That period of downtime waiting for travelling restrictions to be lifted proved a fertile one for the band as all three have been writing prolifically Note tour – but the Scandinavian trio are, to coin a phrase from one of theirįuruholmen was the instigator of the break-up 12 years ago – suggestingĭuring the hiatus there was more chance of ABBA getting back together – but when the opportunity to appear at Rock in Rio in 2015 became irresistible they all set sail on the latest a-ha voyage.Ī new a-ha album came out that same year – Cast in Steel – followed by an acclaimed MTV Unplugged recording in 2017 and a hugely successful world tour that ultimately took three years to complete due to the pandemic. The decision to apparently split up for good after 2010’s Ending On a High They have veered off course a few times between 2006 and now – notably A lifetime achievement award from Q magazine in 2006 – on the back of a first UK Top 10 hit since 1988 the previous year with Analogue (All I Want) cemented a restorative path that continues with the release of True North this month. Yet nearly four decades on, a-ha no longer need to plead to be taken seriously.
I think the second album ( Scoundrel Days) – lauded as it has been over the years as one of the seminal albums – set a different tone than our American record company was expecting.” “It was an odd song for a single with the 6/4 and the 4/4 (time signatures), and the quiet section and the rocky section, but we just felt it was important to show the breadth of our creativity at that point. We made creative decisions and Manhattan Skyline was one we insisted should be a single – we had the power at that point to influence the choice of the record company. Talking to the New European ahead of the new album’s release, Furuholmen ponders: “I think were looking for a Take On Me part two, to be honest, but we’d moved on by then – for better or worse. Unreasonable desire to be taken more seriously as a band made that limelight fleeting in the States. A lengthy spell in NorthĪmerica in 1986 appeared to cement their popularity there, but the not Particular saw a-ha in far less nuanced terms. Let ourselves be photographed in the most humiliating setting.”Īs had happened earlier to ABBA, while parts of Europe feted them for smuggling Scandinavian angst into the pop charts, the UK and USA in No matter how cheesy we thought it was, we turned up. We were very naïve about what we had to protect, what was unique about us.”įuruholmen added: “We just went with the flow and it’s nobody else’s fault that we became a teen band.
Remained in a way that none of us could identify with at all. They did any impressions (“no”) and to name their favourite possessions (“I don’t really know… maybe my camera”).Īs Harket admits in a-ha: The Movie, released last year: “We ended up wrapped in packaging.
On YouTube, where the Take On Me video has racked up 1.5 billion views, you can watch them squirming on Saturday Superstore, being asked if
But just as Boy George quickly went from Vivienne Westwood-clad outsider style icon to guest star on The A-Team, a-ha soonįound themselves locked in a regular flow of uncomfortable-looking photoshoots for teen magazines and popular music publications like Smash Heep and found themselves rubbing up against the heroes of the New It was perplexing for a group that had arrived in London in the early 1980s touting heavyweight influences like the Velvet Underground and Uriah
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