bay a Belgian A Cappella Pop Group. That means that all we do is always without instruments.We’ve been singing together for 6 years now and gave many concerts in Belgium and Europe (Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Great-Britain…) We’ll soon be singing also in Austria, Estonia, Finland and… Argentina.

What convinced you to enter the Belgian selection for Eurovision this year?

Florence came with the idea one day in October. For the first time in Belgium this year, anybody could enter the competition by putting his song on the Akamusic website. We discussed it for half an hour, and we decided it easily ! We were selected for the semi-finals and won the final with the maximum points from the jury and the public, which is very comforting.

What can you tell us about your entry “With love baby”?

Our song, apart from being 100% A Cappella has a good hip hop groove on very elaborate jazz harmonies. It carries a quite simple and universal message that suits the spirit of Eurovision:  Whatever you do in you life, just do it with love

Will there be a French or Dutch version of your song?

For the moment, this is not on the agenda. But we might think about it.

How will your performance at the Eurovision stage look like? Can you reveal any details?

We won’t get any dancers since the maximum of people on stage is 6. We are 6 singers. So we have to do the dancing ourselves Apart from that, the most amazing thing will come from the fact that we’ll be the only ones performing without any playback track in this competition. The beatboxing will be very impressing

Have you followed the Eurovision Song Contest recently and do you have a favourite Eurovision song?

Of course, we’ve been watching Eurovision for many years and we like a lot of entries. The last winners were really great. Our best memory would be of course Sandra Kim winning the competition in 1986, with “J’aime la vie”

And what do you think about this year’s entries, your competitors?

We have a lot of good songs around. It’s gonna be tough for anybody to win this year. We’re really happy and can’t wait to be there to share the stage with such good artists. It’s gonna be fun.

Do you have an aim that you want to achieve in Düsseldorf?

Meet people, have fun, share our music and help people discover what is a cappella pop music.

What will you do after the Eurovision Song Contest?

We are now working on our new album that will consist of original songs.

And what would you do if you actually won the trophy for Belgium in Düsseldorf?

We would have the biggest party we’ve ever had !!!!! Belgium would be winning for the second time in 25 years. This would be something really big.

And finally: Do you have a message to our readers?

Enjoy the competition, Enjoy the music. May you discover and appreciate new styles, new singers, new grooves. Hope you will like our 100% a cappella entry. Whatever we do, just let’s do it With Love !

Thank you for the interview and good luck in Düsseldorf!

Here is their song “With Love Baby”:

 

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