All tight T-shirt and bulging biceps, Morten Harket looks more like a veteran
baseball player than a Nordic pop god as he pads into the bar of a swish
central London hotel. Now 49, he doesn’t wear those funny leather things
around his wrists any more. It’s just the lustrous hair and those
(suspiciously unravaged?) cheekbones that mark him out as the singer with
A-ha — still easily Norway’s most successful musical export.
Yet popstatic adulation never sat easily with Harket and his bandmates Magne
Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy. Even in the mid-Eighties, when they were
slaying teenage girls all over Europe with their flawless bone structure,
glittering pop gems such as Take on Me and The Sun Always Shines
on TV and groundbreaking comic-strip videos, inside they were riven by
good old-fashioned Scandinavian turmoil.
“We were just torn heavily in two opposing directions,” admits Harket, who
ponders every question with furrowed-brow intensity. “We were very
ambivalent about being pop stars even then. So we started doing the opposite
of what would get us a chart hit.” Such anti-commercial perversity didn’t do
them any harm in Norway, where they enjoy U2-style rock-statesmen status.
But it meant that we didn’t see too much of them on these shores.
That began to change with their 2005 album Analogue, which featured Graham
Nash of Crosby, Stills and Nash on backing vocals and whose title track
became their first UK Top Ten hit since 1988. It turned out that it wasn’t
just girls who had loved A-ha, as other celebrity fans such as Chris Martin
nailed their colours to the mast. “Although I don’t how vocal he was in the
Eighties,” Harket smiles. “A lot of people were closet fans.”
The trio’s return to the bosom of the UK, where all once made their home,
takes another step with the release of Foot of the Mountain, which revisits
the soaring, melancholic synth-pop melodies with which they made their name.
“The similarities are the immediate thing that strike you,” agrees Harket,
whose rumoured five-octave range (“I’ve never counted, quite honestly”)
sounds in fine fettle a year short of his 50th birthday.
Age has not dented his virility. Last September his personal assistant Inez
Andersson gave birth to their daughter Karmen Poppy, which makes him the
father of five children by three women. His two bandmates have three between
them: “I’m the promiscuous one!”
Fatherhood has not eased band friction: “With three of us together you do have
something to deal with.” That might explain why Waaktaar-Savoy lives in New
York, while Harket and Furuholmen remain in Oslo. But they’re still
together, making new music, which is better going than most Eighties’
outfits. And, as Harket says: “It was about time we reached out a little
more.” -
A-ha play the iTunes Live festival on July 24. Foot of the Mountain is
released on July 27
Name your favourite . . .
Famous Norwegians
Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer Famous Noggies? Let’s start with football. [former
Manchester United striker] Solskjaer is an obvious choice: it’s the momentum
of his legacy. We’re a small nation, just 4.5 million people, so for someone
to do what he has done creates some waves. He conducts himself admirably as
well.
Thor Heyerdahl He’s the other immediate one that springs to mind. He
passed away a few years ago. Mr Kon-Tiki? Yes. See, why would you know? But
you do. A lot of the theories that he was proposing are today put aside, but
he was an impressive man.
Vocalists
Sam Cook, Otis Reading, Otis Rush They all inspired me, and helped me
to be playful.
Freddie Mercury A great range, and also a great approach to singing. He
knew how to use the stage, he knew how to use the media — by not taking it
seriously, by understanding how unimportant it really was. I think he was a
deeply honest man. I never met him properly but he was a good friend of my
former manager, who always loved him.
Christine McVie Although a lot of people regard her as a great singer,
but I still think she’s underestimated. Her ability to express things, the
sheer beauty of her singing: she has definitely influenced me.
Bob Dylan He’s making use of that fact that he doesn’t have a classic
singing voice, so he might as well mock it. It’s almost cartoonish.
Artists
Egon Schiele Why? Isn’t that obvious? He is a brilliant painter: very
simple lines, three-dimensional shapes, but very expressive. It’s just done
with an outline, but I really respond to it.
Magne Furuholmen Magne has always been central to A-ha. He is by far
the most playful of the three of us, the most impulsive, and he has very
strong instincts. He has developed so much as an artist. Some of his work
really hits me, other stuff not so much. He’s always had that artistic
element to him, he’s always on a search. What I like about him is his
honesty and his determination to peel away anything that doesn’t belong.
What is the true essence of this or that? He never rests. It’s inspiring to
be around. He has an ability to carry things, though; I’m much more
laid-back.
Global issues
Climate change We’re scared now, terrified that something might be
going wrong here. It’s up to us how we want to deal with it, asking
ourselves what matters to us more and what we want to be. If we do decide to
do something, things can happen really fast. What would I do if I were a
politician? No 1: honesty. Go after the facts. Who are we? Who are the
media? Do we deal with them in an honest way? Would I like to go into
politics? [Says nothing and smiles.]
Albums
Rumours — Fleetwood Mac I’ve all of a sudden been picking up on
this again. It’s just a magic album: it’s a pop album but more than a pop
album. You knew it was a classic pretty early on.
Night at the Opera — Queen This was a real climax, although I
loved some of the earlier Seventies stuff too. What strikes me more than
anything else about Queen is character. Technical singing is secondary and
flamboyance doesn’t mean that much to me. Character is everything.
Anything by Jimi Hendrix This is difficult! Which album would I save if
my house was on fire? Oh no, I keep them in my heart; let them burn! It’s so
much easier to go back in time. The one artist that really afffected me was
Jimi Hendrix. It’s a different world, almost, what he did. The first song
that blew me away was Hey Joe. I bought it on vinyl at high school and I
never played it again because it really shook me. I realised that I knew
nothing.
