Today's birthday boy Axel Ehnström gave an interview to Helsingin Sanomat last month, being part of the new generation of artists/songwriters reaching out and having success abroad. He shot to the spotlight after wining the last Euroviisut (before it was rebranded and revamped as UMK) with Da da dam, and had a very succesful Eurovision song contest 2011 adventure all the way to the final where he was drawn to sing first. Busted! He had already won the Marcel Bezençon Press award and placed third in the semifinal, but in the final dropped to 21st. Da da dam certainly wasn't a song to open the show. After Eurovision he got to release his solo album as Paradise Oskar but soon he realized writing songs is what he really wants to do. He studied music, and especially studied how to write hits reading interviews by succesful writers and practised writing techniques forcing himself to write a song every day. For inspiration he might go to library and check the book covers...