Going through my boxes I found this unusual interview the four ABBA members had agreed to give to the students in Sollentuna. Kamratposten was a very left wing magazine for young kids, ages 8-14. Also keep in mind when you read this that the left wing movement weren't impressed with ABBA - at all. I think that shows. But as a document of the time I think it's great a lot of fans get access to it today. The interview is from 1975.
KP interviewing ABBA
We have been interviewing ABBA. It was just as difficult as we thought it would be, even more difficult. We Our offices are filled with letters with ABBA-wishes inside. We ourselves, haven't become quite as enthusiastic about the group as our readers. Yet. But it seems almost ALL of our readers like them, adore them even. We went out to find out why. At our help we had four reliable ABBA-fans; Elizabeth, Marie, Barbro and Annika from class 7B in Häggviksskolan just outside of Stocholm.
We started with meeting ABBA for an interview. Both KP (KamratPosten) and the girls from 7B were are little excited and nervous. How do you adress people wearing leotarddresses, shiny silverjackets and enormously high platform shoes?
We hardly recognized Anni-Frid and Agnetha. They had jeans on and heavy winter jackets and boots. They came straight from a dance rehearsal and they had showered and there were no hint of make-up left. Not very godlike we though, while letters from our readers kept ringing in our heads: "We who love ABBA dearly, look to us who worship ABBA. No matter where we turn in the world, our fate will always lay in ABBA's hands."
We talked with ABBA about their music. It was nice. The ABBA-members were not difficult in any way, or difficult that we kind of had expected them to be. Our surprise faded and we started to understand both ABBA and their music.
The ABBA-members are just as simple and common as their music really is simple and mondaine. But when you normally see ABBA, on stage, on the cover of a record and in typical pop magazines, well then both their music and they are "dressed up". How the music gets "dressed up" you can read on the following pages. About how the simple chords Benny and Björn put together to a melody, it becomes a complicated rock song with lots of harmonies and instruments.
ABBA DRESSED UP
To dress upp music and people is nothing wrong. Music and artists can become very enjoyable if they are getting dolled up. What would the clown be without his mask, the circus princess without her plumes and sequines?
A couple of days later after the interview we got to see ABBA's music and it's members in full custome. At Gröna Lund in Stockholm. KP got disappointed by that. The 18.999 people probably weren't.
ENORMOUS STACKS OF LOUDSPEAKERS
The nice ABBA-people KP had met had changed. Both them and the music were so dressed-up that Anni-Frid, Björn, Benny and Agnetha sort of disappeared. What was left was ABBA the music machine with soap bubbles, smoke effects and really strong lights. The enormous stacks of loudspeakers looked bigger than the huge audience. Both us in the audience and the ABBA-members looked scarily up at all this technology.
What will be the next technical step, after soap bubbles and smoke? Even more smoke? That would cause ABBA to start coughing. Now we are treading on the toes of our readers. We intend to walk along.
I'm standing at Gröna Lund's stage and listen to ABBA's lyrics. They are mostly about love as in any old schlager through out the times. It's probably because to the fact that these stories are so common. They never seem to be about ABBA's private love affairs.
I get sick of listening and my mind starts drifting to the Pherris wheel and the seagulls flying. rather than thinking of lovesongs. I'm thinking about what Björn and Benny said about the lyrics during the interview. That the lyrics are created after the music is written.
Do you write your own songs?
We are 19.000 people who are watching ABBA here at Gröna Lund. A lot of people have them as their idols. I think of Elizabeth, Marie, Barbro and Annika från Häggvik who can most of the songs by heart and love to sing along. The girls like the quick, upbeat songs, but those are harder to hear. Your own can be more critizised than the ABBA-songs. ABBA and ABBA's song follows a pattern which is nice and comfortable and it nice to cling on to once you have started playing yourself.
TO LISTEN TOGETHER WITH 18.999
In the interview with ABBA Anni-Frid told us that when she was a child, around 12-13 years old, she listenend to Siw Malmkvist, tried to sound like her. But it was a pattern that didn't reach all young girls as intensely as ABBA and other idols do today. Now there are so many more record players available, LP-records, pop magazines and melodiradio.
ABBA's performance is almost over. Anni-Frid asks from the stage: - How are you? She makes some contact and many of the 19.000 screams "Fine!" It's a very good beat in ABBA's last song and some in the audeience start to dance. But the Red Cross Man at the gate doesn't have to worry. Noone has passed out.But KP have started to realize why Elizabeth, Marie, Barbro and Annika like ABBA: It must be great to stand together with 18.999 others who also think ABBA are the best. Or have we understood nothing?
THIS IS HOW ABBA'S MUSIC
IS EMBELLISHED
In the studio Benny plays the new melodies for the musicians who are there to help make this a record. The musicians very quickly learn the harmonies and melodies. But even if the melodies are simple the end product is not. Among that a 16 channell tape recorder is being used. It can make on man sound like a whole choir and some background musicians sound like a giant orchestra.
This is how it can be made: First Björn's voice is recorded on one channel. the the tape is rewersed and Björn sing again. But he does it in a different tone of his voice and on another channel. The band becomes a record where you cam hear Björn's voice in different pitches. Something that is impossible to do in "the real world". Subsequently all the instruements are being recorded in that same way each on it's on it's own channel.
MUSICAL COMPUTER?
Sometimes an electronic device called The Moog is used. From that machine you can get almost any sound that exixts. The Moog is like a computer with all sounds available. ABBA takes adavantage of this fact that Agnetha and Anni-Frid's voices are different. Agnetha's is the highest, then comes Frida's and then Björn and Benny, who hardly ever sing on the albums at all. When all of it has been recorded ABBA can, together with their sound technician, improve the sound on the different channels. From the tape an LP is made.