This year’s Eurovision winner, Swiss entry “The Code”, was written at the 2023 SUISA songwriting camp, an annual event held from May 30-June 1 of last year in Zurich. This was a mere 17 days after a song written at the previous year’s camp, Remo Forrer’s “Watergun”, was performed at the Eurovision Grand Final in Liverpool. Put on by SUISA, a Swiss copyright collective that strives to protect the rights of musical artists and foster collaboration between them, this songwriting camp has been the birthplace of a number of previous Eurovision entries. This includes “Stones” (Switzerland 2018), “Sister” (Germany 2019), and “Amen” (Austria 2021).
On the second day of the 2023 songwriting camp, SUISA’s artistic director paired up four very different musical minds in hopes that magic would happen. And when Swiss musician Nemo Mettler, Norwegian producer and instrumentalist Lasse Midtsdian Nymann, Swiss pop producer Benjamin Alasu, and Swedish singer-songwriter Linda Dale teamed up, happen it did!
24-year-old singer and rapper Nemo Mettler, or simply Nemo, has already accomplished more than artists twice their age. A music prodigy from the very beginning, Nemo was performing for large crowds while barely a teenager, getting cast in a jukebox musical based on the songs of Eurovision 1966 winner Udo Jürgens at age 13. Their big break, though, came in 2016 when the then-16 year old’s appearance on Swiss streaming hip hop show Virus Bounce Cypher went viral, racking up half a million views and earning them legions of fans. This began a meteoric rise for a kid who still had their braces on. They released three EPs, won four Swiss music awards, and topped the Swiss music charts with their German-language hip hop tracks. It was all a bit much for the still maturing artist, and Nemo soon decamped to Los Angeles where they began working on English pop music and writing songs for other US, German, and Swiss-based acts. They returned to Europe in style in 2021, introducing fans to their new electro pop sound and attitude, even appearing on the 2nd season of The Masked Singer Switzerland. Since then, Nemo has been based out of Berlin and has been writing and releasing a steady stream of songs that fuse their pop and hip hop music sensibilities, including the 2023 single “This Body”. That song, co-written with fellow “The Code” scribe Benjamin Alasu (see below) is a deeply personal track exploring Nemo’s evolving gender identity. In 2023, timed to that song’s release, Nemo came out as non-binary.
Benjamin ‘Benji’ Alasu is a Zurich-based producer and songwriter who has been actively working in the music industry since 2015. Primarily working in pop and electronic music, Alasu has worked with artists from across Europe and Australia, including co-writing songs with Eurovision 2023 veterans Remo Forrer (Switzerland) and Teya (Austria). He has also collaborated with Elsie Bay and was on the songwriting team for Maria Celin’s “Freya”, an entrant in Melodi Gran Prix 2023. In addition to his musical endeavors, Alasu and his wife, fashion designer Kim Alasu, founded a womenswear line called ‘Dear Aline’ in 2021.
Swedish musician Linda Dale has been at it longer than some of you may have even been alive. After studying music for four years at the performing arts institute Kulturama, Dale began uploading music to her personal MySpace page in 2006. (She even independently released an EP called Simple and at ease.) She soon moved to The US, living and performing across the country in states as disparate as New York, California, and Florida. She eventually made her way back to Sweden, studying Electronic Music Production and founding her own production company. Since then, she has been hard at work, collaborating and experimenting with various music projects. Now based in Norway, Dale made her Melodi Gran Prix debut last year with a splash, co-writing Norway’s eventual Eurovision entrant, “Queen of Kings” by Alessandra, at an MGP writing camp. She also co-wrote “Woman Show”, the entry that kicked off this year’s very first MGP semi.
Currently based in Berlin, Lasse Midtsdian Nymann-usually credited as simply NYLAN-took an unusual route to a life in the music industry. After finishing secondary school, Nymann attended The Norwegian Army Academy and enlisted in the Norwegian Armed Forces for two years. In 2016, after completing his military service, he leapt into the music grind feet first, auditioning for reality singing competition The Stream and enrolling in the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts to study songwriting and production. (He graduated in 2020.) He has since been working steadily behind the scenes of music production, frequently collaborating with (primarily Norwegian artists) like Melodi Gran Prix favorites Elsie Bay and IMERIKA. In 2023, he was on the writing team of heartthrob trio Umami Tsunami’s MGP entry “Geronimo”. (That song ultimately finished 9th in the national final.)
Congrats to all four of tonight’s victorious creative minds!
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