Classic Pop Magazine (UK) - September/October 2024

 

"How do the other ABBA people feel about touring?

 Muziek Parade, January 1978: The ABBA Story, part 8

"How do the other ABBA people feel about touring? Agnetha: “To be honest, I don’t like to perform outside Sweden. I have a very good reason for that. I can’t miss my children for such a long time. They are still young now. I want to be with them in this period of their life. Whenever we have to work abroad and I really can’t get out of it, I’m regularly crying in my hotel room when I think about the children. I’m a real mother, when it comes to that.” It is known that Agnetha and Björn’s phone bills are sky high whenever they are on tour. Several times every day, they are calling Stockholm. It doesn’t matter if they are in Brisbane or Singapore, these calls will be made and they don’t care about the costs. Björn may come across as being insensitive, but he is homesick just as much as Agnetha. To suppress this homesickness, Agnetha and Björn have the same flaw: they start eating, as much as they can. They stuff themselves with the most delicious food and when they get back to Sweden, they realize that they’ve become too fat. But eating is their reaction on being away from home.

It is known that Anni-Frid and Benny love delicious food as well. Especially fish, with a fruity wine. Agnetha says: “Anni-Frid and Benny can eat whatever they like. French fries with mayonnaise and other greasy food like that. But they don’t get fat. And that’s not fair.”

Whenever ABBA is on tour, they always stay at the Hilton hotel. In Germany, this was cause for the following occurance. The organizer asked “and where will the technicians and road managers stay?” Benny replied: “With us at the hotel, of course. These guys are at least as important as we are. They deserve the best treatment.” And they think that’s weird, in our adjacent country. An entertainer is an ‘artist’ over there, someone who lives far from his servants. Benny: “It surprised me that they still think like that in Germany. There is no difference in social position with us. We are working in a team and we are staying together as a team. If you don’t do that, you can’t perform to the best of your ability.”

In Australia, ABBA bought clothes for a TV show, amounting to 50.000 Dutch guilders. Very pretty exotic dresses and suits. All very exquisite. When the show had been filmed, and on top of that had been a great success, ABBA gave the clothes to their employees, who had been in charge of light and sound."

***"The production is fine, but the technical side makes it sound cold.” Muziek Parade can’t understand why ABBA still wants to live and work in Sweden. The country is clearly anti-ABBA. Stikkan Anderson: “We love Sweden and perhaps all this resistance is an extra incentive to keep on producing good music. The more people are writing negative things about ABBA, the harder the boys get to work. The amazing thing is that these people from the press are not at all the voice of their readers. Their readers bought 500.000 copies of the ‘Arrival’ album within three weeks. That has never happened before in Sweden. That’s why we let these reporters do their talking. They won’t be able to destroy us.”

***

Stig Anderson mingles in the conversation again: “When we did our tour in England, people in the music industry thought we were crazy because we didn’t do any TV shows or commercials to announce where we would perform. We didn’t do that on purpose. This strategy of ‘we are doing it differently than others’ is working out really well. It has been proven. The tour was an enormous success. A lot of artists let themselves be used by television. It has to be the other way around. The artist has to use television. Television is a big monster that consumes creativity. An artist has to last longer than a couple of television shows that may or may not be directed badly. A lot of artists forget that. An artist is allowed to be picky. For instance, we have decided to appear on television in England twice a year at the most. Twice on Top Of The Pops, that’s more than enough. Apart from that, you shouldn’t forget about the danger of being overexposed. An artist has to be careful that he doesn’t appear on the television screen too much. People tend to get enough.” And then, Stig tells about a problem he encountered in Australia: “After the Eurovision Song Contest, we did a fair amount of television shows in several countries. And what happened? The Australian broadcasting company sent a special employee all over the world to buy the tapes of these ABBA shows. All of a sudden, we were on television every week in Australia, without our approval. Something like that can destroy an artist. Now we’ve taken care of that. Whenever we perform for television, we make sure that there is an agreement in writing that our performance can only be broadcast once and that it can’t be used for export.”

And Stig about America: “Personally, I would love to go to America. It’s a fantastic country, with a big audience with great purchasing power. But we are not ready for it yet. And we are not happy with the terms under which we would have to work. I am sure that there are people in America that laugh at our attitude. They can’t understand that we don’t accept these offers. Apparently they don’t believe in an ABBA that can still be big in years to come or even bigger than they are now.”

And he continues: “Maybe we are wrong. It’s possible. In America they are saying that you can only get bigger if you do long tours. We have a different opinion. First, we want to get even bigger and stronger in America and when we have acquired our position, we will fly over there and then the reception will be as huge as the Beatles had in their heyday.”

That the Anderson strategy is the right one has been proven in Europe. ABBA’s record sales had first reached astronomic heights before ABBA – after a lot of begging and pleading – came to Holland, France, England and so on. And ABBA can afford to wait until this begging and pleading will come from America as well.

complete here. http://abbaarticles.blogspot.com/.../muziek-parade...

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notes - old articles - magazines and posters - stig andersson

https://www.facebook.com/groups/abbaregistro/posts/1341290119930841

In memorian Michiel Gunning ( David) Jounalist.

 Notes - articles 1980 - David

In memorian Michiel Gunning ( David) Jounalist...

He passed away on June 22, 2023 https://www.facebook.com/abbaintermezzo/posts/230357226427260

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Pop Foto, December 1980: Pop Foto's David managed to get many secrets out of ABBA...

http://abbaarticles.blogspot.com/.../pop-foto-december...

Pop Foto’s comic strip hero David has been friends with ABBA’s Agnetha for years. When the Swedish group showed up in Paris recently for a television performance, our Dave was the only European who could persuade the foursome to do an exclusive interview. Clever as he is, he managed to get many secrets out of Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Frida.

About 15 million Frenchmen watched the brand new music programme ‘Stars’ recently. No wonder, since only top entertainers such as Julio Iglesias, Olivia Newton-John and ABBA appear on the show. The successful Swedish group performed their new single ‘Super Trouper’, a track from the album of the same name. During their stay at the picturesque Nogent-sur-Marne, only Pop Foto’s comic strip hero David managed to persuade the four to do an exclusive interview.

Benny, about the last album: “Without a doubt, all four of us think this is the best one we’ve done so far. With all previous albums, we always thought there were one or two songs that we had our doubts about. We don’t have that feeling now!” The others nod consentingly.

David: Where does the title ‘Super Trouper’ come from?

“A supertouper is a gigantic searchlight, like the ones they use in the army. Recently, we used one of those big ones at a photo shoot,” Benny says, “and the results were fantastic! Apart from that, it’s a pleasant sounding word that fits the image of the group.”

When asked about the origin of the tracks, Björn answers: “Most songs are the results of experiences in your life, that you want to express in one way or the other. But you do need inspiration! That’s why Benny and I went to the Caribbean Islands a while ago. Barbados, for instance, is a guarantee for good songs, as far as I’m concerned.”

In what way do the lyrics of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ relate to you, Agnetha?

She sighs, before she answers reluctantly: “I don’t like to talk about that, you know. When we taped the promotional film at the marina in Märstrand, I was close to crying. Yes, it was really difficult for me.”

Frida, who is sensing that the subject is rather painful for Agnetha, steps in: “We’ve had problems with our promotional films more often! We wanted to make some recordings at Piccadilly Circus in London, with wild animals, clowns, jugglers... we wanted to create a real circus. But we couldn’t go ahead with this idea, since some stuffy clerks dug up a law from some archive, that declared it’s not allowed to walk around disguised or abnormally in a radius of three miles around that area. Alas, we had that party at the studios near Stockholm.” You have been able already to see some of that footage.

After Benny revealed that he likes the Stones, Queen and Kate Bush, it’s Björn’s turn to name his favourites. Smilingly he says: “First and foremost ABBA, then there’s a big gap, well and then... I like the Eagles a lot. Fleetwood Mac too, but their latest album is horrible!”

Agnetha thinks they actually have too little time to listen to other people’s music. Frida adds: “Except for the groups that do their recordings at our studios. Genesis and Led Zeppelin for instance. We’ve witnessed the realization of the last Led Zeppelin-album from start to finish. That’s why the death of drummer John Bonham was a big shock for us. We’ve had so much fun with him in Stockholm...”

David: Is there any truth in the rumours that you want to leave Sweden? For a while, all four look at each other, wondering who is going to answer.

Agnetha: “Actually, we did think it over, yes. Only two countries were considered: England and Holland. We just think those are the cosiest countries in Europe. But when we were about to go out looking for a place to live and work over there, the disadvantages became clear: the economical climate in England is not that great, and in Holland there’s the language barrier. Especially for our children, attending school!” Frida puts forward that she still prefers Holland, so if there are any plans to move in a few years time...

Björn (jokingly): “But we’ve become a little lazy, that’s why we won’t be visiting Holland for promotion. We will only travel to France, Germany and England. For the time being, there are no plans for a world tour either."

David: Are you still able to make ends meet?

“We can’t complain,” Benny laughs. “In ’82 or ’83, we will be on the share market. People will be able to buy shares in Polar Music International, a company, founded by us, which trades in real estate, loans, food, bicycles and... art!”

David: Do you have anything else to add?

Frida reacts spontaneously: “Don’t forget to give our best regards to all ABBA-fans in Holland!”

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Michiel/David interviews

"Here's what he said in Stany's book about his collaboration with Peter Mazèl and how he became "David" in a photonovel published in Popfoto:

"It was the time of those boys, you know: Claude Vanheye, Govert de Roos, Nick van Ormondt and Peter Mazèl, all very talented photographers. Peter Mazèl was in close contact with all those artists that I would later get to meet. He worked as a freelancer for Popfoto and Muziek Express in Holland, Pop Rocky and Bravo in Germany, Circus in the US and Melody Maker in England [Mazèl passed away in 1996 while working on a project at a jazz festival]. We became good friends when Peter got a freelance assignment for a photo story in Popfoto. By coincidence, I became the main character in this photo story and ended up playing the part for ten years. They didn't use my proper name, Michiel, in the story but instead chose David. During the mid-70s, David was a popular name: David Bowie, David Cassidy, David Essex, David Soul - too many to count them all. Each month, a three-page photo story was published in Popfoto, photographed by Peter Mazèl . That's how our partnership began. In the story, I had the role of a charming but clumsy guy. Any issues at stake were solved and, in the end, everything always worked out. After a while, I became more and more involved in the development of the storyboards and got to write all the dialogue.....I did 120 photo stories, over a time period of exactly ten years. I decided to hold on to the complete collection of Popfoto magazines that featured them. I'm glad I did because this way you can understand them in relation to a specific time with regards to fashion, music, and so on. I'd started in June 1976. It first began as a joke, but it became popular. I got fan mail, and the editorial board decided to retain it as a regular feature in the magazine. By June 1986, I was in my early thirties, and I felt I had to be careful that I did not become a caricature of myself. I wanted to avoid that the fans - the girls - would start writing, "Dear Popfoto, David is clearly getting older...," and so my last story was published, and we celebrated it with a splendid party."

Source luvgirlgroup.blogspot

https://www.facebook.com/groups/abbaregistro/permalink/1325341518192368/