The Darin Worldwide Interview: "The new album is going to be good"

It’s been almost a week since I was in Västerås watching Darin performing on stage, when I suddenly found myself in front of him, supposed to answer his question: Coke or Fanta? 
I could hardly believe that me and Darin were talking just like we had been friends for years. The interview lasted more than expected, and in the end we didn’t even care about the question list we had prepared. It felt more like a friendly conversation, I must say, and that’s how it began.


We know you like travelling a lot and that you’ve been in many fabulous countries. So, what’s the prettiest place you’ve visited so far?
The prettiest place? Brazil. I really like what’s like a jungle, you know, I like tropical feelings, so I really enjoyed Brazil. There are a lot of nice places that I like, like the south of Europe. I was in Sardinia two years ago, that was really nice as well, but I think I would pick Brazil, the north of Brazil.

Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but never had the chance to, something you think you must do before you die?
I think I have to skydive, because I’ve dived in water, so now I have to dive in the air.

Have you ever done or would you ever do any plastic surgeries like nose job or botox?
Now I feel like I would not do it, but you never know when you’re 60. So I’m not gonna say no but right now I just couldn’t imagine doing it. We will see when I’m like 50 or 60.

And how do you feel when you find on the web some photos of you that you don’t like?
Well, I’m used to it. There are pictures I’m like “Oh my God, why do they have that as their profile picture?!” ha ha ha. I hate that but at the same time I think they’re just showing love, you know, that’s why they put pictures up, so it means a lot.

What’s a joke that you can tolerate at all?
I love to joke, most things are okay with me. But if you feel it’s not the right time, well it can become really wrong, especially because I don’t like racist stuff so maybe yeah, that kind of jokes I cannot tolerate.

Now some questions about your upcoming album. First one: will someone feature in it like Kat Deluna did in Flashback?
It’s not impossible. I haven’t finished the album, so chances are I will probably do something with someone, I still don’t know who and from which country.

Do you have anyone in mind?
I have a lot, but I don’t wanna drop some names until I’m finished with the album. I have some big ones I wanna collaborate with, so that’s not impossible.

Are you planning to shoot a videoclip for Nobody Knows or for your upcoming single, maybe with your fans involved in it?
I’ve thought of that, like doing it while I’m on tour with fans, or maybe not for real, you know, more like a movie. But I don’t think that’s for Nobody Knows, I wanna do it with some songs in the future. That would be cool.

So is there a new single going to be released soon?
Not at the moment, because I wanna release a new single right before the album and it’s not finished yet. Hope it’s gonna be released at the beginning of next year, like in February or sometime around that. I don’t wanna release it until I don’t feel 100% sure, because I want it to be really good since I haven’t released an album for two years or more, is it more?

Yes, it is.

You guys know more than me, I like that!

And about Nobody Knows, are you going to release it in the UK?
I haven’t checked out what’s going on at the moment, but I know clubs are playing it there. However, the album is not finished yet so I think it will be another single that will break over there.

Great! But how does it work when you release your music in other countries? Do you have to go there or you just let the record company do the job?
It’s both. It depends on the country, like in Germany or France you have to be there a lot if you want to break.

Why didn’t you include some songs in your previous albums like Pop That, even if it’s one of your best up-tempo songs ever?
You think that?
Yeah.
Cool. It’s because it leaked before I had the chance to release it. I still have a lot of songs that I’ve written but I haven’t released, for other albums. That’s one of those songs that was for Flashback but we didn’t finish it in time, and then someone leaked it, I don’t know who, so I couldn’t release it because everyone had already heard it.


Oh, okay. And we know that you were supposed to release Flashback in France in 2009, but you actually didn’t. Why?
Yeah, we never did that because I didn’t feel like it was the right people to work with. Besides, I was still with Sony and it was really hard to do it through them. Now with Universal it's really easy to work for other countries. But I want a really good album before I do it.

All the blogs and websites about you are slowly becoming part of a network called the “Darin Family network”. 
Yeah, I recognize that name.

How much do you appreciate them?
Like Darin Worldwide, the blog and the Facebook page? It means a lot, it’s really cool. That’s why I put myself on it with my Facebook page and I told my manager to get in contact with you, because I thought it was so good. So I told him “check out this site and contact the persons that are in charge of it, I want it to be official”.

Thank you very much for that.
Of course, means a lot.

Have you been satisfied of your record company so far? Is there anything that sometimes makes you wonder of getting back to Sony Music or do you feel more confident than you felt before?
Yes I do, especially at the moment. I feel like I really found my team at Universal Music. The thing is that I started at Sony years ago, there were other people working there and I had another team, we really clicked and it was like the perfect team. There’s still some of the people that are my best friends, you know, so we’re like a small family. It was Sony BMG at the beginning, then after a couple of years people switched jobs and when I released Flashback none of the people that I used to work with was at Sony, so I felt I did a good job just with the first single but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, who I wanted to sign with because I had to do 4 albums with Sony, and Flashback was the last one. I wanted to try something different, but I wanted  to release just one single without signing a contract and I did Viva La Vida, which was not meant to be a single since the beginning, it was just for Idol. But they wanted me to open one of the first finales so I decided to release it, even if I didn’t think it would be so big, because the Coldplay version was still big in Sweden. So I just did it for fun and I tried to release it with Universal. I had a meeting with them and I found out that the boss who was at Sony had switched to Universal after “Flashback”was released. That made me feel more home. They did a great job with the single because it was number one everywhere, like on the radio chart, the digital chart, the singles chart, so I was so happy and I just decided  to sign with them. They really care about my projects, it’s nice. The new album is gonna be good.

We can’t wait for that, actually.
We saw that you did some interviews for Kurdish magazines. So what do you think of your Kurdish fans?
They’re really devoted all over the world, especially in Kurdistan and Sweden as well. They really want me to come back and I really want that too but things don’t work the same over there as they do here; but if they call and want me to have a concert, of course I would do it. Some of them think I don’t care about them, but I really do.

Thank you very much for the interview, hope to see you soon.
Of course!


So all we have to do now is just to wait for great music from our idol to come next year. And I.. well, I really have to think of a new dream to make come true.
Savi Peragine