In an exclusive interview with The Euro Trip, Citi Zeni have confirmed that they’ve had clearance to perform the explicit lyrics in their song Eat Your Salad.

Since Latvian broadcaster LTV released the 16 songs competing in their national selection process Supernova last week, Citi Zeni’s catchy entry has been making waves inside and out of the Eurovision bubble.

In their first ever Eurovision interview, band members have revealed that they will be allowed to perform the explicit lyrics in the national selection. Frontman Jānis Pētersons said: “Actually we have got confirmation that we can do it in the [national selection]. The justification being that it’s not necessarily explicit. It is cheeky, but we have confirmation that we will be able to perform it in the local selection.”

The opening line of the song has brought a lot of attention to the six piece group, as Jānis sings: “Instead of meat, I eat veggies and p***y.” Eurovision rules state that “no swearing or other unacceptable language shall be allowed in the lyrics or in the performances of the songs.”

Because of this, the band are aware that they may have to rethink their plans if they were to make it to Turin, with Jānis adding: “Regarding [Eurovision], we’ll probably not [be allowed to sing it]. But we have a few cheeky plans of how to circumvent that. But we’ll keep these to ourselves until the national finals have take place.”

The band were understandably secretive about this, but did tease that: “The thing is that we can’t sing it, but somebody else can. Thats the answer I’m willing to give for the time being.”

Five of the six members of the group sat down with presenter James Rowe for this exclusive interview: Jānis Pētersons, Dagnis Roziņš, Reinis Višķeris, Krišjānis Ozols and Toms Kagainis. Roberts Memmēns had tested positive for Covid-19 and was unable to join.

Speaking about why the band chose to enter Supernova this year, Jānis said: “Our goal is to not be specifically a Eurovision band, but we see Eurovision as a great trampoline for artists such as ourselves that come from markets in which there’s a slightly underdeveloped music industry. We want to be the first Latvian band to make it outside of Latvia in quite a while.”

“We are actually really serious about all this. Even though the packaging might seem funny, funky and outrageous to some, for us it’s all very real. In the Latvian scene there are very few bands who are paying attention to their live shows. We are all professionally trained musicians and we have been doing this for quite a while. Let’s see how we deal with this Eurovision task.”

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