RARE ABBA INTERVIEW: Band members on songs, Mamma Mia and world tour | 7NEWS Spotlight

just do it for your finger that's it yeah i just played dancing queen yeah you did and then what happens sometimes you get lucky [Applause] is it for me is it for us how can that be you're humbled by it and grateful but no one understands it really it's too much it's an amazing feeling really to feel so loved we're lucky yeah we've been a lucky bunch 1977 it was the end of summer and the start of something special nothing could have prepared frida benny bjorn and anyetta for this and there was abba everywhere i don't know how that happened it was very exciting yeah and everyone loved them really really loved them you know people everywhere knew the songs they were singing with us fantastic and also very spread in ages there were older people they were small kids what are you here for anyway oh yeah for sure abba who's emma oh you've got to be joking who do you think the famous swedish four pop stars have you seen them before no only on the television from here abba mania was unleashed on the world and now it looks like they're coming back in 2019 there will be a show a live show so there will be a reunion this is the sea yeah more from benny on the unexpected return of abba later [Music] that's a good verse i think yeah 40 years on from the australian tour that meant so much the members of abba still can't explain why it all worked so well millions of people happen to have the same taste as benny and me and the girls that's how i see it really yeah that's the only way i can see it but we never knew exactly why we did that or that other than that intuition said that this is wonderful let's keep this i've come to sweden and caught a ride on benny's old motor cruiser to a place that's very special to the group this is where much of the music of abba was created in a hut on a tiny island called vixxa in stockholm's archipelago annieta and i have bought a place there and later beninfrida did you know in the early morning i used to hear sounds of someone playing piano up there and i knew benny had arrived so i used to make a pot of coffee take my guitar and walk up there and then we'd sit there you know the whole day long and right away the verse didn't come at the same time as the bridge all chorus might have come before everything else they came in bits and pieces and then they would click together and you would have a song what were your greatest hopes for abba when you set out well that someone would listen to what we'd done and say yeah i like this before abba and yetta was already well known in sweden she had a string of hits starting out as a teenager tell me about the first time you heard your song on the radio wow that was very very fantastic because all my childhood i mean i was dreaming about this to be a singer and to be famous and i was sitting in front of the mirror and you know did this lip sync and to my favorite singers [Music] the guys in the van swear that i fell in love by just by hearing her voice is that true i mean i i yes i think so there was something you know so incredibly attractive in that voice even before i knew the girl bjorn who was in a folk band met anyetta on a tv special we did a duet together after that we were very soon a couple a young frida was carving out her own solo career she caught the eye of abba's most famous recruit benny anderson you were dating frieda and he was dating anything but it didn't enter your head that the four of you should form a group no funny isn't it i think you were on holiday in cyprus in 1970 when you all started singing together do you remember do you remember that well because we had yeah it was like a free holiday for a week i said you sing a couple of songs every night and you don't have to pay for the trip so we say yeah okay let's do that do you remember how it felt when you first heard all of your voices singing together i wasn't that great i mean the girls were always they were always good singers they were here in the archives of a photographic agency in gothenburg rare negatives of bjorn and yetta benny and freda performing as a professional group for the first time these are amazing it was november 1970 back then abba was called fest folk meaning party people do you remember this oh my god yes yes i do i had hoped that this was completely forgotten i'm so sorry where did you get it don't tell anyone this this is the low ebb of the or of you know the collaboration between the four of us why did it go so wrong because we were we were not doing what we were supposed to do we were singing other people's songs in a sort of that's a kind of cabaret act benny and i were doing a number where we were supposed to be two little boys yeah don't say you got a picture of that as well i'm so sorry to say but um oh god sorry bjorn oh you were that bad i think so it was embarrassing but but it was after that tour that we realized our own songs that's what we should do they changed their name to abba and their first big hit in europe was ring ring do you remember the first time that you realized your voice and frieda's voice sounded pretty good together yeah we could feel that from the beginning i think when we did the ring ring and we had fantastic reaction with ring ring you recorded and re-recorded and re-recorded the instruments and the voices to create a much fuller sound we did the backing track and and then we did it again at a slightly higher speed to create a bigger sound what also made abba appealing was the dynamics of the two couples performing together and yetta and bjorn were married in 1971 they had their first child linda in 1973 and a year later the eurovision song contest put abba on the world stage they didn't think they'd have a chance they thought they'd place well behind olivia newton john whose british heritage allowed her to sing for the uk you know olivia newton john howard living here famous and i thought you know six number six is going to be good oh that's where you thought you did yeah yeah describe for me what you were feeling when you ran out and started singing scary it was very very scary i didn't expect us to win when we won it was a fantastic moment really traditionally eurovision song contest winners seem to be one hit wonders so you had a bit of trouble breaking into the market after that didn't you we did we we chose the wrong song as a follow-up to begin with in everybody's minds it seemed that they had decided they'll be forgotten and uh it was a struggle and i i you know we have our australian friends to thank for the fact that we came back and we finally come to the one that's the current seller in in australia at the moment all across the world which is dancing queen can you just tell us a little about how you actually wrote dancing queen and what what it is about uh well it's about one of it's a girl ordinary girl and she's she only lives actually when she's in the disco dancing i remember when we did a dancing queen when we recorded it because we could feel that this is really something this this song gonna be big because we could feel we had ghost bumps really on our arms yeah so it was special dancing queen that was massive yeah a few of my friends singing it and loving it in liver queens as well so they love dancing queens quite like myself [Laughter] the musical brilliance of benny and the lyrical mastery of bjorn was given voice by anger and frieda whose competitive nature only made the music that much better people liked to suggest that you hated each other but it was a healthy rivalry wasn't it it was uh healthy on the stage because we really did our best yeah to to get the audience with us both frieda and i yeah it was kind of like you were competing for the audience yeah you can say that yeah so that meant you pushed each other to give an even better performance that's right yeah and the same in the studio yeah yeah it was we were always standing in front of each other with a mic in between and we had very very funny funny times [Laughter] now 14 months ago abbott were only known in sweden which is absolutely amazing and since then they've become the biggest record sellers in australia they've caught the imagination of toddlers teenagers and grandmothers alike and today they are topping the charts right around the world but while abba was hogging the countdown charts home-grown artists like john paul young or squeak we're getting annoyed here is the number one record say good night squeak good night squeak i think we all know what the number one record is by now because this is the one that kept sqweep from being number one on the countdown top ten for about three weeks four weeks ah well that doesn't really matter though because number two is better than number three what do you think of abba i hate the music but not really i actually really like it i do i do i do do i do i do [Laughter] in 1976 you had a huge hit with i hate the music but it just couldn't get to number one why was that ah can you hear the drums fernando yeah yeah they had they had fernando which you know to be honest i didn't think was one of their best it was it was a great song you know and you'll find me singing it at any given moment but i just sat there and sat there and sat there and it wouldn't go away and i hate the music was number two behind it all the way and you know it's amusing but there was more bad news for john paul young the swedish invaders were on their way to australia for a spectacular tour and molly had the scoop okay well now the million dollar question for australian um listeners and viewers and record buyers what color is an orange what color is it no queensland yeah that's for queensland all right from new south wales victoria and the rest and queensland um are you going to come to australia and are you going to tour and can we see you live in concert yes well i suggest you start booking i don't know i won't even say how to get your tickets because i think there could be mascara on the streets [Applause] sunday february 27 1977. abba touched down in sydney only the beatles had attracted crowds as [Applause] big the fantastic amazing thing having people you know along all that way waving with flags and banners and that was something incredible because that very rarely happened in those days anywhere [Applause] among abba's entourage was makeup artist and costume designer ing marie halling a few months earlier she'd been surprised by a phone call from freda there was friday on the phone and she said we are going on a tour to australia and uh we wonder if you want to come along to work with the costumes and the makeup and helpers in the dressing room and how long did it take you to decide to go well yeah nine seconds in australia ing marie was with abba 24 7 an insider as abba mania swept across the country you know everyone was taken by surprise it was like nothing you'd seen before no no [Applause] hello everybody this is freda i really appreciate this i love you the band was overwhelmed and deeply worried they'd disappoint the enormous frenzy throng we were thinking well this is going to be you know the last nail in the coffin we're coming here it's only going to just blow up because it's uh the expectations were very high i think from the audience and you can never live up to too high expectations that's the feeling that i had at least [Applause] a day after arriving abba held a press conference in sydney to this day it's remembered for one brazen question i read somewhere where you are the proud owner of an award which declares you as the lady with the most sexiest bottom [Applause] is that true how can i answer that i don't know i haven't seen it now i'd like to apologize on behalf of our nation's obsession with your bottom oh it was not only there well it could be worse things how did you feel about that at the time you were i guess one of the biggest sex symbols in the world we didn't think about that so much actually neither freda or i but we were of course very aware of when we were on the stage that thought that we were something special that gave us a very nice feeling really and also the fact that we were so different [Music] do you take drugs or alcohol or anything like that no not clean but we don't take any drugs like all big stars abba had what's known as a rider a list of requirements for each of their australian shows and it confirms they certainly weren't tea totalers two bottles of french dry champagne well chilled two bottles of perrier water one bottle of scotch johnny walker black label half bottle of negrita rum 10 bottles of coca-cola tea coffee milk lemon sugar cups glasses and spoons tell me about the sydney concert if you remember it it was pouring rain and you and the other members of the band risked your lives for us yes it's not uh easy to stand on the stage outside with so many people and just say we we can't do it people were just shouting and screaming and having a good time even though it was pouring down everyone had umbrellas 30 40 000 umbrellas at the same time going up that was fantastic it was just so loud and it was like electricity in the air which was probably from the storm that was happening as well but i think it was coming directly from the people the hype of it was just amazing roxanne dixon was eight years old when she her mother and sisters made it to the front row of abba's stormy sydney concert people were shocked just how loud abba were a real rock concert and it was just as soon as that music start the heart just went my mum says she started as soon as she heard the music she started grinning and that grin did not leave her face the whole time i think everyone was just in shock [Applause] australia's obsession with abba continued in melbourne fans brought the city centre to a standstill for a town hall welcome they were different to anything else that was around at the time they were so beautiful the music is just so fantastic the songs are so catchy and they were so brilliantly done that they seemed like really simple pop songs but they weren't so i think that's partly why the music grabbed everyone so much even though it seemed like really light-hearted pop music there's something you know a lot more serious underneath what do you think it is about abba that has so captivated australians well apparently brilliant music because their music is brilliant and i think that with australians they could sense uh that like aussies are they were down to earth you know yeah absolutely down to earth you know how does that feel as an artist can see thousands and thousands of people waving and screaming mostly you're humbled by it the fact that this is actually happening and they're out there because of you and because of something that we had done as abba headed home fans lined the road and crowded into the airport devastated to see them go and the feeling was mutual i want to jog your memory here so hopefully it'll play [Music] [Applause] that's when we are going to leave australia that time uh-huh so i remember we felt very very sad and we wanted so much to to grab their hands and so but we had to leave this wonderful country so that was sad [Applause] you wanted to kind of give more to the fans um we had such a good time as well yeah so we didn't want to go back over a 10-year career abba became one of the most successful bands in the world catchy choruses and upbeat music delivered hit after hit more than 380 million records sold but the songs were only part of the package tell me about those clothes they were very very special yeah and when you're looking back it maybe can look very strange it was not very comfortable sometimes with the high heels but when abba was on stage they owned it but in truth they all much preferred to write and record music at home in sweden thank you for the music is very special to you because you were you were very heavily pregnant yeah i was pregnant and and the doctor said that she she's not allowed to push too much i mean you have really to work when you record and and going up on high tones so i had to be very careful so they fixed like a chair but a bed so i could be lying down and i knew i nearly lie down singing that song wow you were actually reclining while singing thank you for the music yeah that was special with his stomach nine months after the australian tour annieta and bjorn had their second child christian then the following year freda and benny were married the band was riding high it's quite wonderful to be able to to work with what you enjoy most and to have success with it [Applause] abba never returned to australia they toured the world again in 1979 but the closest they came was japan like the japanese people are very open and very free and we feel make us feel good but the pop star life was taking its toll on everyone what is it like to experience that extraordinary level of fame where everybody in the world it seems loves you how can you explain that it's so difficult you you start you get used to it i think but um i think you you never think about or people don't think about that there are backsides as well and for example to being recognized everywhere do you think that once agnetta had had children that changed everything didn't it because more than all the fame it was motherhood that she wanted both of us we i wanted fatherhood she wanted motherhood and we could combine it which we did in a good way i think uh by not touring so much you know so we travel less i think than than any other group at that time i think that it's a bit of a on a social life on tour you just eat sleep and go on stage and nothing more and it kills creativity in a way that i don't like one day when i woke up in a europe tour i start to think where am i in which city and it's terrible the papers recently have been full of stories that you're gonna split eventually uh you're not then everyone has written so many good songs thank you thank you yes but you should know about that by now well you never said that okay so it's the first time but soon enough the pressures did tear the two couples apart both marriages ended in divorce but the band stayed together for the music and in a difficult time created some of their most memorable songs of all of those songs which is your favorite okay uh my favorite song is the winner takes it all i think it's super really the winner takes it all people liked to think that that was about your relationship it was right after our divorce and and it was a bit sensitive for all of us it must have been difficult to sing at the time yeah it was a bit moving so to say it was inspired by the pain of your breakup wasn't it um deep down of course was it difficult to watch agneta sing that song at that time in your life that was kind of cleansing but that it it was the other thing other way around i had written the words she sang them and it was somehow the right thing to do and and and to then release it and you know let the world know it was some something deeply symbolic in that in 1982 abba broke up believing they and their music would soon be forgotten we were just happy that we were we did so good while we were at it you know no one expected this to sort of continue none of us yeah when abba finished you thought maybe the songs would be around for another year or so yeah something like a year two maybe yeah that would be it abba's music provided the soundtrack for a little movie called muriel's wedding that became a comedy classic pj hogan who uh directed muriel's wedding yeah he really dogged you to get that music didn't he yeah well they had to ask a couple of times because we were not sure it's a great film i really like that film which is also another thing that helped keeping us hubba alive it was enough to get even the most tone deaf singing along so when you're near in 1999 benny and bjorn's own stage musical mamma mia hurled abba back into the charts again it became one of the highest grossing musical soundtracks and movies of all time and now there's a sequel underway and it's a new generation that again that knows about us and thank god i'm so grateful for this but for all their ongoing success it's rare to see all four together like they were at this opening of the mamma mia restaurant in sweden last year and last june the unthinkable for the first time since the end of abba frieda and aneta joined in song to surprise benny and bjorn that was very very nice of them to do that yeah did you ever think that would happen no it surprised me that they wanted to do that but was really heartwarming and now the news abba fans never thought they'd hear sounds like abba's getting back together and working on a tour i think in beginning of 2019 there will be a show a live show uh footband with a real band and dancers and and the set design and lights and sound all of it everything is live apart from us who are there as either holograms or in in an avatar format you can get an idea of what it may look like from the holograms at the abba museum in stockholm we will use the recordings from our live performances or from the records as well as with the band playing you know so the band would play we could have the vocals from the records or the live performances the band would play and we'd put it together it takes uh it takes a little work but it's gonna it's gonna be fine i think it's gonna be great will all four members have some contribution into how that that project happens we already did ah you've all come together and yeah worked it out yeah and we will continue to do so there's a lot of work you know from just deciding what songs are we gonna play wow which order will it be wow amber are going to tour again but it's with a difference with a magical difference so i'll use the old saying do yourself a favor and check it out it's the first time the four members have collaborated since the bad broke up and their millions of fans are beyond excited the digital abba we cannot believe it it's the most exciting thing ever apart from the fact all four of them are working together on it it's going to be like being at an abba concert which is what everyone wants it's going to be spectacular very excited and we've got another surprise for roxanne [Music] roxanne how you going wouldn't it be good to talk to one of the members of the band it would be amazing to talk to one of the members of the band and i'm so jealous that you are well roxanne say hello to benny oh my god hello hello benny hello so where are you i'm in australia in queensland at home well i haven't been there for a while i don't know what has it been 40 years or something i don't know 77 yeah yes 1977. yes boy yeah i'm getting old nice talking to you account okay see you later bye for now benny oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness do you pinch yourself every day yeah almost almost every day because there's always someone you know who comes up and and and says thank you for the music how do you begin to fathom how many people have been affected by your music i don't know but i think it's a lot really and it's so spread it's so all over the world but it makes you very humble and i'm very thankful that i have been able to do this it means a lot you

Channel: 7NEWS Spotlight

Views: 2,338,222

Keywords: 7news, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Channel 7, News, abba, abba (musical group), abba 2021 new songs, abba documentary australia, abba documentary full, abba gold, abba greatest hits, abba interview full, abba new songs 2021, abba reaction, abba youtube, abba youtube take a chance on me, agnetha fältskog interview, documentary, feature, interview, mamma mia, mamma mia here we go again, spotlight, story, thank you for the music

Id: OnOca2yLVXQ

Length: 34min 17sec (2057 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021