The twelfth artist in our Who Is series for Eurovision 2023 is Sudden Lights from Latvia.
Sudden Lights was formed in 2012 in Riga. The band consists of Andrejs Reinis Zitmanis (vocals), Mārtiņš Matīss Zemītis (drums), Kārlis Matīss Zitmanis (guitar) and Kārlis Vārtiņš (bass). Andrejs and Mārtiņš founded the band, while Kārlis Zitmanis and Kārlis Vārtiņš joined in 2014.
In 2015, Sudden Lights won Pirmā plate, a competition for upcoming artists at Riga State Gymnasium No.1. The band used their prize to record their debut single “Tik Savādi”. Their debut album “Priekšpilsētas” was released in 2017.
In 2018, Sudden Lights competed in Supernova with the song “Just Fine”. Although they did not originally qualify for the final, they were offered a wildcard and ended up finishing second in the final. Later that year, they supported Brainstorm, the very first Latvian representatives, on their tour of Latvia.
In 2019, Sudden Lights released their second album “Vislabāk ir tur, kur manis nav”. They followed this with a national tour in the beginning of 2020. Their most recent album “Miljards vasaru” was released in 2022.
Sudden Lights were selected to represent Latvia in Eurovision 2023 after winning Supernova 2023. They received maximum points from the professional jury and public voting.
The song that Sudden Lights will perform in Liverpool is called “Aijā”. It was written and composed by all four members of the band. The song contains some lines in Latvian, marking the first time since 2004 that a song with lyrics in Latvian will appear at Eurovision.
Image Source: LTV
SOURCE: EUROVOIX