On our way

We're on our way to Karlskrona for a week of rehearsals, interviews, parties and "Meliodfestivalen"!
The competition has felt far away before, but now it's closing up really fast. Luckily we are well prepared and ready to go.

Last Saturday we went to Linköping to check out the third round of the Swedish Melody Grand Prix, or at least the dress rehearsal. It felt like a good warm up to see the stage, and how the other artists did. What to do and what not to do!

We are not worried, we know what to do and feel secure together on stage. It's so nice to be four. Imagine being a solo artist, scary. That's not for us.

Today we have about a hundred interviews with different newspapers and TV channels, so we are going to be busy. And the most important thing... the rehearsal with the choreographer at 1 pm.

Busy week

The Melody Grand Prix is getting closer, and we are busier than ever. This week has been much about clothes and hair, and after many hours of measuring, retrying and cutting, we can finally put that aside, and focus on the music. Today we have driven to Hasslarp to visit our friend Thomas, who will help us try in-ear-systems. It's our first time, and we don't want to sing in National TV, with in-ear, in front of 3 million viewers, without having tried it before! So this is where we are now, at Palace of Sound. It's a really nice studio in the middle of nowhere, and the best thing about it is that we have a boxing sack in the other room, so if we get upset, we can just go in and bang it a few times. If we had that in our own rehearsing room, Anna wouldn't have had to through the ginger bread can in the wall! Could be a good idea to get one for ourselves.

Tonight we will be on Swedish Television at 9 pm. We visited Robin's talk show this Wednesday and recorded today’s show. It was a very nice experience, we are big fans of "Robin's", he's a nice and funny guy, and together with Ingvar Olsberg we squeezed into his small sofa, and had a nice and cosy chat.


See the show at www.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=55011&from=program_ao

Songwriting in Stockholm went great. We worked in Per Aldeheim's studio at Maratone. After a few hours we had 3 half finished songs without lyrics. Very productive, don't you think?
We have spent all Sunday trying to be poetic, and ended up doing drafts for all three songs, that we have to polish later. But it's a future "bother", and we're quite happy with the result.

Yesterday evening we enjoyed the Melody Festival at Anna S's place. She had cooked us dinner and we made the drinks! It didn't take long before Anna S was brave enough to take out the playstation, and we played Singstar and Guitar Hero until 3 am. It's hard to say who won, because everyone thought they were best, but we can say that Anna was surprisingly good, and we're thinking of leting her join Calaisa... but then again, maybe not.

Busy weekend

It's Friday today and we have been working the whole week, rehearsing and writing songs.
This weekend we are going to Stockholm to write some new hits with the songwriter, Per!
We are also going to try our Melody Grand Prix-clothes for the first time. Marie and the dressmaker have made them in the rough, and we have to see if they fit before they finish them. Can't wait!

Tomorrow it's the second part of the Melody festival-competition, and we are of course going to sit riveted in front of the TV. We hope it will be a nice start to a good night out.

Gothenburg

One of reasons why we went to Gothenburg was to go by Crafton and pick up a new guitar for Malin and a shaker for Anna. The old shaker "fell" to the floor on a gig and all the small balls inside fell out. We tried to collect as many as we could and put them back in, but the shaker was never the same :)
Svante, our friend at Crafton, hade made us coffee, and we had a long chat with him before we drove back to Malmö.
Vilja, the dog, was also in Gothenburg with us, and she was very popular with the guys at Crafton, atleast before she started chewing on the computer cable.

Friday

We got the photos from the photo shoot, today. After many hours of discussing back and forth we could all agree on one picture. It is really difficult to find a picture where all four of us like ourselves, so out of hundreds of photos taken, there is often only a couple we can use. But those few are good!

We didn’t get much more done today. Played our Melodifestival song a couple of times, wrote on our Expressen blog, and called it a day.
This weekend we are of to different places. Lisa is going to Halmstad, Anna and Malin to Gothenburg, and Caisa is working on her new apartment. On Monday we are meeting up in Helsingborg to write some songs.

A new Calaisa member

Our rehearsals doesn't look like they used to before... In the middle of your solo you might discover that one of you shoes are about to disappear into the mouth of Malin's new friend, Vilja. She's the sweetest dog on earth despite a few half eaten gloves and wee on the floor, and it's a nice addition to our band. It’s a lot of work to have a dog, and it’s not always easy to find someone who can look after her while we are away on gigs and promotion and such. Lucky we have friends and family that can help.

Photo shoot

We have been working since 9 this morning with Micke Eriksson in his studio in Stockholm. Right now we are having a Thai-food-break to get some energy, after many hours of shooting. The pictures are beautiful! We had a peep at them.
Yesterday we met with Marie, the stylist, and checked out her ideas about our clothes. She had made sketches from the requests and reference pictures we sent her a few weeks ago, and she had really done a great job. We are going to look fantastic in the Melody Grand Prix, if I may say.

Hair

Being 4 girls, much time tend go to things that doesn't have to do with our music. Such as make-up, clothes, and HAIR. We spent most of our Saturday at Larsson & Lange with Peter, our personal hairdresser. Coming up this week, you see, is a photo shoot for the single cover, and according to Peter our hair needed to be done! It's good that he works so fast. Today we are off to Stockholm to check out what clothes our stylist has brought out for us, and tomorrow... photo shoot.

Singing class

In our singing class last week, we learned a new, very efficient exercise. Monica calls it "the Italian", and it means you sing the song in at least 4 times the tempo. Sounds very fun, but it actually makes you more focused together. There is a chance this will be our new preparation method before gigs...