Fact: Ah-ha
Formed in 1982 in Oslo by Magne Furuholmen, Pål Waaktaar (now Paul Waaktaar-Savoy) and Morten Harket. Became world stars in 1984 with the synth-pop “Take on me” whose half-animated music video received a lot of attention.
Has released eleven studio albums and has sold over 100 million records over the years. In 1991, entered the Guinness Book of Records when they gathered 198,000 visitors at the Maracanã in Rio, and the record stood for 26 years. Have gone our separate ways and reunited several times. “Take on me” currently has over 1.5 billion views on Youtube.
Current with the new album “True north” and with a film of the same name.
A-ha recorded their new album “True north” in Bodø nine miles north of the arctic circle, live together with the northern Norwegian symphony orchestra Arctic Philharmonic. A lavish film of the same name depicts both the filming and the magnificent landscape around Bodø.
The idea comes from A-ha member Magne Furuholmen, who calls the project a tribute poem from northernmost Norway. For frontman Morten Harket, the origin was that Furuholmen presented him with a new song and asked if he wanted to join in and sing.
— I thought it was an inspired piece. It felt good, he says.
For falsetto king Mortet Harket, the album recording was technically demanding. It was not easy to record live, in the middle of a large symphony orchestra, without control over sounds and elements while making everything look right in a purely cinematic way.
“It was actually quite painful,” he says.
Magne Furuholmen, Morten Harket and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy in A-ha. Press image. Does not write to A-ha
When it comes to the theme and lyrics, he refers to the two bandmates, who each wrote half. He himself stays away from songwriting in A-ha these days.
— I have many of my own songs that could have been included, but I’ve learned over the years that that doesn’t really work. I’m perfectly content to just answer what the other two are doing. As for my own music, it’s better for me to free it from the band and do my own thing, says Harket.
The members of A-ha are not exactly friends. In fact, they don’t hang out with each other at all and can barely stay in the same room. Communication usually takes place via e-mail.
Nevertheless, they have managed to record eleven albums together and reunited several times – most recently in 2015. Morten Harket likens the band to a long and complicated marriage.
Break from each other
— It is not just the relationship between the three of us that is at stake. It’s also about the individual relationships to everything we do – to the media, to the audience, to each other. All that. You keep at it as long as you feel it’s worth the effort, he says.
— But sometimes we have to take a break and do something else. As long as A-ha lives and breathes, none of us can really get involved in anything else because A-ha comes before everything.
They have no joint plans after the new record. The band has just been on tour for five months, which was at its best, Harket thinks.
— It was the longest we’ve done in a very long time. It was because there was so much to catch up on after the pandemic. All in all, it was five tough and demanding months, but at the same time it felt good to complete it. Now I am recovering.
“Real shit”
Last year, Morten Harket appeared in the British edition of the TV hit “Masked singer”, dressed as a viking. The panel on the show had a lot of trouble figuring out who was hiding in the Viking outfit. Even when Harket sang his own mega hit “Take on me” it didn’t ring any bells.
— I thought it would feel like real crap, that I would hate it and that it would be very uncomfortable. And it was, too. That’s why I thought it would be a good thing for me to do, explains the singer.
In 2020, the music video for “Take on me” passed one billion views on Youtube. Morten Harket did not note the milestone with much enthusiasm, he says, and states that the almost 40-year-old hit song lives its own life.
— It is its own universe and it has nothing to do with us really. It’s like our catalog is split in half. On one side is “Take on me” and on the other everything else that we have done.