ABBA guitarist Lass Wilander has died at the age of 70

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By Caroline Thayer, Fox News

April 10, 2023 | 1:40 p.m

Swedish pop group ABBA mourns the death of one of them.

The group announced on their social media that guitarist Lacey Wilander has passed away. He was 70 years old.

Lacey was a dear friend, a fun man and an amazing guitarist. Members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad and Benny Andersson value his creative contribution in the recording studio, as well as his work on hard rock guitar on stage.

“We mourn his tragic and untimely death and remember the kind words, sense of humor, smiling face, and musical brilliance of the man who was instrumental to ABBA’s story.”

“We will miss him terribly and never forget,” the pop stars wrote under a black and white photo of Loylander performing with the band.

Born in the small Swedish village of Skrekarhyttan, Wilander dabbled in music at an early age, learning to play the guitar after watching The Beatles performances on TV in 1963.

Wellander joined ABBA in 1974, after Björn and Benny inquired if he would be interested in playing guitar for their group.

“I thought it was going to be big, very early on,” Wilander said of ABBA’s potential. “Powerful songs all the way through. Even the simple pop numbers were top quality. One of the first tracks I recorded with them was ‘Know Me, I Know You’. I think that’s still one of the best songs over the years,” he said. Guitar World last year.

“We were a nucleus of musicians. It wasn’t a full-time job working with ABBA — and sometimes I couldn’t play, so Janne Schaffer was called on and vice versa. And if Rutger [Gunnarsson] He was on tour doing something else, Mike Watson was playing bass. So it wasn’t a full time job. If you’re in northern Sweden, you probably didn’t come down to Stockholm to do just one trail. But I belong to the nucleus of musicians from 1974 onwards,” he said.

Wilander enjoyed playing all of ABBA’s music, but said, “I loved ‘Eagle’ because I had such a long guitar solo on that song… I was most looking forward to that number. It was amazing to be on the road. We played six days at Wembley Arena, with a stadium complete “.

His most recent collaborations with ABBA included the soundtrack to the song “Mamma Mia!” And “Mama Mia! here we go again” as well as ABBA’s Voyage album, which will be released in November 2021.

When ABBA stopped recording new music and going on tour, Wilander says he sought to work with other groups.

“I’d been working with a lot of other bands and sessions, TV jobs and nightclubs and theaters, so I just got back into work. I played with four different groups through the ’80s.

Wellander has also worked on and released his own music.