Did Robert Plant Really Go to a Sex Club With Members of ABBA?
It seems like a tall tale, but then again, the story came from the mouth of someone who reached the greatest heights of rock ’n’ roll excess – so perhaps there’s some truth.
Did Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page end up drinking in a club with Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA while live sex shows took place around them? If they did, the setting was in 1978 at Stockholm, Sweden, Plant happily divulged in a 2005 Swedish TV interview.
He was certainly in an impish mood, suggesting that he was “very active” as a young man and liked to “work out in cheap motels.” Plant also referred to the game of tennis as “another excuse for wife-swapping,” and invited the female interviewer to “join me” inside a small hat.
“Now, I used to know Benny and Bjorn very well,” Plant also tells her in the clip below. “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.”
The interviewer exclaims, “Now you’re just lying!” Plant replies: “I swear! It was called a [dramatic pause] sex club.” He said the Abba duo would “substantiate” his story if they were invited onto the show, then turned to the camera. “You remember that, Benny and Bjorn?” Plant asks, with a wagging finger. “We used to run away from your women!”
Plant didn’t go so far as to suggest they’d partaken in anything other than booze. By this point, he had cleaned up his act following the 1977 death of young son Karak. Andersson was then ABBA bandmate Anni-Frid Lyngstad's husband, while Ulveus and Frida’s co-singer Agnetha Faltskog were also married.
Watch Robert Plant Reveal Sex Club Visit with ABBA Members
Page later confirmed at least part of the story, while discussing ABBA's personal invitation for Led Zeppelin to record In Through the Out Door at their Polar Studios.
“The studio was only known for ABBA, and they wanted an internationally known rock group to record there,” Page told Classic Rock in 2015. “We had a chat and they said they’d be generous with studio time. We went out there in December, I think. It was biting cold, snow everywhere.
“I met Bjorn when I was setting up,” Page added. “He gave me a guitar, which was very sweet. A day later I met Benny. … At the time, Benny was still married to Frida. So we all went out to a club together one night. They were nice people.” He added that he didn’t encounter the fourth ABBA member, saying: “I was rather hoping we were going to meet Agnetha, but that wasn’t part of the deal!”
ABBA recently returned to the fore with Voyage, their first album in four decades. The band has never spoken about the sex-club rumor, except through a spokesperson’s comment following Plant's TV interview.
The brief statement said: "They've never been at any sex club with Robert Plant.”
Top 100 '70s Rock Albums
Why Don't More People Love This Zeppelin Album?