the band recorded a new album in 2021, and returned to the stage last year in london, not in the flesh, but as digital avatars — 2d recreations of themselves from 1979. in a worldwide exclusive interview to mark 12 months of the abba voyage show, i went to the studio of the band in stockholm to talk to bjorn ulvaeus and benny andersson — two of the globe�*s most successful songwriters. it's the one year anniversary of the abba voyage show. it took years to create. you described it as a risk because you didn't know if people were going to come and see digital recreations of you. is it a gamble that has paid off? most certainly, yes. artistically definitely. why do you say artistically definitely? because we achieved more than we could ever hope for. seeing this happening after four or five years of work in different areas, coming there, seeing the first preview and realising that the audience actually connected to what was on there, not like they were watching a movie, but is if we were actually there, which we are, so that was great. but financially, i don't know, it has run for a long time for the investors to get their money back, but we are doing well. it is the emotional connection that we never knew whether we would get or not, but it's there as many said, and that was such a relief. when we saw it with the first preview audiences and they actually connect, and their intellect tells them they're not there, but emotionally they are, which is a fantastic thing, never happened before on stage i think. where do you want to take the show next? well, you know, the artist is always there and performs every night without fault, and could so do in other parts of the world at the same time, so maybe something, one replica in north america, maybe one in asia. there are talks, but nothing tangible yet. right, so simultaneous abba voyage shows? i have to say i would like to go to australia. we would all like to go to australia. but we'll see. we are talking about it but nothing is decided yet. if london is your first home or your second home, australia must be your third, because they adore you. you are right. it would feel good to come back there and say thank you, australia, for supporting us from day one. what did you not want this show to be? for people to feel like they were watching a video. because they are actually watching a film, and for that to have happened would have been... they are not watching a film, they are watching pure avatar. sorry, sorry, but technically, that would have been a catastrophe. i have to say that the producers and directors, first and foremost, and this is not about technique, this is not about this amazing thing that ilm has been doing, or the great surround sound system, it's about emotions, and we have to make sure that that happens. i don't know how you do that really but they succeeded in that. well, i have been to see the show twice and it made me feel nostalgic because i grew up with your music and loved it, it made me feeljoyous because i was there with thousands of other people singing and dancing to all intents and purposes to abba, and it moved me, and i don't quite know why. that's the interesting thing, isn't it? something happens, and you don't know exactly why, and i think, let it remain a mystery, it's kind of a wonderful mystery. in those five weeks when the four of you were wearing the motion capture suits and recording the songs, singing the songs again, did you also record other tracks that are not in the show like take a chance on me? super trooper? yes. so you might refresh that list? there are other songs as well. potentially the avatars can sing the songs as well. sometime, at some point. bruce springsteen is still touring, he is in his 70s, the rolling stones are still touring, they are in their 70s, eltonjohn is still touring, he is in his 70s although he says this is his farewell tour. obviously we would like them to go on forever, that's not going to be possible, but can you see this technology recreating gigs in the future so that generations to come might be able to see bruce springsteen live? i think that's quite possible, and not only like abba voyage but also ai—driven, so that they will actually be able to talk to the audience in real time and you will... the illusion will be complete, that's what i think what will happen in the future. part of the joy of the abba voyage show, i think, is the fact that you are here, we are having this conversation now, and we watch versions of you from 1979, younger versions of you. do you think it will be a different experience if it was amy winehouse or whitney houston or prince? tricky, right? how do you deal with that? everyone knows that they are not around anymore, so what would they say themselves about doing this? we can say yes or no to everything, which we have. so the audience know that we are behind this, we are in this, totally. so there is an ethical question there, for you? there would be an ethical question for whoever did this, if you would do it with someone who is actually dead, but i'm sure it will be done. i've read that you have turned down multiple lucrative offers to get back together, to reform. i read you turned down $1 billion. so did we! i read that too! is it not true then? i don't know. we don't know. 0k, well this is to do with the 100 shows at the turn of the millennium, but i wonder if you always said no to that because you had a fear or anxiety about audiences coming to see you as older artists? no, i don't think so, because we have been on the road since the mid—605. you haven't really been on the road since then. yes! but with abba... not with abba, but before that. i was touring for years and years, he was touring for years and years, we have been doing all that, and abba was sort of the last thing we did. the culmination. that's one of the reasons we didn't want to do it. right, because you'd done it. because we'd done it. i think each of us had a reason why not to, but we were all four of us unanimous, we didn't want to. i am struck in journalism how we really care about fake news, and what you have created with this technology are fake versions of the four of you. they are not fake, they are real. they're avatars, digital recreations, 2d versions. but they are charged with us. 100%. we have infused ourselves with them. i get that, but i wonder, i mean this technology could be used by bad actors, dictatorships, and i know you care about healthy functioning democracies, but it could be used for mass disinformation. it could, and it will be. not to talk about al, but that's hardly our fault! no, but you must have considered it? yes, but deepfake is kind of different, because i mean we are behind our own avatars, but deepfake in the future with the coming elections in the uk and us for instance, that's when the ai will be involved, and deepfake, and that is a big problem. you're right, we have the us, the uk elections amongst other nations, they could be the first big elections that are hit by a wave of ai powered disinformation. yes, that's right. quite terrible. well that's terrifying, isn't it? and the regulator, as you say, is far behind, and it's very difficult to regulate and know exactly what to do. you can train an al on abba song catalogue in theory, and come up with abba songs, and who is then the creator of those songs? that's going to be for the regulator in the future to decide. well, you're right, it might be for them to decide, but it's also going to have an impact on bands like abba, many other artists. in february, david gatto, french dj at a gig played what appeared to be an eminem track. he had created it, done the lyrics using ai, come up with eminem's voice using ai. half the crowd thought eminem was actually there. it could be happening already that fake abba tracks are being created by ai. are you ready for that? no, but i haven't heard any yet, have have you? no, i haven't yet, but no doubt there will be and it's a matter of whether you can trace abba in it or not. you can train alon abba, queen, stones, beatles and at the same time something else comes out. is that original content, or could you sue for copyright? i suppose it depends on what they use right? if you can lead to... i don't know. nobody knows here, it's all regulations, nobody knows here, it's all speculations what is going to happen, but it is going to happen. i think there will always be a problem with al music because who will be the centre? will it be a machine? what's that? why... i mean, a very normal question for us is why do you think we have been so successful with abba? i don't know. i think it's good enough, but i also think it's genuine because it comes from people who mean what they are doing, who put their heart into it and talent. if you don't have that, if you don't have a centre, who's going to be interested in listening to what? but the thing is that in ten, 20 years time, the ai may be as good or as original. that we don't know. that remains to be seen. let mejust come round here. this is chatgpt, which obviously you know about. if i put in here, "write a song in the style of abba..." 0k, verse one. "i thought it had it all, with you by my side, "but then he walked away and my heartjust died. "i search for you in every crowd, i hear you calling "out my name, but you're not there, it's so unfair, "i'm lost in this endless game." i would say that's bleep. laughter plays bad piano music but i wonder, could you not see this ai as a hugely positive thing? it is going to open up, people are going to be able to make music without having any songwriting ability, without having any musical talent, without being able to play the piano. and yet, they will be able to create music. you could argue that is the great democratisation of music? yeah, but what happens if you have an ai as a tool, you train an ai model on all the best tangos in the world, because you are going to write a tango, and it comes up with something, and maybe parts of it is good, and you tweak the other part until you think you have, "oh, this is a good tango." who is then the writer of this song? it is the one who tweaked, obviously, and i think that's how ai will be used, at least in the beginning by song writers. and how do you feel about that? i don't know what i feel about that, it's going to happen. there is nothing we can do. ed sheeran recently won two copyright cases, he was accused of ripping off other artists' hits. he said there are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music, coincidence is bound to happen. if 60,000 songs are being released every day on spotify that comes in at 22 million songs a year. do you think he has got a point? what songs are those? 22 million songs a year? that's what he says. how many have you heard? four? — possibly. so i don't get those numbers. anyone can put something on spotify. but he is saying there are only so many notes, only so many chords... by coincidence it is bound to happen. yes. so he believes that baseless claims are damaging songwriting. do you? yeah, if you reverse that, if you have an algorithm searching those 22 million songs for something that looks like the new ed sheeran song, that could possibly happen and then it would be completely, completely wrong. so i actually agree with him, that mistakes or such copies are bound to be made by coincidence. do you worry about the future of songwriting? not really. no. one does what one has to do, you know. it means you do as good as you can at any moment. try to achieve as much as possible for every new piece of music. there's nothing else to do. someone wants to go ahead and do an ai version of everything, what can we do about it? as songwriters? we canjust go on being human. and maybe we should tell people that this is a song not written by ai. that's interesting that you say that, because sting told the bbc recently that "the building blocks "belong to us, human beings, that is a battle "we'll have to fight in the next couple "of years, defending our human capital against ai." is that right? it means that we have to do know when the ai is the writer of a song. we have to know. in every aspect we need to know. when we look at youtube, it has to say ai somewhere. and that is the only solution, i think. so music lovers know what they are listening to? that should not be totally impossible, should it? no. your music has obviously stood the test of time, which is testament to the four of you. and we live in a world now where art, music, lyrics, books are being reappraised through the filter of the modern world. in that spirit, i was struck by the fact that does your mother know in mamma mia is sung by a woman. yes. i want explain your thinking behind that. you should ask phyllida lloyd and catherinejohnson who came up with that idea? what do you think of the idea? it's great. that woman at the time in singing that song because of a silly bar boy who has, you know, been flirting with her. and it's excellent. i think it is a good idea. when i saw the first preview of mamma mia the musical, i was feeling, hmm, they are making fun of us here — but i didn't mind, because it is done with such a good heart, like the song, for example, so i think they did a terrificjob. do you think it is fair to reappraise books, art, music from decades ago through the prism of the standards we have now? we talk about the changing the words in roald dahl's books, i don't think so, i think we should leave them as they are, see them for what they are for time they are released. we can take that, i think. eurovision will be here in sweden next year. yeah! 50 years, as you know, you don't need me to remind you, since you won it with waterloo. there is already a clamour for the four of you to reunite on stage in person, not the avatars... you want to make a bet? are you considering it? no. seriously? seriously, no, no way. why? well, i don't want to, and if i don't want to, they won't go. it is the same for all four of us. if someone says no, it is a no. and, yes, that is how it works. you want to go? no, no. you will disappoint many, many people. no, we're not going to go there. you're not even going to consider it? no. 0k. if you were asked, would you write sweden's entry? no. 0k! sweden has hosted the contest six times, three in stockholm, three elsewhere — should it be in stockholm again? i think so. that is the place to be. why? because it is the most beautiful city in this country and we have the infrastructure, too and it would be good if they have it in stockholm. i think so. you could celebrate 50 years of abba without us being on stage — but anyway, and our hometown is stockholm, there are many reasons. i'm sure you heard the hometown of ukraine's eurovision act was hit the missiles just moments before they took to the stage in liverpool, that is according to ukrainian officials. first of all, what do you think of that? what a nasty thing to do. to show what? and it means — he doesn't understand, i mean, that only solidifies the union behind ukraine. that's what it does. and he thinks it will split us up. and it's the other way around. so it's so stupid at the same time. and it also shows, i suppose, that eurovision is not just its own bubble — it has wider ramifications. yes, it does. did you know that it is reported that president putin likes abba? he likes your music? oh, good! really? i don't mind. who cares? how can we decide who's going to like or not? no, that's not possible. i don't know what to think about that. most people think that listening to abba makes them kinder and more open... maybe it has! he would have been worse otherwise! tribute act bjorn again say they performed a private gig for him back in 2009. 0k. you credit the lgbtq+ community for underpinning your comeback. i want to ask you, how did four heterosexual people become icons for the gay community? that is a good question. yeah, i have no idea. no, i never understood that. i was guest editor at radio 4 this christmas, past christmas, and i asked a couple of people from that community — what do you think it is? because i was curious. but they don't seem to know either. itjust is. do you think it has to do with the title dancing queen? maybe — it is the music, people can relate... i think it is the ladies. they're like 0pera divas in a way. can you remember the first time you met? yeah. absolutely. 1966. you actually remember the... yeah, yeah, iwas in a band called the hep stars, we were playing in the middle of the day somewhere in the middle of sweden, we were coming with our cars and meeting us was a car with the hootenanny singers, bjorn�*s band. we had never met before. we stopped just to say hi, because we were both popular bands, ciao ciao, and they said they were going to have a party that night because they werejoining... military service. so they said, you want to come and we said yes, which we did. it's a long story, but we did. and bjorn and i had a guitar each and we were sitting under a tree playing beatles songs. were you? and we said maybe we should work together, because i knew he was writing for his band and he knew i was writing for my band, and we said let'sjoin forces and see what happens? the night we were playing inside the hotel room, and the night porter threw us out into a parkjust outside. but that was, yeah, it was great. you have known each other for...57 years? have you ever fallen out? no. not really. we have had difference of opinions, many, many times. constantly, i would say. but it doesn't matter, because what we've achieved together, you know, keeps us together, i think. we've shared so many things, it goes for the ladies too, i think, so we are good. yeah, it's fantastic, isn't it? 57 years. it is, astonishing. you think about 0asis or others who... well, the stones have been doing quite well. some of them. why do you think this friendship has endured? partly because it started really as a friendship. we spent so much time together with the ladies as well, but also professionally because we never kind of stood still. always wanted to write new stuff, find new things. and we find that in each other, i think, that none of us have stagnated, which so often happens in songwriting duos. and also we rarely meet! laughter. we meet like every week, but that is about work. we don't socialise, we don't go out for dinners or visit each other's homes or have to have a drink or something. no, we don't. well, thank you very much for talking to us, bjorn ulvaeus, benny andersson, thank you, tack sa mycket. thank you. music plays. hello. it has turned cloudy and wet in many parts of the country, and if the rain hasn't reached you yet, it is not far away. here's the outlook for the week ahead. there is no let up for the week ahead. there is no let up the kind of weather we have been experiencing for the last few weeks. more unsettled weather on the way. if you look at the satellite picture you can see a daisy chain of weather system sweeping across america of the atlantic and heading in our direction, propelled by quite a strong jet stream which will also be rippling across the atlantic and it will even be south of this as we see these troughs developing, and that will allow cooler air to sweep in from the north. let's have a look at the forecast for the evening and overnight. plenty of clout. here is the weather front with the rain sweeping northwards. you should reach the lowlands in the early hours. the north of scotland may stay dry through the night but for many others it is cloudy, rainy at times, mist and merck and low cloud, breezy, but mild, 17 degrees with this maritime air mass. tomorrow it is a cloudy picture, at times bursts of rain, some of them heavy, both in the morning and afternoon. it won't be running all the time and if anything, a chance of a few sunny spells, perhaps lengthening ones across the south, maybe to the east of the pennines. the cloud and rain will never be too far away. that is how we are going to end monday, with the low pressure close by and are generally overcast picture with rain at times. that takes us into tuesday. low pressure moves away. we are in between weather systems and there is another one heading our way. tuesday overall is going to be the best day of the week, with the most amount of sunshine. yes, a few showers in the north, but really, overall, no bad day compared to what will happen on wednesday. low—pressure sweeps in, bringing a wet day on wednesday for many parts of the country. on thursday we develop a northerly wind and it will be quite noticeable right across the uk, particularly across the north of scotland and along the north sea coast. this is looking at the weather into the following weekend. the same sort of weather, unsettled, on the cool side, with rain at times. goodbye. this is bbc news. at least 35 people have been killed in a bomb blast at a political gathering in pakistan. hundreds of supporters of niger's military coup protest outside the french embassy in niamey as france stops aid. president putin praises the might of russia's navy. but doesn't dismiss the idea of peace talks over ukraine. the uk's prime minister insists he's on the side of car—drivers — he wants �*anti—motorist�* measures reviewed. and in the women's world cup, in a last minute twist, colombia stun germany with a shock late win. we start this hour with some breaking news. at least 35 people are reported to have been killed in a blast during a rally organised by an islamist party in north—west pakistan. this footage has come in to us in the last hour showing the aftermath and ambulances carrying injured people to hospital. we know dozens of others were injured in the explosion in bajaur district. it happened at a political rally. no organisation has yet claimed to have carried out the attack. with more on this, let's cross to the newsroom and our south asia editor, anbarasan ethirajan.