The Ark was a Swedish glam rock band formed in 1991 by Mikael Jepson (better known as "Jepson") and Lasse ("Leari") Ljungberg, Ola Salo and Leari being only fourteen years old at the time. In 1996 The Ark released an EP featuring four songs, of those "Racing With The Rabbits" being the most known. The EP gained very little success in both critical and commercial sense. Martin Axén officially joined the band in 1997, and Sylvester Schlegel in 1999. In late 2005, Jens Andersson joined The Ark as an official member. He had at that point played live with the band for several years.

Ola salo was the main song-writer of the group and his lyrics have sometimes been seen controversial. For example, the 2002 single "Father of a Son" is about homosexuals’ right to adopt. In October 2006, the band was criticized by members of the U.S. public for some controversial comments referring to the September 11, 2001 attacks that were apparently part of the joking banter between songs as the band performed at the opening festivities for the new Swedish embassy in Washington, D.C. [1]