Don´t know if this ever was published on my Home-Page. well i´ll do it now - just in case and then the adventure can continue... ( why am I always chasing with old ghosts ) !...? 

In the beginning:

On December 12th last year I got an e-mail from a guy who called himself Sveinn Runar. He told me he was a businessman working mainly in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as he was a composer and that he had created “Heaven” sung by Jonsi some years back. As a matter of fact I remembered having heard Svenni´s name linked before to ESC. But I answered him and explained politely that I had no intention of participating in that “circus”, ever again. He did not give up on the matter and two days later I received a new e-mail with the song attached to it. I must admit that I loved the song from the very beginning, but I was still 100% sure that I didn't wanna be involved. But Svenni is a determined guy and after a week or so I had said yes - let us do it. And even though, the morning after,- it felt like a cold sweat running down my neck, I am a man of my words and my big mouth had gotten me in trouble again.

Anyway – time was getting short! We had to record and mix the song before the semi-finals started. Luckily I had concerts in Iceland on the 1st-5th and 6th of January, and we managed to squeeze in a recording session. On the evening of January 3rd, we recorded “Valentine Lost” as you now know it. But there was another huge problem...! The first (of three) semi-finals was held on January 20th, and I was scheduled for a three-day tour in Greece that weekend with my old metal-act ARTCH. The last semi-final was on February 3rd - and then I was busy with concerts in Norway. The only chance was to get the lucky draw for the second semi-final on Jan. 27th! And we did (although I suspect Svenni to have had a helping-hand in that matter).

I have said this in many interviews and I hope you believe me when I say - that I never expected to win the semi-final. I sensed a huge, massive support right from the start, but I thought - hey let's face it: This will be decided by teenagers with mobile telephones and they will surely vote for the younger artists on the bill. And besides that I felt from the start that the 3 best songs (Valentine included) were in the second semi-final. And my feeling was right. These three songs went through to the finals scheduled for the 17th of February (no points where announced).

I flew back to Norway the day after and managed to have a week of relaxing before all hell broke loose. You see this was perfect, - to do the performance in Iceland and “escape” to Norway afterwards, away from the press and everything. I just unplugged my phone and lived my life without the madness going on in my home country. But the finals came nearer and finally it was all happening - on February the 17th.

The attention was enormous and everyone was feeling the tension. Of course there were celebrities all over the place! I got to know the famous Sylvia Night, but as a person. And what a lovely, beautiful girl she is in real life (just so you know that)! But in the middle of all this chaos, I was amazingly relaxed, and again I did sincerely not think I was going to win. I hoped for good results and I said to Svenni; “We will come third, and we can be proud of that”. Again no points were made official, only the three best songs announced. Well let me tell you the atmosphere was intense. Svenni was so nervous that he had to go out of the “Green-Rom” and hide in the corridors. The rest...well you know! But I will share this with you – We won by a far!!! This will never become official but the Tops at RUV gave me the results. There was no doubt about the will of the majority.

I can see in my diary that the weeks that came between then and Helsinki were busy-busy-busy! I practically lived at airports and hotels throughout March and April. I was giving concerts both in Norway and in Iceland and I also had one big decision to make; could I possibly do the Scandinavian TV-show now that I was the representative for Iceland. Both Icelandic and Swedish television wished strongly that I would do so, and in the end I ended up doing both. Don´t know if that made me lose votes or gain some and right now i really don´t care... Helsinki was a great adventure and i am please with the performance we did.