British Eurovision hopefuls Remember Monday have spoken to NME about competing in this year’s song contest in Basel – and revealed that Queen‘s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was a major influence on their “chaotic” power-pop song ‘What the Hell Just Happened?’
The country-pop trio – Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele – are the first girl-group to represent the UK since Precious finished 12th in 1999. Since then, the UK has only cracked the Top 10 on three occasions, most recently when Sam Ryder came second three years ago.
But in 2023, Mae Muller finished 25th out of 26 in the grand final – then Olly Alexander endured similar disappointment a year later when he finished 18th after scoring “nul points” in the public vote. Despite the UK’s fluctuating fortunes in the contest, Remember Monday insisted they don’t regard taking part as a “risk”.
“We already have big plans past Eurovision,” Lauren said, pointing to summer festival sets at Latitude and The Big Feastival. “And it’s not just about what happens in the final on 17 May. So many bucket list moments are already being ticked off for us.”
Since its release last month, Remember Monday’s Eurovision banger ‘What the Hell Just Happened?’ has become their first song to amass over one million streams on Spotify.
Featuring Queen-influenced glam rock guitars and power-pop drums as well as their trademark vocal harmonies, it sees the trio move away from country-leaning previous singles such as last year’s ‘Laugh About It’ and ‘What The Girls’ Bathroom Is For’. “The music that we plan to release after Eurovision feels like an obvious continuation from ‘What the Hell Just Happened?,” Lauren said, confirming that their sound is evolving more towards pop.
The trio have been singing together since they met at sixth form college in 2012. They competed on The Voice UK in 2019, built a sizable TikTok following during the pandemic, and embarked on a sold-out UK tour last year. All three members have extensive musical theatre experience including stints in West End shows, but they quit their day jobs in 2023 to focus full-time on the band.
Remember Monday co-wrote ‘What the Hell Just Happened?’ with producers Billen Ted (Anne-Marie, Tom Grennan) plus seasoned Eurovision songwriters Thomas Stengaard and Julie ‘Kill J’ Aagaard. Earlier this week they revealed that their Eurovision performance will be creative–directed by Ace Bowerman, who has worked with Dua Lipa, BLACKPINK and Sabrina Carpenter.
But the trio, who are signed to London-based independent label The Other Songs, said that keeping their team small is their “secret weapon”.
“The whole process is really collaborative for us, so there’s no fear of us – the band – becoming this tiny fish in a massive pond that gets forgotten about,” Holly said.
Check out our full interview with Remember Monday below, in which they talked about drawing inspiration from Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, receiving positive feedback from Taylor Swift and Shania Twain, aiming for the top five in Basel, and wanting to be front row for Malta’s controversial Eurovision bop.
NME: Hello, Remember Monday! You were formally asked to represent the UK in December, but had to keep it secret until March. How did you manage?
Holly: “Well, I wasn’t great at it. I was probably part of the leak.”
Charlotte: “Yeah, Holly was the leak!”
Still, it was only the fact you’d been chosen that leaked – no one knew which song you’d be bringing to Basel. And obviously, ‘What the Hell Just Happened?’ isn’t the country tune that many fans were expecting.
Lauren: “Yeah. There were loads of people online saying, ‘I don’t know how a country song will go down at Eurovision.’ And obviously we just had to sit there and keep quiet.”
Charlotte: “In a way, that speculation helped us because we were so excited and proud of the song, which is quite different, that we just couldn’t wait for people to hear it.”
‘What the Hell Just Happened?’ is one of about 15 songs you wrote specifically with Eurovision in mind. What musical references were in your brief?
Holly: “We had a long list of really quite random references: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Chappell Roan, ‘Defying Gravity’…”
Lauren: “What’s that saying? ‘Throw everything but the kitchen sink at it’ – that’s what we did when we wrote this song.”
Charlotte: “We wanted to make sure the song was rightfully Remember Monday, but also heightened and amazing enough to stand up against the other countries taking part. And we really wanted to show off our musical theatre backgrounds – finally! So yeah, it was all wonderfully chaotic.”
Why was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ such a key reference point?
Holly: “Because it’s quite inherently British, and we’ve covered Queen’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ in the past, so we already felt a connection to their harmonies. But also, that kind of song – one that isn’t afraid to push boundaries and be weird and wonderful – fits so well on the Eurovision stage. We just felt this was the perfect opportunity to experiment with key changes and tempo changes.”
Charlotte: “When we covered ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ [in 2021], Brian May actually did a full-on post about it on his Instagram page.”
Lauren: “And Shania Twain reached out to us when we covered one of her songs.”
Holly: “Taylor Swift liked one of our videos, too – I’ll never forget that day.”
Charlotte: “It’s the one where I look really, really tired – obviously!”
Do you have a particular goal for Basel in terms of where you’d like to finish?
Charlotte: “We’d like to be on the better side of the scoreboard – the left-hand side.”
Lauren: “We have a deal with our entire team – like, 30 people have shook on this deal – that if we finish in the top five, everyone is getting a ‘WTHJH?’ tattoo.”
Charlotte: “But we’re also getting the tattoo if we finish dead last with zero points. That’s the other part of the deal.”
Holly: “I can see our manager shaking his head, but he’s not getting out of it. You shook on it, Chris!”
Who do you see as your stiffest competition?
Lauren: “I really like JJ, who’s representing Austria with ‘Wasted Love’.”
Charlotte: “Ever since the first time I heard it, I’ve been obsessed with Norway’s song, ‘Lighter’ by Kyle Alessandro. I’m gonna be fangirling in the audience when he sings it. And I want us to sing it at some point!”
How about Malta’s Miriana Conte? She’s already had a lot of publicity because she had to remove the Maltese word “kant” from her song due to its similarity with a certain English expletive.
Holly: “Oh, we’ll be front row singing along to her as well – it’s really our kind of song.”
Charlotte: “I think Eurovision is exactly the place to push those boundaries and have fun with things the way she’s doing. It’s just so, so good.”
Lauren: “Completely. That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited to be taking part. You can do things at Eurovision that you just can’t do anywhere else.”
‘What the Hell Just Happened?’ by Remember Monday is out now. The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will air live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Saturday May 17.