Led Zeppelin and ABBA share more in common than you’d expect. For starters, they were both two of, if not the most commercially successful, seemingly omnipresent bands of the seventies.
On opposite sides of the music spectrum, of course, ardent fans alike flocked to arenas and stadiums just to see them in the flesh. Zeppelin had a head start, given they were packing out Madison Square Garden by the time ABBA scored their Eurovision win in 1973, which paved the way for the pop powerhouse to arise. The sunny Swedes caught up eventually despite seldom touring, their six-night sold-out residency at Wembley Arena going down in ABBA fandom folklore. Whilst Led Zeppelin certainly made a heftier dent in North Americans’ minds at the time, you can’t deny either band’s impact on popular music.
Coincidentally enough, Led Zeppelin’s living members were approached about a virtual avatar concert (“that sort of thing” in Jimmy Page’s own words) long before ABBA Voyage set up shop in London. Plans were scrapped however as talks between him, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones were unfruitful.
In truth, their successes are not ABBA’s and Led Zeppelin’s only connection. Strangely enough, ABBA had a fairly significant part to play in the making of Led Zeppelin’s final album, In Through The Out Door.
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Gripped by addiction and grief – Robert Plant’s son Karac tragically died in 1977 – Led Zeppelin were in disarray, looking to play their way back into the hearts and minds of their UK fanbase.
Their most recent studio album, Presence, was poorly received and being in tax exile from their home country for several years meant their favour was slipping. Out of sight, out of mind etc. The band had a point to prove. It was ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson who helped them prove it, however, by inviting them to record In Through The Out Door at their state-of-the-art Stockholm recording studio, Polar Studios, themselves wanting to improve the studio’s reputation amongst major rock bands.
Despite one band’s squeaky clean image and the other’s for being hedonistic rock gods, ABBA and Zep even went out on a few fabled nights together. It would’ve definitely had to be at night, as that’s the only time a booze-fuelled John Bonham and a heroin-addled Jimmy Page could function.
In a 2015 interview with Louder Sound, Page recalled their Swedish exploits. “[ABBA] contacted me. The studio was only known for ABBA and they wanted an internationally known rock group to record there, and would Led Zeppelin consider it. We had a chat and they said they’d be generous with studio time. We went out there in December [’78], I think. It was biting cold, snow everywhere…”
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“I met Bjorn when I was setting up,” Page continued. “I don’t think the others had got there then. He gave me a guitar, which was very sweet. A day later I met Benny. Bjorn was the blond one? Benny was the one with the beard and the keyboard, yes? He was very interested in John Paul’s new toy. At the time Benny was still married to Frida [Lyngstad]. So we all went out to a club together one night. They were nice people. I was rather hoping we were going to meet Agnetha [Fältskog], but that wasn’t part of the deal!”
Though, given his impaired state, Page’s account might not necessarily be the most reliable. Behind closed doors, Agnetha and Benny were thought to be going through a break-up before eventually divorcing in 1979, at a time when ABBA were arguably at the peak of their powers. Plant’s version of events seems to match up, telling Uncut in 2005 that they were “being silly with Benny and Bjorn from ABBA, while Agnetha and Frida are driving around trying to find which den of iniquity Led Zeppelin had taken their husbands to”.
What about the sex club? Far-fetched perhaps. But Plant let slip with a little more information during a Swedish television interview that same year.
“Now, I used to know Benny and Bjorn very well. Jimmy Page and myself, we went out with Benny and Bjorn most nights. There were some very nice clubs here in Stockholm then. People seemed to want to go to sleep very early when we got to them, because they immediately got out a circular mattress with a zip down the middle. And ladies and men started going to sleep together, while we were having a drinkie-winkie with Benny and Bjorn.”
After the interviewer gasps, “Now you’re just lying!” Plant swiftly replied: “I swear! It was called a ‘sex club’. You remember that, Benny and Bjorn?” Plant says looking directly into the camera, wagging a finger. “We used to run away from your women!”
Naturally, ABBA’s representatives immediately denied Plant’s claims. So we’ll never exactly know what bacchanal occurred on those fateful nights out in Stockholm. At least Led Zeppelin saw a return to form and favour with In Through The Out Door, with their 1979 (and final) album achieving enormous commercial success, topping the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic.
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