Agnetha in Sydney Daily Telegraph

Here is Cameron Adams interview with Agnetha from this morning's Sydney Daily Telegraph.

http://entertainment.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4459,9819503% 255E10431%255E%255Enbv,00.html

Reluctant diva speaks up By Cameron Adams June 12, 2004

A CRUCIAL piece has always been missing from the post-ABBA puzzle: the mysterious Agnetha Fältskog. She's been labelled the Greta Garbo of pop for shunning the limelight for the past 20 years. After a three-album flirtation with a solo career immediately after ABBA's split in 1982, Fältskog dropped off the radar in 1987. There was a mainly Swedish- language compilation album in 1996 to accompany a lightweight pictorial autobiography As I Am but apart from that, nothing.

Even a three-year marriage to a Swedish surgeon in 1990 was only discovered by the press when they read a notice in a newspaper. Living in a secluded house outside Stockholm, Fältskog's disappearance was partially provoked by her hatred of the press but also because she attracted unwanted celebrity stalkers.

Back in ABBA's heyday of the late 1970s/early '80s, Fältskog was the subject of many unwanted advances. She received letters stating that if ABBA went on tour, her two young children - Linda and Christian (now 31 and 25 respectively) to band mate Björn Ulvaeus, whom she divorced in 1979 - would be harmed.

In 2000, a man who had been stalking her was arrested for breaking a restraining order when neighbours spotted him near Fältskog's house.

The two had earlier had a liaison but had broken up, and Fältskog said he began following her and made her fear for her and her children's lives.

Fältskog was always the missing member when Benny Andersson, Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad got together for events such as the launch of ABBA musical Mamma Mia in its various franchises around the globe.

There hasn't been a photo of all four members of ABBA together for nearly 20 years. Now, however, with the release of My Colouring Book, Fältskog's first record in a remarkable 17 years, she has surfaced again.

Last week, Fältskog agreed to four interviews for the entire world - and the Daily Telegraph received one of them. Fältskog's English is broken (an interpreter sits on the phone line with her) but she's far more talkative than you'd expect a recluse to be. That is, she insists, because she isn't a recluse.

"It's a rumour going on, it's a media thing. They spread that I am hiding, that I am the new Greta Garbo. It's not the way it is. It's just the way I live. I want to live in peace and quiet and work when I'm working and do my own thing," she says. "I'm not travelling so much, but it happens I party sometimes as well, I go into town. I'm not hiding at all. I can't recognise that person they sometimes describe."

Fältskog isn't travelling to promote My Colouring Book. She has always hated flying and was injured in a bus crash in 1983.

"We try to concentrate on working in a different way - to talk to people on the phone, to make (a) documentary, that's the way that suits me," she says.

Fältskog oddly denies that 17 years is a rather long time to leave between albums. "The years go very quickly. I've done so many records, I've been working so hard for so many years I really felt I had to have a long time to take it easier, relax a bit," she says.

"Also, after the ABBA period, I was really tired of both singing and listening to music. It took some years until I started to feel the interest again and to be curious about making a new album."

Four years ago she felt the passion again and wanted to make a covers album featuring songs from the '60s that she grew up with.

"These songs were so important to me when I was a teenager; they have meant a lot to me. When I felt I should do this record I started to search among my old records," she says.

There was another motivation: Fältskog still gets hundreds of letters from fans who wanted another album.

"I get a lot of fan mail, many from Australia, and it's fantastic to hear that they like my music so much and want to know what I have been doing, and that they really love and miss my voice," she says. "It affected me so much, that's when the idea came up in my head maybe I should do another record."

There was a problem, however - Fältskog was scared of singing, unlikely as it sounds.

"It started that I had built up something called 'fear of the microphone' because to get a nice sound you have to be so close to it. Every breath you take you will hear and it took me some time to get over that."

Did she miss singing? "No, but after 30 years I felt maybe I should do one more, because I really felt I could do one more record."

So, is this the last Fältskog record?

"It's impossible to say right now. I'm now working with this album so much, it's good for what it is now. But you never know what will happen in the future. Maybe I will do another album in the future, maybe not."

It's no secret that Fältskog hates touring.

ABBA toured much less than most hugely successful bands, and famously turned down a billion-dollar offer to re-form several years ago. "Touring was not my favourite part but I still did it," Fältskog says.

"We were travelling around the world, I have been flying maybe more than the average person. I was also away from my family a lot, I missed them. I wanted to take it quiet, have a nice time with them, live a normal life. It's not very normal to be changing planes every day. It's also fantastic to meet the people of course but the older you get the more it takes out of you, I think."

Despite rumours to the contrary, she has no problems talking about the ABBA period.

"There's a very simple explanation: the other three persons (from ABBA) they travel a lot, they see each other here and there, I'm not travelling that much any more," Fältskog says. She affirms that a reunion will not happen, no matter how many zeroes are added to that billion-dollar figure.

"We have no plans of any reunion. I have nothing against meeting up with the others, to do something together again - not working, not in that respect. But to just see the others, it would be thrilling if that happens. We get so many gratitudes from different things. I have nothing against them."

It's 30 years since Waterloo launched ABBA to the top of the charts courtesy of Eurovision; the song has even re-entered the UK charts as part of an anniversary reissue.

"It feels like a long time ago, but maybe not that long," Fältskog says.

Does she have a favourite song?

"Yes, I have some favourites from the ABBA period. We've done so many good songs, I think, it's hard to pick. The Winner Takes It All is a great number."

The Winner Takes It All is an interesting one. The song was infamously written by Ulvaeus after his marriage to Fältskog had dissolved. Hearing her sing lines written by her estranged husband such as, "Tell me, does she kiss like I used to kiss you, does it feel the same when she calls your name?" add a cruel streak and turn up the emotion to 11.

It's no surprise that it's often voted one of the saddest songs ever.

"Yes, it's very sad," Fältskog says. "I have a tendency to fall into this kind of song. It's the same with my new record. These sad, tragic, romantic songs are inside me. I think I can do them in a good way."

Was The Winner hard to sing?

"Ah, it was so long ago. I don't think it was so hard to do. I did that quite easily, I think." She hints that acting may be something she concentrates on in the future.

"It's thrilling to act. I would like to do that some more (but) it must be a good story." Fältskog has made two forays into acting: a Swedish film (1983's Raskenstam) and also ABBA: The Movie, filmed in Australia during a tour in March 1977.

When asked what she remembers of it she takes a long pause. "Very hard work. A long journey to Australia and a long journey back." Australia was the epicentre of the ABBA phenomenon: no band since has ever had an across-the-board appeal so strong that a city could effectively be shut down while they made a personal appearance. "It meant a lot to me," Fältskog says of Australia. "It was hectic but it also wonderful, with so many people just loving us."

While Ulvaeus has spent time here launching Mamma Mia, Fältskog has yet to return.

She has, however, heard of the Australian cover band Björn Again ("I saw them in a TV program, it's very flattering") and wants to see Mamma Mia when it plays in Stockholm.

* My Colouring Book is out now

The Daily Telegraph

Thanks to ABBAMAILer Jeff Roberts, Sydney, Australia