Ireland's last Eurovision qualifier Ryan O’Shaughnessy has said he’d represent us again at the song contest – if he had a proper marketing campaign.
Ryan O’Shaughnessy qualified for the final in 2018 with his song, Together. The Dubliner – who is set to release his new single The Moment off his new album in June - was the last person to qualify for the Grand Final.
And now the singer said he would consider representing us again after Wild Youth crashed out of the semi-final on Tuesday night – but only if money was invested into his performance. Speaking exclusively to us, Ryan said: “I wouldn’t rule it out if the song was right, if I was able to write the song for it and if I had the word and the budget, let’s say, to make sure there was enough marketing and PR involved and if I was able to pull the right team together.
Read more: Wild Youth frontman slams Eurovision for not giving Ireland a chance in deleted Instagram post
“In 2018, I ended up slotting in as Creative Director and I was basically just the artist on the night. "The Creative Director that they wanted me to choose, he wasn’t the right fit. He wanted me to come out of an exploding cake and I decided ‘c’mere this is my plan and this is what I wanted to do. I want to have two male dancers.’
“So I have the background in doing that and getting us into the final so I don’t see why not.”
Ryan added: “There is a budget enough for Ireland’s entry going over to Eurovision. The budget is there but I think it needs to be allocated a bit more and a bit more money needs to be allocated going into marketing.
“I was really pleased. We got into the final and that’s all I really wanted to do. I was happy. I celebrated like I won it that night. I was pleased enough with the amount that went into it when I did but I do think we need to up our game and we need to be putting money into marketing around Europe.”
And while he praised Wild Youth for their “powerful performance” on Tuesday night, he said their song 'We Are One' wasn’t original enough for the contest.
“Yeah, I was shocked to a certain degree but if I’m honest what we need to do going forward, we need to think outside the box because as much of a great song as it was it was quite similar to a song that was out a couple of years ago.
"A song that U2 performed in 2020. But it just for me didn’t seem like something that was completely original and I think that is what we need to be doing for Eurovision going forward.
“You need to have a very very original song, something that hasn’t been done and it’s hard to do, but with enough hard work and enough people on the team, it’s possible.”
But he said Wild Youth faced a tough semi-final.
“I thought it was a really tough semi-final to be honest. There were a lot of good acts, a lot of big songs and a lot of big productions.
“I think the lads did a great job in all fairness to them. It was a good song, it was a powerful performance, they’re a good band. It’s just a hard one to get out of and we haven’t been able to get out of it in six years now."
Asked if he thought the band's controversy sacking their Creative Director Ian Baneham cost them the contest, he said: “I didn’t even know about that until yesterday.
"A lot of people wouldn’t have even known about it and if you think about it, a jury sitting in a different country – there’s usually five people on the jury – they don’t know all the individual gossips about the acts and I think a lot of home voters really give a sh*t either so at the end of the day it comes down to getting votes and unfortunately they couldn’t get the votes this year.”
And Ryan said the EuroSong needs to be scrapped as part of the Late Late Show and RTE producers shouldn’t decide our Eurovision acts.
“I’ve never been a fan of having the EuroSong on the Late Late Show because I think that it arrows it down to some people not wanting to do the Late Late Show so there might be some acts that won’t be too keen on performing on EuroSong because the production value isn’t great.
"I know a couple of years previous when Jane Grogan did it, she did a great job but the production value wasn’t great and it didn’t really come across very well.
“I think we need to steer clear of doing a EuroSong and we need to put a real committee together to choose the song. I don’t think the song should be chosen by RTE producers. I think we need musicians, label heads, A&R managers and artists managers to really come together and have a look at these different songs and also we need a bit of a buzz around what song is going to be chosen in Eurovision.
“If it’s number one and played a lot in your own country, then other countries will take it on. We need to put a lot more time into having the right song. I think the production will come after that,” he added.
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