Ola Salo (born Rolf Ola Anders Svensson; 19 February 1977) is a Swedish rock musician, and the lead vocalist of Swedish

glam rock Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...

band The Ark.

Early life

He lived in Rottne,

Växjö Municipality Växjö Municipality (''Växjö kommun'') is a municipality in Kronoberg County in southern Sweden, where Växjö is the seat. The municipality was created in 1971 by the amalgamation of the ''City of Växjö'' with the surrounding municipalities ...

, in Sweden when he was a child, where, in 1991, he and his friends Jepson and Leari officially started the band The Ark.

Career

Salo and the other members of the band had an international breakthrough in 2000 with the album We Are The Ark, containing the signature song " It Takes a Fool to Remain Sane" (for which Ola won a

Grammis The Grammis are music awards presented annually to musicians and songwriters in Sweden. The oldest Swedish music awards, they were instituted as a local equivalent of the Grammy Awards given in the United States. The awards ceremony is generall ...

for "Song of the Year"), a song Salo wrote after watching the Danish film ''

Idioterne ''The Idiots'' ( da, Idioterne) is a 1998 Danish dark comedy-drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto, and is also known as Dogme #2. It is the second film in von Tr ...

'' (The Idiots). In October 2006 during a party celebrating the new Swedish embassy in Washington, D.C., The Ark was performing on stage. As a plane was flying very low overhead Salo said "In this country, you don't know where those planes are headed. Well, this one seems to be heading in the right direction anyway..." meaning the airport, but then suddenly adding "...to the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

" which happened to be in the same direction. This caused controversy as many newspapers reported that Salo had "wished an airplane to crash into the White House". Salo later said that it was a bad joke, "totally unserious way of being cheeky toward the White House" and not a political statement. The band ended up cancelling almost its entire U.S. tour. On 10 March 2007, Salo and the band The Ark won

Melodifestivalen 2007 Melodifestivalen 2007 was the selection for the 47th song to represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was the 46th time that this system of picking a song has been used. Five heats took place to select the ten songs for the final, in J ...

and went on to represent Sweden in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2007 The Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Helsinki, Finland, following the country's victory at the with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" by Lordi. Organised by the European Broadcasti ...

with the song "The Worrying Kind", where, in which they came 18th with 51 points. In 2008, Salo translated Andrew Lloyd Webber's

Jesus Christ Superstar ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' is a sung-through rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. Loosely based on the Gospels' accounts of the Passion, the work interprets the psychology of Jesus and other characters, with ...

into Swedish for a performance in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

where he played the role of Jesus, and as a result he stated that "2008 will be a very quiet year" for The Ark after a hectic 2007 with the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

and the release of Prayer for the Weekend. In 2009. Salo featured on the Empire Dogs' album, ''Come On You Preachers''. In 2018, he participated in the first season of Stjärnornas stjärna on

TV4 TV4 or TV 4 may refer to: *TV4 (Poland), a private Polish television station *TV4 (Sweden), a Swedish television network **TV4 Group, owners of the Swedish television station *South African Broadcasting Corporation TV4, a channel operated by the st ...

. In 2019, Salo opened his headline residency ''It takes a fool to remain sane'' in the

Rondo The rondo is an instrumental musical form introduced in the Classical period. Etymology The English word ''rondo'' comes from the Italian form of the French ''rondeau'', which means "a little round". Despite the common etymological root, rondo ...

, (

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

), directed by

Edward af Sillén Edward af Sillén (born 1982 in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil) is a Swedish screenwriter and director for stage, film and TV. He has translated and directed many highly successful theatre shows including ''Twelfth Night'' by William Shakespea ...

Personal life

Salo is openly

bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

Discography

Albums

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salo, Ola 1977 births Bisexual men Bisexual musicians Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2007 LGBT singers from Sweden Living people People from Växjö Swedish male musicians Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Sweden English-language singers from Sweden The Ark (Swedish band) members