Though the story’s been floating around for at least 20 years, the Internet was once again reminded yesterday that Ace Of Base’s Ulf Ekberg was maybe, sort of, kind of a neo-Nazi when he was younger. Noisey published a story saying that the Swede—now a businessman working with companies like Nokia, BMW, and IBM—was once part of a skinhead musical group called Commit Suicide. Noisey also alleged that Ekberg was a member of the Swedish Democrats, a group founded by Nazis and with noted connections to hate groups.
As it turns out, Noisey may have acted a bit hastily in ringing the alarm bells over a member of a band no one’s thought about in years. In an interview with E! posted this morning, Ekberg denies he was ever associated with the Swedish Democrats—calling it a “factual error”—though he admits he did make some mistakes in his whimsical Nordic youth, calling some of the thoughts he had at that time "nauseating." He told E!, “I have always been deeply regretful of that period in my life, as I strive to bring happiness to people, and during that period I did not live up to that standard.” He also goes on to reiterate that “Ace Of Base never shared any of these opinions and strongly oppose all extremist opinions on both the right and left wing.” In case that wasn't already obvious from the group's incredibly innocuous music.
Ekberg insists that, while he was a member of a group called Commit Suicide, his Commit Suicide was a synth act with the comically named duo of Jens Andersson and Jens Svensson—not the skinhead band of the same name, whose demo has been circulating for years. Confusingly, two of his band’s tracks are on that circulating demo, but only because they’ve been mistakenly lumped in with the other band’s tracks and mislabeled, something that almost never happens on the Internet.