ABBA magazine meets Agnetha & Frida during the "Voulez-Vous" recording sessions in Stockholm
Food...
Agnetha: I eat everything.
Frida: I am very fond of health foods but I am trying to mix things up because they can be boring otherwise. I eat a lot of salads and I love Italian food, pastas and spaghetti and everthing. I am working so much. I never sit still during the day. Otherwise I would weigh more - I think. At home I do mostly Italian food
Clothes...
Agnetha: It makes you feel better when you are dressed up. I don't find there is any pressure to look good. At home though I love to just wear jeans and a pullover.
Frida: Yes we would have worn jeans and tee shirts in the studio today probably, if it wasn't for the photographic session with Frank Pourcel.
Frida: You have to be comfortable in the studio what ever you wear, because it is usually quite warm and you need to maintain concentration. I prefer French and Italian clothes.
Agnetha: There are a lot of very nice things coming from Italy now. But I think the best city is Paris (in the springtime).
Music...
Agnetha: I listen to the Bee Gees, Beatles, 10CC, Neil Sedaka, The Eagle.
Frida: We do have different tastes because I am listening to a lot of funk and soul and I really love that. Even if Swedish radio does not play much, we are always listening to the latest records from America which are sent to us every week.
Bee Gees...
Agnetha: I haven't experienced anything similar since the Beatles. Whether or not their sound is commercial, it doesn't bother me. I love their disco sound because I feel it so much, most of the things you hear in discos have no melody.
Frida: The songs the Bee Gees have written are really SONGS.
Singing lessons...
Frida: Agnetha and I have been taking lessons now for a year. I used to have training many years ago.
Agnetha: Yes I did too, but now we go regularly to a woman twice a week. She is a very nice lady. She helps us to relax and you can see the difference between the periods we see her and when we don't.
Frida: It doesn't inhibit our ability to sing pop either because it is not classical training ina way it is more a technical training. We've got also dance exercises three times a week.
Animals...
Agnetha: We had a dog, a French Bulldog but she is dead now.
Frida: We had one too. A soft coated wheaten terrier. It's an English dog. But we bagan to tour so much that we could not keep him. There is a family taking care of him now that has a girl dog, the same breed as him, so he is having a nice time.
ABBA...
Frida: Well we are normal people.
Agnetha: And we can't go on forever. We can't do the same thing all of our lives.
Ambitions...
Frida: I have lots, I wouldn't mind playing in a good film. Say if Bergman called me I wouldn't say no! Actually I am not sure I could do it but it would be very exciting to try.
Sport...
Frida: In the winter Stockholm becomes snowbound and we do a lot of skiing.
Agnetha: I go ice-skating with my daughter and in the summer we play tennis.
Frida: We also enjoy swimming especially in the West Indies, the Virgin Islands where we went this year (1978).
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February 14, 1979
Every ABBA album was promoted by a TV special. Two months before the release of "Voulez-Vous" it was time for a promotional TV show featuring new songs from the forthcoming album.
The travel from Stockholm to Geneve was a real nightmare for ABBA and particularly for Agnetha. The snowfall in Stockholm was so heavy that the aircraft couldn't start. When the plane finally had started it had to turn back to the Arlanda airport in Stockholm because there was ice on the wings which could lead to crash. As ABBA arrived in Geneve it was so big delay that the helicopter pilot did not want to fly to Leysin as he was afraid that they wouldn't manage to come before it would be dark. Landing in the darkness was very risky.
But they came to Leysin the same evening and it was hard to observe how tired the ABBA members were after their long trip. The press conference was held at the Central Hotel in Leysin.
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Hotel Central in Leysin (2005)
The press conference started at 7 pm on February 14, 1979. The conference started with a photo session which lasted for about 15 minutes.
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The foursome answered lots of questions. Here are some of them.
How do you choose the various TV shows to make your rare appearances?
Björn: It is very difficult to know which shows to accept. We did the UNICEF show in New York partly because it was for a very good cause but also because it was being boradcast everywhere in the world. It is the same for the Special we are doing here right now. It is a good way of doing things. We still go to England or Germany to do promotions but not so often now.
What is progress with the work on your forthcoming album?
Benny: We are writing and recording the album now and we will be finished around the beginning of April. It hasn't been delayed, we never set a date. Björn: But it is true that it takes longer to complete an album.
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Are you running out of ideas?
Björn: Yes that is part of the truth. We have done everything almost, it seems that all the ideas that we come up with, we have tried before.
Can you say something about Agnetha's and Björn's divorce?
Björn: Well as you can see, we are good friends. Agnetha: We don't wish to discuss our private live with anybody. We have talked to one paper in Sweden just to get things straight. We don't want to discuss it any more, at least not I. Björn: There is no question, it is working really well and the divorce was because we couldn't live together, that's all. Everything is going really well with ABBA.
Silver Otto
ABBA received the Bravo award for the year 1978 - the Silver Otto from a German fan who even met the group the day after during the filming of ABBA skiing.
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After the press conference at 9 pm ABBA were ready for new activities. The TV team filmed some sequences for the show down in the valley, where the Leysin village ice-ring had been cleared of locals and invaded by BBC technicians with bright lamps and camera equipment. ABBA tnjoyed having the whole surface of the ice to themselves to skate on.
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The next day ABBA was filmed skiing and miming to some of their hits as: The Name Of The Game, Mamma Mia and Eagle.
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The rehearsals before filming of the show took place the same day.
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THE SHOW
ABBA presented for the first time several songs from their forthcoming album "Voulez-Vous" and some well-known hits. The songs were: Take A Chance On Me, The King Has Lost His Crown, Lovers, Kisses of Fire, Does Your Mother Know, Chiquitita, Thank You For the Music. Strangely they did not perform the favorite "If It Wasn't For The Nights" already presented in other TV shows some months earlier. "Voulez-Vous" & "I Have A Dream", two upcoming single hits were not performed either.
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Some special guests were invited to this show: Kate Bush, Roxy Music and Ted Gärdestad. The playbacks to the new songs were in many cases not the same versions as the ones released on the forthcoming album.
Two alternate video clips to the hit "Chiquitita" were done. One on the mountain in front of a big snowman (which was released as their official video) and in the hotel lobby.
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