Danish artist and singer-songwriter Sanne Gottlieb ‘Sunny’ releases “Who are the bells ringing for?” in 2013 whilst continuing fundraising for Emancipasia to fight Human Trafficking.
The Singapore-based artist known as Sunny broke through with her career when her song “Kissing” was used as the movie soundtrack for the movie Sex & the City.
Sunny, the artist, song-writer, actress, model, and former figure skating champion, is now succeeding internationally with her songs. Reviewed by several journalists and music experts, her lyrics are said to be an implementation of her own life experiences from the past.
“I used to be a figure skater when I was a child. Expressing myself through music as a figure skater triggered something in me. But I always sang. Since when I was 14, I wrote my own songs and sang them to my friends,” says Sunny.
Sunny was a championship figure skater when she was five and became a national number one at the age of 15, when her tendon snapped. This made Sunny start to perform her own poetry at local libraries and fronting the band Candy Club in Copenhagen punk-rock clubs. Sunny worked as an Elite model for fashion magazines and at runway shows in Paris/Tokyo making money on the side.
In 2012 Sunny released her first album “Cassette from your Ex” where $1 dollar of each album sold was donated to Emancipasia and to fight human trafficking in Singapore.
She is succeeding worldwide, in 2013 alone as a solo artist, next to having DJ’ XEUM of Paris and a Ministry of Sound DJ from Los Angeles remixing her songs to club music.
Sanne Sunny Gottlieb is today an artist with Warner Music and also a singer-songwriter. Since her younger days, she has always wanted to become an artist.
Melody Grand Prix
As the singer in the band The Poets, Sunny and the rock band played twice at Roskilde Music Festival with an audience of 20,000 people and went touring the United Kingdom. Sunny then performed in the Danish Melody Grand Prix in both 2000 and 2001, and in 2002, she was a member of the jury.
“After Melody Grand Prix, people recognized me. But it has just been difficult for me to get out of that somehow. They forget that I am also the one doing the soundtrack for the film Sex & the City. I have been doing a lot of things which I am happy that I did,” she says.
13 years later, Sunny reminds ScandAsia that she is more than just the singer at the Danish version of the European Song Contest.
Warner Music record deal
Sunny has many good memories through her career. She remembers the time she was in a band with well-known artists as for sticking together 24/7.
“They become your friends for a life time. And of course I remember it was so big for me when I had the song in the Sex & the City Movie because I didn’t know that I had the song in the film until a journalist called me and asked what I felt about “Kissing” being the soundtrack,” says Sunny. It was then that Sunny was determined to land a deal with Warner Music.
“I always said to myself I wanted a deal with Warner Music and I got it. I was alone at the time, me in Denmark and my husband in Singapore, and I had this contract in front of me and I signed it and then I said to myself; I am drinking a glass of champagne” says Sunny.
Sunny made a toast to herself and updated her Facebook status: Sunny has now two contracts with Warner Music Group – one with Warner Music Europe and one with Warner Music Singapore.
Emancipasia & Human Trafficking
In October 2012, the Singapore launch of Sanne Gottlieb’s CD “Cassette from your Ex” was held at the HMV store, Marina Square, where every CD sold on the day, $1 SGD was donated to Emancipasia to fight human trafficking.
“I have always been extremely interested in politics in many different aspects and in Denmark I have always been super aggressive every time I heard about human trafficking or violence against women and children. You can see that these girls, a lot of them are not here by their own free will,” she says.
Sunny is angry about how the Danish police are not doing much about the prostitution in her homeland, especially with the Eastern-European Girls.
“They are from Russia, Estonia, and Lithuania, so when I saw that in my country and I was told that it is also happening in Singapore I was super surprised as I didn’t know it was also happening here, in a country where everything is pretty much controlled,” she says.
Sunny will continue to implement the donations from her music sale from her next album to Emancipasia. She also wishes to make the donations a global plan. Early January 2013 she participated in a talk show for women, which is released on her Facebook page in February.
New Club Mix
Featuring world’s leading DJs, Sunny’s next hits are halfway done. She tells us that these songs will be quite electronic. She believes the success she has had so far is attributed to the strong team behind her.
“They are in different areas in this world as LA, Paris, Stockholm, and Turkey. I know that they will play my music. I know that a strong name behind you can open a lot of doors. It feels right and it is because the previous album goes in two directions. One is an electronic and one is a singer-song writer direction,” she says.
The move to Singapore has offered Sunny the opportunity to explore her inner potential which has been quite challenging.
“Music wise, I want to continue to write and at one point I might just only write for others again. At the moment it is just progressing, it is not that I am dreaming of being the new Madonna or whatever they try to call me. I am actually using my own stories. It is a struggle because it is difficult for me to put my life and my feelings down in words, so that it can be a personal project but at the same time it can be something that other people would find interesting and maybe they can relate themselves to it,” says Sunny.
Life philosophy and being an author
“No Dreams are too big to dream because along the way they will only get smaller. If you start somewhere totally unrealistic, you will probably end somewhere realistic. If someone tells me they want to do music I’d ask them why. Then I’d say take the things that you are good at and refine them,” Sunny says.
Sunny is writing a book and will write more books, as there is not so much pressure and stress on author writing as it is with music. She is now more than halfway in the book where she shares a thought to the readers.
“One thing I found out is that you cannot do this on your own. You can do it to a certain limit but then you have to be involved with others, you need to have a super network; otherwise it is not going to happen. There will always be people who are better and smarter than yourself and you just have to hook up with them, so we get the best out of each other, which then refers to do what you are good at,” says Sunny.
Sunny’s songs can be found on iTunes, iTunes Denmark and Amazon UK. To follow Sunny, subscribe to the artist’s homepage on Facebook, Twitter and blog: http://www.sannegottlieb.com
