Benny Andersson interview (Part 1)
December 24, 2013
Happy Christmas/Season’s greetings to all icethesite visitors. Huge thanks to everyone who visits and supports the site and I hope you will enjoy this opportunity to hear directly from Benny about the year ahead. A year dominated by the film ‘The Circle’ but with a few goodies and potential goodies for music fans too. Enjoy…
thankyou 🙂 a live album 🙂
Thank you Ice (and Benny) for such a nice interview ! You made my Christmas eve, really good news in there. Very exciting to hear about a possible remastered Chess, the new single (such a lovely song) and the live album ! Merry Christmas !
Wow, Waterloo Deluxe, Chess Deluxe, One Man One Woman by BAO AND an ABBA Live album.
Looks like it’s going to be Christmas all year next year! 🙂
What a fantastic Interview, and so much information. Better save the Money Money Money for all the new purchases next year and maybe a trip to Mamma Mia in April then!!!!! What a fantastic Christmas Present, Thank You.
Thank you for posting the interview. Great to hear all future plans clarified. Looking forward to purchasing the new albums when available. Wishing you a happy holiday and all the best in 2014 and beyond.
a good interview but why can they not thank the fans for 40 years since waterloo, maybe its me but i think they could officially say thank you and goodbye
Wow Dom, fantastic!
Keep up the wonderful work!
Merry Christmas and a great 2014 for you!
X 🙂
That was a great interview. Very revealing and honest and I loved that. Thanks very much for arranging it and publishing. Looking forward to Part 2!! Mark (Aust)
Wow – well done and thx so much Dom
I have been a complete “Live 1979” freak for years…and I was wondering if they were ever going to consider the possibility …so this is quite mind blowing… finger cross… Excellent interview, by the way.
Great interview, with a very relaxed Benny. Thanks for that.
I’m syprised by the variety of things Benny is working on. Best of all would be the ABBA live album he talks about. I know that Universal would die to release that. If the ABBA members decide to release a full unedited live concert, that would be fabulous. And a remastered Chess would also be great fun.
Thank you thank you thank you
Always great to hear from the genius that is Benny Andersson and an interview without the usual tabloid angles and nonsense – by a proper fan – brilliant!
Excellent interview. Looking forward to Part 2. To see a full live album for the first time will be fantastic.
Great! That’s a very interesting & informative interview with lots of news.
Very keen on the live album especially & the new BAO single. Thanks Benny & Ice for this interview! Roll on 2014!
Thank you so much for this and how exciting! Can’t wait for these future releases, especially a full ’79 Concert – will be amazing! Lovely to hear Benny talk about Chess and how this was more exciting for them than another ABBA album – I think we sometimes forget with hindsight how they had become tired with ABBA by then, and had always said that they would stop when it ceased being fun. Really pleased that he spoke about re-mastering Chess and the possibility of new, previously unreleased tracks! 2014 certainly looks like one exciting year for all Bjorn & Benny and ABBA fans! Happy New Year to one and all!!
Icethesite is the best site for new information…..
Great!
Ice: thanks ever so much for the work you have put into producing this interview: and as mentioned above: a relaxed and generous Benny 🙂
As I understand, the ‘Live at Wembley 1979’ is still only an idea which will take some time to complete, as does the ‘Chess deluxe’ release. ‘Waterloo 40th’ -what can be added? The whole 1974 Eurovision Song Contest’?
Looking back at 1982, I’d say the foursome looked happier than before: Agnetha was in a new romance, she was filming and she was planning the 1983 recording sessions for her new english language album; Benny and Björn were both fresh fathers and in new relationships which seemed to bloom (lasted more than 30 years!), and Frida was riding on the success of her album, looking fresh and with a new boyfriend too.
Tired of ABBA, perhaps; the energy lost somehow. But privately finally harmony on all four sides.
Great that we’ll see Benny record an old ABBA song (and one of my alltime favourites).
a meeting eh of the four of them eh… hmmm. even the thought! To have been a fly on that wall.Great Ice, well done and lucky you. (Im not convinced we will get nothing!)
Brilliant! Thank you Ice, and thank you Benny. Particularly excited by the prospects of an unadulterated 1979 live album and the expanded CHESS concept album! Lots to look forward to.
You said if there was a good reason for and re-uniting performing with the other members of ABBA again you might?
There is only one reason and that is THE WORLD STILL LOVES ABBA and your music!
A brand new ABBA album would be the very best they could do, of course. The problem is, it would have to be bigger than Mamma Mia, bigger than almost everything in music business. This would put too much pressure on them.
A live album seems like a reasonable compromise. A real live album is something a lot of fans have been waiting since the 70s. The best version for me would be a double album containing a 1977 concert from Australia and a 1979 concert in London. Maybe a deluxe edition with the concerts on DVD or Blu Ray… But as always this will remain a dream.
The re-re-releases of something celebrating the 20th, 30th, 40th or whatever birthday are nice, but always the same. I’m a huge ABBA fan, but I’m slowly tired of having just each album in five different versions.
Thank you so much, Ice. Good to hear, and very much appreciated.
Thank you so much. I have been waiting so long for a remastered Chess with the missing parts. This will make 2014 for me! Thank you Ice, thank you Benny!
Brilliant interview.
Benny the legend at his finest.
Thanks IceTheSite 🙂
“We met, all four of us”… he makes it sound very everyday thing. To me it seems that they are in contact with each other more than we think. Even though it is not going to result any releases or events, it is nice to know that they are good friends and like to do it from time to time.
Yes, a re-issue again of waterloo. But lets have some creative ideas this time around. Coloured vinyl, picture discs, picture cd, gatefold sleeve etc. the list is endless. But yes, a very nice and revealing interview from one of the great maestros!
Watching ABBA live before Christmas, it accrued to me that the common understanding that the ABBA sound was a studio creation was wrong, Yes its different to the studio albums but it is also Totally Brilliant live performance that not many bands today could match,
And great to hear there will be a special version of CHESS.
Lets hope it not to long before we get a sound track album to a film of CHESS.
Great interview!
Great news that Chess will be remastered and rereleased with some new music and perhaps the documentary of the making of Chess included!
Wow I will be first in line…!
Chess is such a masterpiece!
Excites me more than the ABBA live album…….
A re-mastered Chess CD is such great news! I still listen to that CD all the time. I have heard some demo tracks, including When the Waves Roll Out to Sea, and would love to hear that in it’s full intended quality. I am just so excited about this. Any estimated date of its release?