It’s summer, 2018, and the Norwegian songwriter and artist Laila Samuels is participating at a songwriting camp for girls only in Berlin. At night she sees a person of the opposite sex has snuck into the afterparty. It’s the Canadian songwriter Jonas Shandel. This would be the first of many encounters between the two of them. They hit it off instantly, and decided to go to Malaga together. The intention was to write for other artists, but after a while they returned to Berlin with lots of new material and the duo, Shandel & Samuels, was a fact. With two voices that couldn’t be more different, they create their very own sound. “The songs sounded so good with our voices singing together, so we decided to record them for an original project, and everything has fallen into place from there”, according to Shandel.
Jonas Shandel is a singer, songwriter and actor from Vancouver, Canada. From 2001 to 2012 he played in the folk band Headwater. He’s also an active songwriter, having written chart toppers with artists like Lena Meyer - Landrut, Felix Jaehn and Schiller. Laila Samuels from Oslo got her breakthrough in 1998, with the band, The Tuesdays and their song “It’s Up To You” (Peaked at 55 on the Billboard Hot 100). Since then, Samuels has been one of Norways most active and successful songwriters, and written more than 300 songs for artists across the globe. After eight years as a songwriter in Berlin for international artists, she recently moved back home to Norway.
