On the latest episode of The Euro Trip, The Roop revealed that they had strong negative emotions having to compete in a national selection to win the right to represent Lithuania at Eurovision in 2021.

All three members of The Roop – Vaidotas Valiukevičius, Mantas Banišauskas and Robertas Baranauskas – sat down for an interview with The Euro Trip presenter Rob Lilley last month and discussed the band’s Eurovision journey and a possible return.

The Roop originally won the right to represent Lithuania at Eurovision having succeeded in the marathon selection show Pabandom iš Naujo! in February 2020 with their song On Fire.

After the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled The Roop were invited back by Lithuanian broadcaster LVT to compete in the country’s national selection again in 2021.

Asked about the selection process for 2021, The Roop lead singer Valiukevičius said: “As I remember national television [LRT] said ‘give us three weeks and we’ll decide what we’re going to do’. It was very strange for us.”

He added: “I was mad, I remember I was mad. I thought ‘f*** off’. Then I remembered it’s a new situation for everyone, and we just have to get on with it.”

The band’s guitarist Banišauskas shared his band mate’s frustration, saying: “We thought that a better decision could have been made [about the selection process].”

At Pabandom iš Naujo! in 2021 The Roop received a bye to the competition’s final and received 12 points from both the professional jury and the televote. In the televote the band received more than 10 times the number of votes than the runner up Gebrasy.

Banišauskas conceded that he didn’t think the band would succeed the way they did at Pabandom iš Naujo!, saying: “When we went through the selection… we didn’t think we would win that easily, so that was a stressful period; that whole selection thing.

The Roop represented Lithuania in Rotterdam at Eurovision 2021. The band’s eighth place in the Grand Final secured the country’s best result in the contest since LT United finished in sixth place in 2006.

Speaking about returning to Eurovision, Banišauskas said: “We still have unfinished business I guess, we still have to win.

“The last two times we went to Eurovision [it was about whether we had the right song] so maybe if the time is right.”

Image Credit: Eurovision.tv