The A*Teens were just as surprised by their 2024 reunion as fans.
“We never, ever thought that we would ever get back together again,” Marie Serneholt exclusively tells Us Weekly in a new interview. “And then when we did that, we never, ever thought we would release more music again.”
Fast-forward two years, and the pop group is in the midst of a full-on comeback, with their first single in more than two decades, “Iconic,” hitting No. 1 in their native Sweden last month.
“We’re like, ‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe we get to do this!’” Sara Lumholdt marvels of their second chance at fame. “We are appreciative because we do have regular lives, we have families, we live across the world. We get to get together and bring some magic and feel proud of what we’re doing again.”
Serneholt, 42, Lumholdt, 41, Dhani Lennevald and Amit Paul founded the A*Teens as an ABBA tribute band in 1998. They started releasing original music, including hit singles “Upside Down” and “Floorfiller,” by 2000 but split in 2004.
Then, in 2023, Serneholt decided to reach out to her former bandmates with a dinner invitation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their formation.
“It was more about getting together just on a personal level and reconnecting,” Lennevald, 41, explains to Us, “but then everything came [together] piece by piece, and it was kind of like a seed was planted.”
Within a matter of weeks, the A*Teens found themselves back on stage at the Swedish music competition Melodifestivalen, where they performed a medley of their old songs — while Lumholdt was eight months pregnant.
“I was really glad to hear that we were in the first week [of Melodifestivalen 2024] because I couldn’t have gone longer,” she recalls. “I was quite emotional, to be honest, but it was a very, very cool thing to have done because I look back at it, and I see the performance, and I’m like, ‘Wow, that is [my son] Henry there.’”
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After Lumholdt gave birth, the group decided to keep the momentum going with an international tour, which made Lennevald realize “our fans still care 25 years later.”
All four members of the A*Teens are now in their 40s, but they say they never considered changing their name. (Some fans have joked they should go by A*Dults.)
“I think it’s weirder for everybody else than us,” Serneholt tells Us. “We are just so used to the name. It’s just everybody else seems to have a problem with it. We’re like, ‘We don’t really care!’ I mean, it’s a name that has been ours for so many years, and there’s no point in changing that. It’s an iconic name.”
The A*Teens released “Iconic” in January, one day before they returned to the Melodifestivalen stage — this time as competitors — for the song’s live debut. They made it to the finals in February, finishing in seventh place.
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“We are so proud of the legacy that we have, and it was super important for us that the new music would sound like A*Teens, but it had to be A*Teens 2026 and A*Teens in our 40s,” Serneholt shares. “That is just the perfect song for us, and [we are] super glad that we dared to take the chance to do new music. It’s been a ride.”
As for what’s next, Lennevald reveals to Us, “We’re gonna go into the studio extremely, extremely soon to do some recordings.” The band also would like to go on a U.S. tour, though they do not have anything official in the works just yet.
“We’re in a discussion with a booking team at the moment,” Lumholdt teases. “We’re in a position where [we’re like], ‘How can we fit it in the schedule? Should we pick, like, five cities? What is our game plan?’ Because we want to go there, but we also want to feel like it’s going to be the right spot, it’s going to be the right venue, the right position to be in, the right schedule in the timing of our lives.”
She adds, “It also takes a village to book this, so I hope and I think we’re gonna get there. … We want it to feel genuine, and we want to love it, and we want to enjoy every moment.”
