Bjorn Ulvaeus unsure if Abba Voyage will continue if a bandmate dies

 Asked on Times Radio if the virtual concerts will continue if a member of Abba dies, Ulvaeus told the station: “That’s a question I’ve never had before… I honestly don’t know, hadn’t thought about that.

“It’s good you raise that question – I’ll talk to the others about that as we need to decide beforehand between us if it’s OK for all four of us to go on after we’re gone.”

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Bjorn Ulvaeus unsure if Abba Voyage will continue if a bandmate dies irishnews.com — Tiempo de lectura: 1 minuto Bjorn Ulvaeus said he does not know if the Abba Voyage virtual concerts will continue if one of his band members dies. Since opening in May 2022, more than three million people have seen the show that brings to life younger versions of the Abba members through digital “Abba-tars” and a 10-piece live band in a purpose-built arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London. The influential pop group, also made up of Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Benny Andersson, were the first Swedish winners of the Eurovision Song Contest with their hit Waterloo in Brighton in 1974. Asked on Times Radio if the virtual concerts will continue if a member of Abba dies, Ulvaeus told the station: “That’s a question I’ve never had before… I honestly don’t know, hadn’t thought about that. “It’s good you raise that question – I’ll talk to the others about that as we need to decide beforehand between us if it’s OK for all four of us to go on after we’re gone.” Faltskog and Ulvaeus married in 1971 before splitting almost a decade later, while Andersson and Lyngstad also married and divorced in 1981, a year before the band broke up. Abba had a string of chart-toppers including Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, Dancing Queen, Super Trouper, The Winner Takes It All and Mamma Mia!  Abba in Brighton where they won the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden with Waterloo (PA/PA) The group reunited and released their first new music in almost 40 years with Voyage, their ninth studio album, which topped the UK album charts. Their songs also inspired the musical Mamma Mia!, which began in London in 1999, and became a hit worldwide sensation. It spun off two movies, 2008’s Mamma Mia! and 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

https://www.irishnews.com/entertainment/bjorn-ulvaeus-unsure-if-abba-voyage-will-continue-if-a-bandmate-dies-2VBW6V64W5PKVFFZH6DDULRYV4

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"Will Voyage continue when one of Abba dies? “That’s a very good question. That remains to be seen. We are allowed to stay in our current venue till 2029, but ticket sales might drop, you never know. But is it right to continue when someone is dead? That’s a big ethical question.” 

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/bjorn-abba-interview-younger-woman-vxmbmtphp

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus: life at 80 and falling for a younger woman

new

With the Abba Voyage show, Bjorn Ulvaeus is keeping his younger self alive as an avatar. But the man himself is still full of energy. Michael Odell meets him

Diptych of a man and woman at a red carpet event and the same man in a leopard-print jacket.

Bjorn Ulvaeus with his third wife, Christina Sas; photographed at Chateau Denmark, London, right. Jacket, Phix. Trousers, Dolce & Gabbana

KRESTINE HAVEMANN/@BJORNULVAEUS/INSTAGRAM, TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE

Michael Odell

Thursday April 17 2025, 8.00pm BST, The Times

Bjorn Ulvaeus remembers it like it was yesterday. He and Abba had just won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with their glam-rock stomper Waterloo. The next morning, he and his wife, Abba singer Agnetha Faltskog, flew back to their home in Stockholm. They had become overnight stars but Faltskog was suddenly something else too: a global sex symbol. Those crazy satin knickerbockers. Those sad, dreamy blue eyes. And let the record also show — these were different times, so much was made of his wife’s epoch-making booty.

No wonder Ulvaeus dropped his bags and took a long look in the mirror.

“I remember the actual full-length mirror,” he says. “And I remember making a rock-solid decision: this cannot go on. This must change immediately, because this is not what a pop star looks like.”

ABBA - Waterloo (Eurovision Song Contest 1974 First Performance)

Ulvaeus thought he was too fat to be famous. On the bus to the Eurovision final at the Brighton Dome, his trousers were so tight he couldn’t sit down.

“There are many myths about Abba, but that one is true,” he says. “I nearly split my trousers and something needed to change and change it did. I began running and eating more healthily that same day.”

At least one account says Ulvaeus found it “irritating” being married to a sex symbol. Was that a part of it? Keeping up with his wife, the best assembled Swedish export since Ikea’s Billy bookcase?

“No, I don’t think I ever said I was irritated. I mean she was very… Yeah, but the reason I went on a diet wasn’t because of her. It was because pop stars were thin. And that’s what I was supposed to be. A pop star.”

Ulvaeus turns 80 in a few days and appears in remarkably good shape. That’s no surprise: we’re looking at 50 years of salad and workouts here. In the mornings back home in Sweden he sails around a lake on his surf ski (a kind of kayak), doesn’t eat until midday and in the evening works out on his cross trainer, TRX suspension cables and something called a “vibrator plate”.

photo “Ageism? At 50 people walk past you in the street. You don’t count”

TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. STYLING: HANNAH ROGERS. COAT, CHARLOTTE SIMON. TROUSERS, DOLCE & GABBANA. BOOTS, ROKER

He also drinks 15-20 cups of coffee a day, which might explain why he vibrates slightly too, like there’s a small electric current passing through him. Bright-eyed with a lush wave of hair and a good beard, my only quibble are his very thin ears. Considering the crucial role they’ve played in music history, I can’t believe they’re so delicate. Almost see-through.

Usually I wouldn’t bang on about someone’s body. But you can with Bjorn Ulvaeus. He likes it.

You look amazing, I say.

“Thank you very much. That is nice of you,” he replies. “I can’t believe I will be 80. But I try to follow the advice of Clint Eastwood who, when asked how he stopped himself feeling old, said, ‘By never letting the old man in.’ ”

I take this as a sign I can ask Ulvaeus about having loads of sex. Again, I wouldn’t usually pry, but in an interview four years ago he grumbled that he was “only” managing sex four times a week. And then last year he got married for the third time, to Christina Sas, a music industry executive 28 years younger than him, so…

“Oh God no, that was a joke. Move on.”

Various

photo Marrying Agnetha Faltskog in 1971

REX FEATURES

Hmm, OK. That makes the last of my warm-up questions, the one about imagining your ex having an amazing orgasm with someone else, really quite difficult. Last year the writer Giles Smith published a lovely homage to Abba called My My!. He lauded Ulvaeus’s genius for using pop to explore mature subjects such as divorce (The Winner Takes It All), the jitters of a romantic ingenue (The Name of the Game), even the parental heartbreak of watching a child grow up (Slipping Through My Fingers; Ulvaeus has two children with Faltskog and two with his second wife, Lena Kallersjo).

• My My! by Giles Smith review — how Abba conquered the world

I was 16 when The Winner Takes It All came out (it was released 18 months after Ulvaeus and Faltskog split up). The heartbreaking lines, “But tell me, does she kiss/ Like I used to kiss you?” made perfect sense, but I was puzzled by, “Does it feel the same/ When she calls your name?” I wondered why someone calling your name should sound different after you’ve broken up. My older sister slightly haughtily explained to me that Ulvaeus was imagining an ex having an earth-shattering orgasm with a new lover.

“Oh, well, that’s reasonable,” he says, taking a big restorative slurp of his coffee.

But Ulvaeus is writing from the point of view of a woman. That’s the mark of a great writer, I venture, being able to imagine yourself as a woman and then imagining how she’d feel about her ex’s new girlfriend climaxing?

photo SWEDEN-MUSIC-ABBA

Abba at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

“Thank you and yes, why not? Why not indeed imagine it?” he offers, a little uncertainly. “I wrote that song very quickly while drinking whisky during my drinking days [he gave up alcohol in 2007]. I rarely wrote while intoxicated because you look at the words the next day and it’s garbage. But most of The Winner Takes It All is actually good. It’s not a personal story, but I tried to find the detail of a real human pain.”

We are sitting in the bar of the Chateau Denmark hotel in London. It’s on Denmark Street, once known as Tin Pan Alley, and it fairly throbs with pop music history. The Rolling Stones recorded their first album here. Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote Your Song on the roof of the building next door. Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and the Small Faces used to hang out at a club on this street and the Sex Pistols once lived at No 6 (Ulvaeus is rather improbably staying in the hotel’s I Am Anarchy suite).

Ulvaeus started playing guitar after receiving one for his 11th birthday. For reference, that was in 1956, when Elvis was in the charts with Heartbreak Hotel. Now he finds himself at the nexus of extraordinary technological change.

photo Hootenanny Singers

Ulvaeus, centre, with the Swedish folk group the Hootenanny Singers, circa 1965

REDFERNS

Over in east London, the virtual Abba show Voyage has now played to more than three million fans, way more than ever saw them live in the UK. Ulvaeus and the other former Abba members don’t have to do anything. He can go out on his kayak. The money rolls in. And yet Ulvaeus is still very concerned about the impact of tech on the future of music.

As president of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers he is advocating for creators’ rights in the age of AI, trying to make sure that songwriters and musicians get fairly paid. “AI is changing all the creative industries beyond recognition,” he asserts.

• Abba stars share in £1.4 million dividend from soaring Mamma Mia! profits

Before Abba, Ulvaeus served a long apprenticeship playing in various bands and writing songs for other artists. Today that apprenticeship is more difficult. He wonders if he would even make it in today’s world.

“I mean, I’d like to believe I’d have tried hard and broken through, but who knows? I might be an Uber driver telling you about this song me and my friends are working on called Dancing Queen that you never get to hear. In the old days, you had a couple of hits and then you had access to all the national radio and TV shows. You had a career. You have to do so much more to be heard above the noise now.” TikTok and YouTube and all the “noise” are one thing, but he’s not a Luddite. Ulvaeus used AI to create the avatars for Abba Voyage. But I can’t help wondering if shows like these might become part of the problem. After all, others are soon to follow: Ulvaeus is helping US rockers Kiss launch their own avatar show in Las Vegas in 2027. And then there is the Abba stage show Mamma Mia! (it has been performed in more than 60 countries), plus the dining experience Mamma Mia! The Party (currently in London, Stockholm and Rotterdam).

Abba’s avatars

ABBA VOYAGE

Is this the future? Legacy acts dominating for ever? “That might be part of it: young people today are finding music from 1970 or 2010 or now. It’s true that when we started, we didn’t have to compete with decades of other music.”

Will Voyage continue when one of Abba dies? “That’s a very good question. That remains to be seen. We are allowed to stay in our current venue till 2029, but ticket sales might drop, you never know. But is it right to continue when someone is dead? That’s a big ethical question.”

If Voyage is still playing in 100 years’ time, would it bother you personally?

“No! Did Agatha Christie have a problem with The Mousetrap? [Christie’s play has run in London since 1952 and recently celebrated its 30,000th performance.] When you’re gone, you’re gone but… my kids might appreciate it.”

The Bjorn Ulvaeus avatar performing in Voyage is modelled on him during Abba’s Seventies pomp, when he was in his thirties. It’s intriguing that while this virtual eternal youth goes out and does the work, the pensioner in front of me feels very passionately about “ageism”.

photoSandi Toksvig officiating at his wedding to Christina Sas, 2024

KRESTINE HAVEMANN/@BJORNULVAEUS/INSTAGRAM

“You reach 50 and people just walk past you in the street,” he says. “They don’t really see you. You don’t count. I think society wastes so much by discarding the skills and wisdom of the elderly. My father-in-law went from relevance to irrelevance from one day to the next.”

Is having a “for ever young” persona leaping about and performing the hits a sort of “F*** you”? “Yes, it’s the perfect rebellion,” he says, chuckling.

‘It was love at first sight’

And yet sometimes reality bites. In 2022 Ulvaeus divorced music journalist Lena Kallersjo after 41 years of marriage and very soon after began dating Christina Sas, who was working on the release of the Abba album Voyage. The age difference really troubled him.

“It was love at first sight, at least from my side,” he says. “But immediately I had severe problems with myself and the age difference. When a man or a woman meets someone much younger and falls in love they think, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ But in the end I just gave up. I decided, ‘It’s up to her — if she wants to live with someone older and we love each other…’ Age doesn’t come between us now — we rarely even talk about it.”

Wow. Love at first sight aged nearly 80 — what does that feel like? “Oh, well, there’s this person and there’s this attraction. You think, ‘What is this?’ And then, when you see it in the other person’s eyes… It’s spectacular. It’s fantastic. But you have to be very open, with your antennas out. You have to be adventurous and ready to take a chance.”

photo SWEDEN-ROYALS-MUSIC-AWARD-ABBA

Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Faltskog and Benny Andersson receive the Royal Order of Vasa in 2024

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Ulvaeus and Sas married last September. His friend, the Danish-born comic and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig, officiated at the ceremony in Copenhagen. Sas is with him in London today. She is warm and friendly. I would say he has a type: pretty, blonde and blue-eyed.

Last night they went to see Sir Elton John and Brandi Carlile perform at the London Palladium. “Elton has a particular way of passionately hammering at the piano,” Sas tells me. “Which is remarkable for a man his age.”

• Sandi Toksvig: Why I played a part in Bjorn from Abba’s wedding

She catches herself. “You see, I’m doing it — I’m being ageist! Why shouldn’t he still play the piano as well as he always has?”

To be honest, I think there are perfectly solid gerontological reasons why: Elton John is 78 and recently told this newspaper he is almost blind. Anyhow, Sas and Ulvaeus make for a remarkably ordinary couple. No one recognised them in Waterstones where they went shopping for books this morning. No one recognises them in the bar.

But then again Ulvaeus has never been particularly starry. He embodies the Scandinavian creed known as janteloven: everyone is equal and even if you enjoy success, never get too big for your boots. According to the definitive Abba biography, Carl Magnus Palm’s Bright Lights Dark Shadows, when Abba won Eurovision in 1974, Ulvaeus was a bit snotty about English attitudes to success.

pohto

With Agnetha Faltskog, 1970

REX FEATURES

“I don’t want to become a nouveau riche like many of the English artists,” he said. “They wallow in luxury; they don’t know what to do with their money.”

But how does it work when you’ve enjoyed the sort of success Ulvaeus has? When he split from his second wife, the details of their pre-nup were published in Sweden. It stipulated there “must never” be less than 20 million kroner (about £1.6 million) in their joint bank account. These days Ulvaeus is reputedly worth close to £250 million.

I must admit I’m trying to match the guy coffee for coffee, so what I’m thinking just comes straight out of my head.

Man alive, Bjorn, what’s it like having £250 million in the bank? “Past a certain point, it [money] doesn’t matter… First of all, it’s freedom from the worries most people have — jobs, bills, the rent. That is so great. I can remember the moment I first felt, ‘I don’t have to worry about that any more.’ After that, it’s wonderful if you find a project that really needs financing. To be able to dream and let an idea develop and then actually do it — that’s what money is for. Like Mamma Mia! or Voyage [the latter employed 800-plus digital animators and cost a reputed £140 million to develop]. But these projects are not just to make money — it’s to do something worthwhile and fun.”

What is the most rock’n’roll thing Abba ever did? “I can assure you there are no hidden Abba scandals, no blemish on our image…”

Go on, there must be something. “There were instances when we didn’t leave hotel rooms in quite the order they were in when we came,” he says rather adorably. “But nothing like the Who driving a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool.”

The darker side of fame

Abba were always as wholesome as a herring picnic in a Scandi forest. That’s what the various Abba shows celebrate: their manifest innocence. But in the background, there was some dark stuff.

A 2023 Prime Video documentary, Take a Chance, tackled Agnetha Faltskog’s scarcely believable interactions with her Dutch stalker, Gert van der Graaf, a porky water-pump factory worker who drove 1,000 miles from Holland to Faltskog’s home in Sweden in the late Nineties. After van der Graaf bombarded her with gifts and letters he moved to be near her and the pair ended up having a two-year relationship. Eventually realising her mistake, Faltskog called the police, who discovered van der Graaf living in an unplumbed cottage with a bucket full of excrement and a dead turtle.

• I still miss Abba’s Agnetha, stalker claims in Amazon documentary

Similarly bonkers is the story of the “dark-haired one”, Anni-Frid Lyngstad. She is the daughter of a Nazi sergeant, Alfred Haase, who had a relationship with her mother, Synni, while stationed in Norway during the Second World War. After the German defeat, Haase disappeared and, aged two, Lyngstad was effectively orphaned when her 21-year-old mother died of kidney failure. Raised by her grandmother, Lyngstad moved to Sweden, became a jazz singer and eventually joined Abba.

“I don’t like to compare us to the Beatles — to me they were three of the greatest songwriters ever who just happened to be alive in the same place at the same time. But yes, in our own way, the slim chance of us getting together still amazes me.”

Ulvaeus says they all keep in contact privately (he and Andersson still work together), but he looks a little forlorn telling me they may have met for the last time as a quartet.

That was last year when they were awarded Sweden’s Royal Order of Vasa for “very outstanding efforts in Swedish and international music life”. It’s a bit like being knighted. Importantly, though, the honour is bestowed by public vote.

“If I started out now, I might be an Uber driver writing songs”

TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. GROOMING: LUCIE PEMBERTON USING HOURGLASS. SUIT, LOUIS VUITTON. SHOES, DIOR

“And that felt so good, considering the initial reaction to us was not good,” Ulvaeus says, smiling.

Yes, after they won Eurovision, Abba were derided in Sweden as uncool, a bit too successful. “It was uncool to admit liking Abba,” he recalls. “Sweden was going very left, very socialist in the early Seventies and Abba was Mammon. During that time you were supposed to take a stand in your lyrics and I refused. I thought it was more interesting to explore relationships. I was uninterested in putting party politics in the lyrics. How boring!”

Ulvaeus is definitely a political animal now. That’s one of the reasons he wanted to do this interview. “I am really very worried about Europe and democracy and the rise of the autocrat,” he says.

I mention that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is supposedly a fan (he reportedly booked the Abba tribute act Bjorn Again for a private show at the Kremlin).

“I didn’t know that. I can imagine the scene with him dancing around the Kremlin,” he says, laughing, partly delighted and partly appalled. Actually, no, mostly appalled. And you can see why.

Late last year, every Swedish household received a 32-page leaflet, If Crisis or War Comes, warning them to prepare for a possible armed conflict. “Military threat levels are increasing,” it announced. “We must be prepared for the worst-case scenario — an armed attack on Sweden.” Tips included stocking up on non-perishable food and water, keeping cash in hand and growing fruit and vegetables.

“Can you believe it? We must mentally prepare for war,” Ulvaeus marvels. “I remember during my teenage years and my early twenties, during the Cold War, I asked myself, ‘Will I live under a dictator? Will I adjust or join the resistance and risk my life?’ And I thought, ‘I would rather die than live under a dictator.’ Of course, I was a young man. But already again I’m thinking, ‘How would I react?’ ”

But it’s not just autocrats that are bothering him; it’s what he calls the self-censorship of liberal democracies too.

ABBA Voyage, only at the ABBA Arena, London, UK | ABBA Voyage

“It really bothers me you cannot make Monty Python’s Life of Brian [the 1979 spoof of the Bible story] in a Muslim context for fear of violence. I find it demeaning to not be able to say this or that. Free speech is in danger. And I really feel, with autocrats on the rise, even in America, Europe needs to step up and unite.”

As a teenager, Ulvaeus did national service. He thinks it might be time for that again. “I am a proud European,” he says. “And now it seems we are the last bastion of liberal democracy. Let’s face it: we are alone and I think we should build a European defence force.”

By now, I’m so wildly caffeinated that I’m scarcely able to believe I am discussing military strategy with a quarter of Abba.

Ulvaeus says he wants to use his platform to educate kids about democracy. Bear in mind, this is the guy who turned down $1 billion for Abba to perform in 2000. Now he’s offering to tour school gyms to speak up for Europe, democracy and free speech. He literally has a “Euro vision”.

“I really wish the UK didn’t leave the EU,” he says. “Although I think you guys are still kind of European. And this is so important I feel I have to help. In Sweden, I made a democracy education programme for schools which will be launched in June. I want children to realise this thing that we breathe every day — freedom, respect for institutions — is at threat. Imagine the world these dictators want: you lose your job because you complain about the government. You pay taxes but they are stolen or you can’t get justice because the law has become an untrustworthy institution. We are closer to this than we know.”

photo"Mamma Mia! The Party" 5th Anniversary Gala – Arrivals

Ulvaeus and Sas, 2024

GETTY IMAGES

If all that sounds a little sombre, well, that’s because it is. Mostly, though, Ulvaeus is grateful and amazed at all the luck he has enjoyed in life. He originally intended to be a civil engineer and only pursued music because his mum secretly entered him into a competition just as he was about to quit his band the West Bay Singers and go to college (his entry won and he met mentor and manager Stig Anderson as a result).

“Again, such luck,” he says. “And then to meet Benny and for us to meet these incredible ladies with the perfect voices.”

Ulvaeus is about to fly to Mallorca with 20 members of his extended family to mark his big birthday. But on the actual day itself he has no special plans. “No, no party with speeches. I don’t like that. I find it very difficult to sit and listen to people praising you. I’m too shy for that.”

When we finish talking, he’ll fly home with his wife. They’ll have a quiet evening. He thinks they’ll have salmon for supper. Then he might do his evening workout in the gym watching an action movie. Meanwhile, his young avatar will be on stage in London keeping the music alive.

“I would like to speak to the man I was at that age and tell him the things he worried about were not worth worrying about,” he says. “I was so insecure — what a waste of time! Relationships with other humans are the only thing that really matter.”

And what do you think your avatar would say to you?

“Hey, old man,” he says, laughing, “how come you get to sit at home while I have to do all the work?”

Bjorn Ulvaeus will be speaking at SXSW London (June 2-7; sxswlondon.com)

https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/celebrity/article/bjorn-abba-interview-younger-woman-vxmbmtphp

on abbaregistro blog: https://abbaregistro.blogspot.com/2025/04/abbas-bjorn-ulvaeus-life-at-80-

and.html

Bjorn Ulvaues reveals new surprise

photo ilustrativa en blog / Bjorn SXSW  London 2025

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ABBA legend reveals new offering from Swedish supergroup after £1bn 'gift' to UK

Marc Baker, Sanjeeta Bains 

21:27, 12 Jun 2025

ABBA legend reveals new offering from Swedish supergroup after £1bn 'gift' to UK

AS Bjorn Ulvaues turns 80 and celebrates the third anniversary of smash hit ABBA Voyage, he reveals new surprise

Not many people are seen as innovators when they hit 80. Fewer still can claim the title of musical genius - at any age.

But, after helping his band sell more than 400 million records, as he celebrates the third anniversary of the groundbreaking ABBA Voyage avatar show, 80-year-old Bjorn Ulvaeus is still seen as both.

For this irrepressible man, becoming an octogenarian simply means gathering more wisdom and experience.

Excitedly hinting at a new, secret ABBA project, Bjorn tells The Mirror: “There will be something. It is just not crystalised yet exactly what that is. Something new. Yes, I am 80 - but I wake up curious every morning."

Bjorn spoke frankly about his life in music as two of his bandmates, Benny Andersson, 78, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 79, joined him in the UK to toast the continued success of ABBA Voyage, which has contributed more than £1billion to the UK economy since opening in May, 2022.

More than two million fans have enjoyed the 90-minute shows at the immersive ABBA Arena, which features the group - including Agnetha Faltskog, 75 - as lifelike holographic images, churning out hits including Waterloo, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen and Take A Chance on Me.

And, like their 1976 smash hit Money, Money, Money, it is an absolute goldmine.

More thrilled by its creative success, Bjorn says: "When I first went to Voyage I saw myself as a young man on stage. But the strangest thing is how emotional it is.

"It is amazing how people so quickly forget that they are looking at screens. I was amazed and we had no idea that it would happen. It is almost a spiritual feeling. There is something strange in the room which is amazing.”

The digital avatar show is produced by Pophouse Entertainment, a music investment firm and production company founded by Bjorn and Swedish billionaire businessman Conni Jonsson.

The company is currently looking to use the same cutting edge Voyage technology to bring other avatar shows to life, including the work of US singer Cyndi Lauper and the flamboyant American rockers Kiss.

And Bjorn, who is close friends with Sir Elton John, says other musical avatar extravaganzas are on the horizon.

He says: "I like to work. Working is fun. Our company Pophouse Entertainment has happened out of curiosity and wanting to try new things.

"I like to create new things like the avatars. The ABBA-tars. It was like a playground and to be able to help other people. I see Pophouse as a creative hub with fun attached to it, so you can do fun things.

“We are working with Cyndi Lauper, she has a very diverse catalogue. We are also working with Kiss. We believe it could be a very interesting avatar experience in the trans Marvel universe.

"They wanted cartoons and now they have ascended into the digital world. So that is very exciting for what they stand for. Cyndi is something completely different.

"There are lots of things we could do, too. We could work on documentaries, but there is so much else to do like the gaming world - and who knows what happens around the corner? We are at the forefront. I am so grateful."

Rumours are already circulating that David Bowie could be brought back to life as an avatar and that The Rolling Stones could soon be launching their own avatar shows.

But Bjorn won’t name any more names.

He says: “It is very exciting. We are looking for a story to tell. We have not seen anything yet...but it is coming. Our show Mamma Mia at the O2 in London took four or five years and Voyage the same, to opening night. These things take time. I want to help people's legacies."

Since winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with their breakout hit Waterloo, ABBA have won countless awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2010.

Bjorn says the secret to the Swedish sensations’ success is having great songs.

“What advice can I give younger artists other than to write better songs?” he says. “It is still true. This industry starts with a song.

"Whatever it is, it is a song that does it. I say just write a song and record it. If it is good enough then it will work. But you have to be prepared to have people say no to you 10 times, then one will say yes. You have to be prepared to wait and not lose hope. I remember rejection."

Growing up in Gothenburg, Sweden, Bjorn says it was The Beatles who inspired him to write, but admits he was always jealous of natural storytellers like The Bee Gees.

He says: "I used to listen to The Beatles and that is the reason why Benny and I started writing. Before then, the song writing had been very anonymous, like the people behind Elvis Presley.

"The Beatles were a big inspiration and The Beach Boys as well. But during the 1970s I used to envy people who could write commercial pop lyrics like The Bee Gees. I could not write commercial lyrics. Whatever you are doing you have to tell the story."

Today, Bjorn says not enough emphasis is put on crafting a song which can go on and help sustain a career for generations.

He says: "Once we won Eurovision we could say no to things. During that process we learned. We only wrote like 14 songs a year.

"People now say they have written 200 songs a year, but I don’t think they have. I would keep 10%. We could go for weeks writing full time and had very little to show for it.

"We would spend a long time in the studio and there is a very special satisfaction when you can listen to something and you think ‘Yeah, this is just how it should be’ It happened many times with ABBA. That is very special. A lot of people walk away thinking it is good enough but it is not. You have to add a few more inches."

Bjorn's current project is a secret musical he is writing with the help of AI, which he says helps him to come up with ideas when he gets stuck.

And although working with the International Confederation of Songwriters and Composers, which seeks to protect songwriters from having their works copied by AI technology, Bjorn says AI is a tool that should be embraced for the future.

He says: "Pop music has always been very tech driven. I remember when Benny and I started writing together, we always wanted the latest thing. You would hear a sound and ask how that was done.

"Benny had the first Mini Moog, which was the first synth. When we built our own studio we had digital machines. Tech and music go hand in hand and that is how it continues.”

Laughing at how working with AI is faster than writing with human beings like his co-writer Benny, he adds: "It is quicker writing with a machine, as you get an instant reply and it does exactly what you tell it.

"AI is fantastic and such a great tool. It can give you ideas to go in various different directions.

"There are songwriters using it all around the world as we speak.

“The music industry will come to some sort of agreement with the tech industry to work together, as these AI bots would not exist without the song that we wrote."

But Bjorn believes AI should not be feared, as when it comes to writing ABBA hits, he says: "When you prompt AI with ABBA it says ‘No, it can’t do that.’ There is a misconception that AI can write a whole song. It is lousy at that. Thank God it is very bad at lyrics as well, but it can give you ideas.”

So, ABBA looks set to be made-up of human members, merely enhanced by innovative technology, for the foreseeable future.

Looking back on his extensive back catalogue, he merely smiles and says: "What is the key to longevity? You have to have that curiosity that I talked about and something that drives you.

"Once you are a songwriter and have an experience of what it is like and see how people react to something you have written, that never goes away.

“I think you can do that your whole life. I enjoy it just as much today as I did before."

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/abba-legend-reveals-new-offering-35382878

Abba’s Bjorn Ulvaeus: life at 80 and falling for a younger woman

 

London, right. Jacket, Phix. Trousers, Dolce & Gabbana

“Ageism? At 50 people walk past you in the street. You don’t count”
TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. STYLING: HANNAH ROGERS. COAT, CHARLOTTE SIMON. TROUSERS, DOLCE & GABBANA. BOOTS, ROKER

If I started out now, I might be an Uber driver writing songs”
TOM JACKSON FOR THE TIMES MAGAZINE. GROOMING: LUCIE PEMBERTON USING HOURGLASS. SUIT, LOUIS VUITTON. SHOES, DIOR

ARTICLE HERE: https://abbaregistrobox.blogspot.com/2025/04/abbas-bjorn-ulvaeus-life-at-80-and.html

from abba official group

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Bernard Lohr on preparing ABBA Voyage’s audio and mixing ABBA Gold in Dolby Atmos

 Bernard Lohr on preparing ABBA Voyage’s audio and mixing ABBA Gold in Dolby Atmos

Words By Alice Gustafson 

jun26, 2024

Bernard Lohr on preparing ABBA Voyage’s audio and mixing ABBA Gold in Dolby Atmos

Bernard Lohr is one of the founders of Pole Position Production, a Swedish company which specialises in field recording, interactive sound design, industrial sonification, audio post production, game implementation, music production and composition. The former race car driver, who also serves as the in-house engineer at ABBA’s Benny Andersson’s Mono Music studio, reveals how he’s mixing ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits in Dolby Atmos, and how he prepared the songs for ABBA Voyage in London.

What are you currently working on?

I'm working on mixing the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits album into Dolby Atmos, which takes a long time, but it's a very good result when it's finished. I have started on Dancing Queen, which is a lot of work, but it will be super. 

When I have played these mixes, Benny [Andersson] has listened to them and said, ‘This is great!’. People that are listening in Atmos seem to find things that they didn't hear before, which is very interesting. When you have an Atmos room, there’s so much more space for things to come through.

You were formerly a race car driver. When did you decide to get into the engineering side of things?

I studied mathematical physics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, and did my exams in acoustic treatment and sound acoustics. Before I did the exam, I didn't know if I wanted to work with music and sound, or cars. Cars have been a hobby for my whole life. But driving race cars started quite a lot later, when I had had the money for it!



I didn't know if I wanted to work with music and sound, or cars!

You’re an in-house engineer at Benny Andersson’s Mono Music studio. How did you get started there?

I started in Gothenburg. I moved to Stockholm, and the guy that helped me find a place to start in Stockholm did the live mixing for ABBA, and he invited me to a few studios. I started at this studio called Soundtrade in the north part of Stockholm. 

After a couple of years I was head-hunted to Polar Studios, which was ABBA’s studio, and after a short while, I met Benny and Bjorn and started working together with them. After a while, I started freelancing while still working on Benny and Bjorn's music, and ABBA’s.

ABBA is a Swedish music institution; before you started as an engineer, could you ever have imagined working on their music with an ABBA member?

It was not something that I thought about from the beginning [smiles]. It just happened that way.

What is it like to work with ABBA?

It's like working with any band. I work so much with Benny and Bjorn, so I work with them on other things also, like musicals and so on. But it was really fun to hear Agnetha and Anni-Frid start singing, and it absolutely started to sound ‘ABBA’. That was really amazing.

When mixing the ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits album into Dolby Atmos, what has that process been like to reimagine these tracks in an immersive context?

It's difficult because it's a fun project, but it's very difficult because you have to find sync with the masters that are on the streaming services and the old ABBA multitracks, but they are, of course, recorded on analogue tape recorders. So the speed of the songs are not exactly the same, which takes a long time to find out how to do, but it's a real joy to work with.



it's a fun project, but it's very difficult because you have to find sync with the masters.

Have ABBA been involved in overseeing the immersive mixes?

Actually, they have left it to me a lot. I work until I feel that I'm finished, and then I take Benny up here, and he knows the material so damn well! If it’s a little wrong, he tells me directly, but otherwise, they seem to love it. It's both fun and difficult!

Which of ABBA’s work do you think sounds the best remixed in Atmos?

The first project I started work on in ‘real’ Atmos was Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. I recorded and mixed all the songs and mixed them together with Benny, and then mixed it for the movie in Dolby Atmos. I had to think of what to do with the songs. 

You have to leave the rock group holding it together in some way, then you can play with extra overdubs like background vocals, maybe acoustic guitar, sometimes strings and some special effects, but the main rock group has to hold together in a stereo type of field.

we had to cut up all the songs in pieces and straighten out the tempo.

Abba Voyage in London is extremely popular and is regarded to be a spectacular, immersive experience. Were you involved in this with regards to the immersive mix for the purpose built ABBA Arena?

It's a live band with 10 musicians playing. I worked on it to deliver all the songs in a usable format to the theatre in London. We worked a lot here [Mono Music studio] first, and also, musicians came here to rehearse. So we tried to find out what was good to play when preparing all the songs for the theatre.

Tell us about what was involved with this project?

The only things that are recorded before are the voices of the girls, and in some songs, Benny's piano, because he's in the picture and he has to play the exact thing. 

So what we did was – together with an arranger that Benny often works with – we cut up all the songs, because they were recorded without click track, and it's impossible to follow the tempo as a musician if you don't have a click track that is steady. So we had to cut up all the songs in pieces and straighten out the tempo. 

A chorus can be a bit faster than the verse, but to be able to follow it, you have to have a click track to play to. So that was a lot of work.

Were there any other challenges involved in this unique project?

The problem was to actually make the songs playable so that the musician could play to them. Then, of course, we had to play around with all the vocals so it fits and sounds right. It was a long project because they had to do the animation and it's a lot of work, maybe one and a half years or something like that just for the animation. 

It's so much work, and then they have to have all the vocals ready. So it took a lot of time, but I agree on the result. It's fantastic to see!

What were your first impressions when you saw the finished show?

The first time I was there, long before the premiere, I came into the arena and saw a technician creeping on the floor, fixing some cables. I saw four people standing and trying to play on stage. The more I looked, I saw that it was ABBA! I didn't realise it was just a screen. It seems like they were there!



Benny has used Genelecs for maybe 15 years as the only monitors he actually relies on.

You’re building new studios at Pole Position Production using Genelec studio monitors. Why were they the right choice for the new Atmos studio?

There have been so many Genelec versions, and I like them a lot as an Atmos system. They work fantastically. It's a studio standard; almost everybody seems to like them and work with them, so of course it should be Genelecs. The guys that work for us like them a lot too. There will be at least one Dolby Atmos room, and we have three more studios to do.

How do Genelecs give you confidence in your immersive work?

They have a good sound field and they spread quite well. I like the sound of them a lot. I listened to them at an exhibition for the first time and liked them from the beginning. They are just super.

Mono Music studio has also just upgraded to Atmos; was this also using Genelelec monitors?

Yes, definitely. That's where I'm sitting right now! It's a 7.2.4 system.

It’s a Genelec 7.2.4 The Ones speakers with two subwoofers .Did Benny specifically request Genelecs for his studio?

He loves the Genelecs and has his own writing room here in the building. He has used Genelecs for more than 10 years, maybe 15 years, as the only monitors he actually relies on.

https://headlinermagazine.net/bernard-lohr-abba-voyage-audio-mixing-abba-gold-dolby-atmos.html

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Detalles desconocidos del nuevo disco – desde el interior del estudio Abba

Texto: Johan Bratell

Publicerad 26 sep 2021 kl 12.08

Abbas ”Todavía tengo fe en you” y ”Don't Shut me down” fue recibido con los brazos abiertos por fans y críticos y ahora muchos esperan ansiosamente que el álbum se lance el 5 de noviembre.

En una larga entrevista, Bernard Löhr, que trabaja con la música de Abbas desde hace 15 años, habla de los detalles secretos detrás del nuevo disco.

– Dijeron que estaba nervioso un par de semanas antes de ese jueves, Benny y Björn estaban nerviosos, dice.

ABBA

A pocos pasos del Museo Nacional y del Grand Hôtel, en una pequeña casa en Skeppsholmen en Estocolmo, se encuentra Bernard Löhr. Originario de Karlskoga y con educación en física técnica de Chalmers, no estaba del todo claro que en 2021 se sentaría junto a Benny Andersson y mezclaría el nuevo álbum de Abba.

El viaje comenzó durante sus años de estudiante cuando tocó en una banda, navegando entre diferentes estudios en los años 80 de Gotemburgo. Finalmente, también recibió una oferta para empezar a trabajar en uno de los estudios.

Tres años más tarde, la carga de mudanzas se trasladó a Estocolmo y finalmente acabó en la discográfica Polar, por lo que entró en contacto por primera vez con Benny Andersson. La colaboración entre el dúo finalmente resultó en el musical ”Chess”, y luego quedó enganchado.

– Después de eso he trabajado con Benny con todos los lanzamientos de ”Benny Andersson's Orchestra”, Chess in Swedish, Kristina from Duvemåla, el musical Mamma Mia y las películas. Básicamente todo lo que Benny ha hecho, en lo que he estado involucrado desde entonces.

Mientras tanto, ha realizado alrededor de 40 colaboraciones con el legendario estudio Cherion en Fridhemsplan y varias otras colaboraciones antes de que Benny Andersson lo invitara a Abba.

He trabajado con – Abba durante quizás 15 años. De vez en cuando se ha publicado alguna grabación en vivo, etc., pero, por supuesto, no hay material nuevo. He hecho un poco de eso hasta hace poco.

Bernard selecciona su calendario en la computadora, que está instalada en la mesa de mezclas de aproximadamente tres metros de largo.

– A principios de mes entre mayo y junio de 2017, dice.

Fue entonces cuando Abba se reunió nuevamente en un ambiente de estudio.

– Estoy aquí en la casa todos los días, así que escucho un poco, aunque normalmente lo escucho por último. Pero luego Benny dice que hemos reservado dos semanas y que vamos a empezar a intentar trabajar en esto, y luego veremos si pasa algo, así fue aproximadamente. Me preparé bien de tal manera que me aseguré de que todo funcionara en el gran estudio, que está en la casa de al lado.

Foto: ANNA-KARIN NILSSON

Junto con Björn Ulvaeus, de 76 años, Benny Andersson, de 74, Agnetha Fältskog, de 71 años, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, de 75 años, y algunas otras personas, entró al estudio.

– Al principio estaba un poco nervioso, ”¿cómo será?” Lo que fue tan fascinante fue cuando las chicas o mujeres entran, se sientan y empiezan a cantar – y suena como antes. Simplemente nos sentamos y nos miramos: ”wow”. No habían cantado juntos en 35 años ni nada por el estilo, pero ya era hora.

– Fue muy divertido. De repente sintió que el trabajo era fácil de alguna manera. Puede ser así a veces, trabajas y trabajas pero apenas avanza, pero aquí progresó inmediatamente. Se sintió muy fácil y todos pensaron que era muy divertido. Eso fue lo que finalmente lo convirtió en un álbum, que todos, las chicas y Björn, Benny y yo, por supuesto, pensamos que era muy divertido.

¿Qué pasó después?

– Desde entonces hemos hecho varias canciones, dos años después. ¿Cuatro tal vez? Y el resto este año. También se han probado un par de canciones que han desaparecido, pero ese siempre es el caso cuando haces un disco. Abba tiene una regla que dice que si hay alguien que no cree que una canción sea buena, la elimina y se le ocurre algo nuevo.

Confirma dos títulos de canciones en el nuevo disco

En el estudio de Skeppsholmen, donde vive Bernard Löhr desde 1992 y que está de pared a pared con el de Benny Andersson, soplan vientos de cambio. Se deben introducir nuevos sistemas de altavoces para que funcionen con uno de los nuevos requisitos de Abba cuando se trata de cómo la música ahora puede, y según algunos, debe sonar.

– Terminamos relativamente con el disco antes de tomarnos unas vacaciones este verano, pero luego hay mucho trabajo posterior. Solía ser sólo un formato, luego se convirtió en CD y ahora son todos los formatos posibles e imposibles. Implica bastante post-trabajo, hay que comprobarlo para que todo suene bien.

– Intentaré que las canciones suenen exactamente como son, pero de alguna manera en un entorno. Entonces usaré las mezclas que hemos hecho, luego traeré a Benny y Björn y luego tendrán que sentarse, escuchar y pensar. ”¿Será bueno esto o arruinará la canción?”, como.

¿Son generalmente críticos?

– Cuando grabamos, probablemente ambos sean críticos en muchos sentidos, cuando los mezclamos somos principalmente Benny y yo quienes nos sentamos. Es el arreglo de Benny desde el principio, básicamente todo, luego pondré un poco de mezcla en la que creo, luego ambos nos sentaremos aquí y quitaremos las reglas.

– Lo hemos estado haciendo durante muchos años, así que sé lo que le gusta a Benny y él sabe lo que a mí me gusta, y básicamente normalmente pensamos igual. Estamos muy tejidos de esa manera cuando trabajamos.

¿cómo sucede cuando Abba crea música?

– Benny siempre hace algunos bocetos primero, luego los grabamos para tener una base para los fondos y luego grabamos la música mientras Benny continúa trabajando en la base. Retoma, rehace. No son producciones simples, hay algunas canciones que son simples, pero ”todavía tengo fe en you”, por ejemplo, son cientos de pistas. Es mucho más de lo que crees y lleva un poco de tiempo transmitirlo.

– ”Todavía tengo fe en you”, Benny la había tenido antes y la había tocado, así que lo sabía y pensé que incluso entonces era una canción fantástica. Realmente no sé si tuvo algún otro pensamiento al respecto en primer lugar, pero al menos terminó aquí.

¿Lo habías oído antes?

– Tenía un texto diferente desde el principio y era algo completamente diferente, realmente no sé para qué estaba destinado originalmente, pero luego Björn escribió este texto y luego cayó increíblemente bien en este concepto. Eso es más o menos lo que puedo decir que sé.

¿QUÉ CARACTERIZA UNA CANCIÓN DE ABBA?

Bernard Loehr:

”Lo más fácil de responder son las voces de las chicas, las dos juntas se convierten en Abba y nadie más lo ha hecho sonar así. Realmente no puedo decirlo, pero van bien juntos y tienen muy buen momento juntos. Entonces los arreglos son increíblemente mucho más complicados de lo que crees.

Es muy raro que el versículo uno y el versículo dos tengan exactamente la misma estructura. Generalmente no los tienen, aunque no lo pienses, lo que significa que las canciones nunca se vuelven molestas. La mayoría de las veces, escribes algunos acordes, versos y melodías y luego los mueves al segundo verso y luego reescribes el texto. No es así con Abba, casi siempre es diferente de las diferentes fiestas, incluso si las experimentas como similares.

Todos los músicos que tocan de fondo dicen que es difícil. Estas no son canciones fáciles, aunque para los humanos pueden sonar simples. Ese es uno de los grandes, que no se vuelve molesto.”

¿Qué nos puedes contar sobre el nuevo disco?

– Es un disco bastante ancho, es bastante diferente pero hay un poco de cada uno. Son un poco de baladas, un poco de canciones pop, pero no quiero decir demasiado, tienen que decírtelo ellos mismos.

Continúa diciendo que Abba tiene una especie de regla de veto, lo que significa que si a alguien de la banda no le gusta la canción, se elimina.

– Una de las canciones ha sido rehecha varias veces. Es la canción de cierre del disco y es una especie de himno. Se llama ”Oda a la libertad”. El nombre ha circulado bien en Internet, así que puedo confirmarlo.

También se sabe que es una canción navideña en el disco. En una entrevista con Radio Tyresö, Bernard Löhr nos dijo que se llama ”Little Things”.

– Es muy simple, en cuanto a la grabación no tomó tanto tiempo. Son sólo dos voces, algunos teclados y esas cosas. Ni siquiera es la batería en esa canción.

Cuando ”The Winner Takes It All” fue lanzado en 1980, se especuló que la canción trataba sobre el divorcio entre Agnetha Fältskog y Björn Ulvaeus, algo que luego también se confirmó.

– Björn lo escribió sobre nosotros después de que nuestro matrimonio se vino abajo. El hecho de que lo escribiera justo cuando nos divorciamos es realmente conmovedor, dijo Agnetha Fältskog a Expressen en 2013.

¿Habrá algo similar en el nuevo disco?

– Hay tales piezas en todo esto, creo que es absolutamente. Hay algunas canciones tristes, pero muchas felices también, por supuesto.

¿Las canciones tristes?

– Quizás reflejan algo, pero aún con algún tipo de giro positivo al final.

¿Cuánto tiempo se requiere por canción?

– Se tarda al menos un mes en horas de trabajo. Si vas a hacer una buena producción de una canción que ha terminado de escribirse, te llevará al menos un mes, definitivamente es lo mínimo si no se trata solo de acordeón y voz, dice.

A Bernard Löhr le queda mucho trabajo antes de terminar su propio esfuerzo en ”Abba Voyage”, pero aunque la decisión no es suya, tiene claro un punto:

– Sería divertido hacer más.

– Es bueno que todos piensen que es muy divertido. No es algo que haya que apretar hacia adelante, está ahí sentado de alguna manera.

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Okända detaljerna om den nya skivan – inifrån Abba-studion

Text: Johan Bratell

Publicerad 26 sep 2021 kl 12.08

Abbas ”I still have faith in you” och ”Don't shut me down” togs emot med öppna armar av fans och kritiker och nu väntar många spänt på albumet som släpps 5 november.

I en lång intervju berättar Bernard Löhr, som jobbar med Abbas musik sedan 15 år, om hemliga detaljerna bakom nya plattan.

– De sa att det var nervöst ett par veckor innan den där torsdagen, Benny och Björn var nervösa båda två, säger han.

 Så går det till när Abba skapar sin musik

 Låttitlarna på nya skivan

 Särskilda regeln i studion

ABBA

En kort promenad från Nationalmuseum och Grand Hôtel, i ett litet hus på Skeppsholmen i Stockholm sitter Bernard Löhr. Ursprungligen från Karlskoga och med en utbildning i teknisk fysik från Chalmers var det inte alldeles glasklart att han 2021 skulle sitta tillsammans med Benny Andersson och mixa Abbas nya album.

Resan tog sin början under studieåren då han spelandes i ett band, kryssade mellan olika studios i 80-talets Göteborg. Så småningom fick han också ett erbjudande om att börja jobba i en av studiorna.

Tre år senare gick flyttlasset till Stockholm och så småningom hamnade han på skivbolaget Polar, och i samband med det kom han i kontakt med Benny Andersson för första gången. Samarbetet duon emellan mynnade så småningom ut i musikalen ”Chess”, och därefter var han fast.

– Efter det har jag jobbat med Benny med alla ”Benny Anderssons orkester”-släpp, Chess på svenska, Kristina från Duvemåla, Mamma Mia-musikalen och filmerna. I princip allt som Benny har gjort har jag varit inblandad i sedan dess.

Däremellan har han gjort ett 40-tal samarbeten med den legendariska Cherionstudion på Fridhemsplan, och flera andra samarbeten innan Benny Andersson bjöd in till Abba.

– Abba har jag jobbat med i kanske 15 år. Då och då har det varit någon release på någon live-upptagning och så vidare, men så klart inget nytt material. Lite sånt där har jag gjort, fram tills nyligen.

Bernard plockar fram sin kalender på datorn som står uppställd på det drygt tre meter långa mixerbordet.

– Vid månadsskiftet mellan maj och juni 2017, säger han.

Det var då Abba återförenades i studiomiljö igen.

– Jag är här i huset varje dag, så jag får ju höra lite, även om jag oftast får höra det sist av alla. Men då säger Benny att vi har bokat in två veckor och ska börja prova jobba med det här, och så får vi se om det blir något, ungefär så var det. Jag förberedde mig väl på det viset att jag bara såg till så att allting fungerade i stora studion, som ligger i nästa hus.

Foto: ANNA-KARIN NILSSON

Tillsammans med Björn Ulvaeus, 76, Benny Andersson, 74, Agnetha Fältskog, 71, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 75, och ett fåtal andra personer gick han in i studion.

– Det var väl lite nervöst först, ”hur ska det bli?” Det som var så fascinerande var när tjejerna eller kvinnorna går in och sätter sig och börjar sjunga – och det låter precis som förr. Vi satt bara och tittade på varandra: ”wow”. De hade ju inte sjungit ihop på 35 år eller något sånt där, men tajmning fanns.

– Det var väldigt roligt. Det kändes plötsligt att jobbet var lätt på något vis. Det kan vara så ibland, man jobbar och jobbar men det går knappt framåt, men här gick det framåt direkt. Det kändes så lätt och alla tyckte det var så roligt. Det var ju det som på sikt gjorde att det blev ett album, att alla, tjejerna och Björn och Benny och jag med förstås, tyckte det var jätteroligt.

Vad hände sedan?

– Sedan dess har vi gjort ett antal låtar, två år senare. Fyra kanske? Och resten i år. Det har testats ett par låtar också som har fallit bort, men så är det alltid när man gör en skiva. Abba har en regel ihop som säger att om det är någon som inte tycker att en låt är bra, så tar de bort den och hittar på något nytt.

Bekräftar två låttitlar på nya skivan

I studion på Skeppsholmen där Bernard Löhr huserat sedan 1992 och som ligger vägg-i-vägg med Benny Anderssons egen blåser förändringens vindar. Nya högtalarsystem ska in för att fungera med ett av de för Abba, nya kraven när det kommer till hur musiken numera kan, och enligt vissa, måste låta.

– Vi var väl relativt klara med skivan före vi tog semester i somras, men så är det massa efterarbete. Förr var det bara något format, sedan blev det cd, och nu är det alla möjliga och omöjliga format. Det innebär ganska mycket efterarbete, det måste kontrollyssnas så att allting låter okej.

– Jag kommer försöka få låtarna att låta exakt som de är, fast i surrond på något vis. Så jag kommer använda mig av mixarna vi har gjort, och sedan kommer jag ta in Benny och Björn och så får de sitta och lyssna och tycka. ”Blir det här bra eller förstör det låten?”, liksom.

Brukar de vara kritiska?

– När vi spelar in är de nog kritiska bägge två på många sätt, när vi mixar är det mest Benny och jag som sitter. Det är ju Bennys arrangemang från början, allting i princip, då lägger jag upp någon mix som jag tror på sedan sitter vi här båda två och drar i reglarna.

– Vi har gjort det i så många år så jag vet vad Benny gillar och han vet vad jag tycker om, och vi tycker i princip oftast lika. Vi är väldigt hopvävda på det viset när vi jobbar.

Hur går det till när Abba skapar musik?

– Benny gör alltid några skisser först, sedan tejpar vi ner dem så att vi har en grund för bakgrunderna och sedan spelar vi in musiken samtidigt som Benny jobbar vidare med grunden. Tar om, gör om. Det är inga enkla produktioner, det finns några låtar som är enkla, men ”I still have faith in you” till exempel, det är hundratals spår. Det är så mycket mer än vad man tror och det tar sin lilla tid att få fram det.

– ”I still have faith in you”, hade Benny haft innan och spelat upp, så den kände jag till och jag tyckte redan då att det var en fantastisk låt. Jag vet inte riktigt om han hade någon annan tanke med den från början, men den hamnade i alla fall här.

Du hade hört den innan?

– Den hade en annan text från början och var något helt annat, jag vet egentligen inte vad den var tänkt till från början, men sen så skrev Björn den här texten och då föll den så otroligt bra in i det här konceptet. Det är väl ungefär det jag kan säga att jag vet.

VAD KÄNNETECKNAR EN ABBA-LÅT?

Bernard Löhr:

”Det enklaste att svara är tjejernas röster, de två ihop blir Abba och det är ingen annan som har fått det att låta så. Riktigt varför kan jag inte säga, men de passar bra ihop och de har väldigt bra tajmning ihop. Sedan är arrangemangen otroligt mycket mer komplicerade än vad man tror.

Det är väldigt sällan som vers ett och vers två har exakt samma uppbyggnad. De har de oftast inte, även fast man inte tänker på det, vilket gör att låtarna aldrig blir tjatiga. Oftast är det så att man skriver några ackord, vers och melodi och sedan flyttar man det till andra versen och så skriver man om texten. Så är det inte med Abba, det är nästan alltid annorlunda de olika partierna, även fast man upplever dem som liknande.

Alla musiker som spelar i bakgrunden säger att det är svårt. Det är inte lätta låtar, även om de för människor kan låta enkla. Det är en av storheterna i det, att det inte blir tjatigt.”

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Vad kan du berätta om nya skivan?

– Det är en ganska bred skiva, det är ganska mycket olika men det finns lite av varje. Det är lite ballader, lite poplåtar, men jag vill inte säga för mycket, det måste de berätta själva.

Han berättar vidare att Abba har en slags veto-regel som går ut på att om någon i bandet inte gillar låten, så stryks den.

– En av låtarna har gjorts om flera gånger. Det är den avslutande låten på skivan och är en slags hymn. ”Ode to freedom” heter den. Namnet har väl cirkulerat på internet, så det kan jag väl bekräfta.

Det är också känt att det är en jullåt på skivan. I en intervju med Radio Tyresö berättade Bernard Löhr att den heter ”Little things”.

– Den är väldigt enkel, inspelningsmässigt tog den inte så lång tid. Det är bara två röster, lite keyboards och grejer. Det är inte ens trummor på den låten.

När ”The winner takes it all” släpptes 1980 spekulerades det i att låten handlade om skilsmässan mellan Agnetha Fältskog och Björn Ulvaeus, något som senare också bekräftades.

– Björn skrev den om oss efter att vårt äktenskap gick i kras. Det faktum att han skrev den precis när vi skilde oss är rörande faktiskt, sa Agnetha Fältskog till Expressen 2013.

Kommer det vara något liknande på nya skivan?

– Det finns såna bitar i det hela, det tycker jag nog, absolut. Det finns lite sorgliga låtar, men många glada också förstås.

De sorgliga låtarna?

– De återspeglar någonting kanske, men ändå med någon slags positiv vändning på slutet.

Hur stor tidsåtgång är det per låt?

– Det tar minst en månad i arbetstid. Om man ska göra en bra produktion på en låt som är färdigskriven tar det minst en månad, det är absolut det minsta om det inte bara är dragspel och sång, säger han.

Det återstår en hel del arbete för Bernard Löhr innan han är i mål med sin egen insats i ”Abba Voyage”, men även om beslutet inte är hans är han tydlig på en punkt:

– Det vore kul att göra mer.

– Det är kul att alla tycker att det är så roligt. Det är inget som måste klämmas fram, utan det sitter där på något vis.

https://www.expressen.se/premium/noje/okanda-detaljerna-om-nya-skivan-inifran-abba-studion/

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