He just turned 17 but his Eurovision 2017 song “Beautiful Mess” is already a massive success and one of the early favourites to win this year’s song contest.
And on Saturday Bulgaria’s Kristian Kostov proved that he’s handling expectations and hype with ease as he met with wiwiblogger William for a candid interview ahead of the London Eurovision Party.
“I was amazed from the first listen of the song,” he says of his number, which his producer presented to him in Sofia several months ago. “She showed me the song and I was like ‘Whoa!’ That day I went to the studio and made the demo. It was just the piano and my voice.”
“It took me like two months to make it sound like this. I had to work a lot on the high tones. It was a lot of work with my vocal coach. But I think it sounds pretty decent.”
“After a month of listening and thinking what we could do with that song, we were like ‘Why don’t we try to go on the Eurovision Song Contest’?”
KRISTIAN KOSTOV INTERVIEW IN LONDON
Kristian is a truly international representative and captures the spirit of #CelebrateDiversity well.
Born in Moscow to a Kazakh mother and a Bulgarian father, he says he’s from “somewhere between Russia and Bulgaria”. Half of his family members are Christian, while the other half are Muslim, meaning he celebrates the full range of holidays in his household.
“We really cherish the beautiful moments of every part of this,” he says. “I have the chance to interact with different religions, which is cool for me.”
Kristian, who recently released the official video to his Eurovision entry, is known both in Bulgaria and in Russia through The X Factor Bulgaria and The Voice Kids Russia.
Russian fans will be happy to hear how deeply impressed the young star was by his Voice mentor, ESC 2008 winner Dima Bilan.
“He’s one of the best I know,” Kris stated. “He’s so kind and so intelligent, and he taught me how to work the cameras.”
Watch our interview with @KristianKostov_ tomorrow on https://t.co/mlPmpv5g09 ???????????? #CelebrateDiversity #eurovision2017 #BeautifulMess pic.twitter.com/w3bUUuIOU5
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) April 1, 2017
Given the opportunity to flaunt his fluent Bulgarian and Russian, Kris thanked his fans in three languages. Despite his young age, Kostov firmly stands behind the message of his song: love is stronger than anything, it makes you a superhuman.
The Bulgarian representative showed impressive maturity and stage presence at the concert in the UK capital. See for yourself through our exclusive footage from the first live performance of “Beautiful Mess” below.
We are all looking forward to the apogee of all that knowledge and experience on the big stage in Kyiv.
While in the United Kingdom, the youngest ESC 2017 participant met a true Eurovision legend, Ruslana. “Kris found an excellent consultant on how to win Eurovision,” BNT flaunted on their Facebook page.
Kris is already in Tel Aviv and we can’t wait to hear more of his “Beautiful Mess”. What is your take on this multi-national, multi-lingual contestant? Let us know in the comments below!
Hi! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this write-up to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Many thanks for sharing!
The most overrated person in Eurovision. He has very weak voice and is out of tune several times.
Everybody can have their own opinion. But to hear fake notes you need to have strong hearing and if it is a slight change of a note you need to be a pro in musical frames. Kris did a perfect job out there, did not fake anything, and lets not forget that he is still myoung and there was a lot of pressure on him. I don’t mean to be rude, so I am sorry if I affected you.
Really good!
For now is Belgium no1, but really good! Much better than our Swedish song. I still miss Loreen whith Statements : (
Random quotes about Kris that I enjoyed these days:
“If we have “Celebrate diversity” as this year’s slogan, then Kristian himself should be the official mascot :)” … “He is a walking, talking and singing diversity.” :))))
He looks really young (probably cause it looks like he’s still got a smidgen of ‘baby fat’ on his face), and I think that’s gonna be endearing to a lot of voters. The gap between his voice and his appearance is most likely going to be key to his success in Kyiv. Judging by his London performance, this has a massive chance of continuing Bulgaria’s success with another Top 5 finish.
A great interview, and it seems a lot of the acts this year are looking forward to (and subsequently enjoy) getting interviewed by you folks! 🙂
I ship Blanche and Kristian so much! Cutiesss
He’s really cute and nice, and very mature for his 17!
This interviews are soooo funny, make me want to be interviewed by you guys! Keep that energy and good vibes. It’s even better when the artists go along with you and enjoy like Kristian, Jana or Nathan.
From London, my positives from Kristian (Kris) were that he was intelligent and open to new things. He obviously has a great voice and a charismatic personality. His eyes tell a thousand stories – he could go into acting if he wanted to. I have no doubt that he will be very famous and successful as a singer. But… Physically I could see his neck moving on the falsetto notes – that looked odd to me. Alarm bells rang in my head at that point; I hope he’s in good health. If that is his natural singing technique then he… Read more »
All Eastern countries speak English, I don’t know what happened with O Torvald, maybe they don’t care, they don’t want to make an effort, but they know some English, and they sing it.
And Kristian’s father is from Bulgaria, and mother is from Kazahstan so he was born in Moscow because Russia (the naughty Russia) is still Mother Russia.
Another interview I enjoyed!
His english was good, so I got what he was saying!
“Somewhere between Russia and Bulgaria” is the most beautiful answer he could give to tha question “Where are you from?”!
And I like he says good things about Dima! I mean ok, many of us think he seems strange or arrogant but he is nice!
That being said, Kristian would say good things anyway cause he was his mentor!
Anyway, a great song and a great voice!
Good luck to our neighbours in Bulgaria!
I think that after his performance in London, he is definitely one of the favorites. I alao really like his personality, he come accross as a very open, extrovert and down-to-earth person and at the same time it is obvious how seriously he takes music and his career. I think he is just a great model for East European kids–multicultural, fluent in several languages, at ease in the West, but rooted in Eastern music tradition and bringing that Slavic/Eastern soulfulness in his performances.
He says that he travels a lot between Russia and Bulgaria, but he always has said that he doesn’t have a Russian blood.
Between Bulgaria and Russia eh?? Ukraine!! 😮
He’s so cute! And he’s really good too. He’s gonna do very well at Eurovision.
I want so much East to win again, no matter who, from Poland to Azerbaijan, but I just can’t stand that people say, fine…..but next year a decent country should win.
Make ESC be stuck in the East.
Why always promoting him?
There are 42 other contestants…
12 points from Italy.
What a cutie!
He is so sweet, talented and sunny. Many reasons to be hated here. Win it all, Kristian and make them hating even more.
lovable singer, forgettable song.
Such a powerful voice for a guy looking so young….. I like him, I’d like Bulgaria winning. I’m tired to see countries winning Eurovision multiple times, it’s time for some other countries to win and to host. Bulgaria really made some efforts coming back in style, in 2016 and 2017 – LOVELY songs, good artists! I love Bulgaria’s song this year, is enchanting!
We saw that some countries are so much promoted on this bloggs in last few days and week, Bulgaria, Montenegro, France and favorite italy. We have 43 countries this year at contest.
Jamala came from a half Muslim, half Christian family (she and her father are Sunni Muslims, mother is Armenian Orthodox)….will Kristian emulate her in another way and win? Probably not, but good on him for being a celebration of diversity!
such a overrated song
it’s nice but it’s not better than last year
Say what you want about Russia, but something that in West is such a big problem to negotiate = in Russia is the most natural thing in the world : Christian + Muslims families.
Bulgaria is so overrated..
HE IS SO ADORABLE AND HIS SONG GIVES YOU THOSE GOOD VIBES THAT I WOULD LISTEN IT ALL DAY! GO KRIS!
Nice teeth