Last night, the German Kabel Eins show‘Number One!’ featured a 45-minute documentary about a-ha. Much of the documentary footage was filmed in fall 2009, after a-ha announced their intention to retire. In separate interviews, Morten, Magne and Paul talk about their history together, career milestones, their reasons for ending a-ha now, and more. Here are some highlights from the interviews, as well as links to watch the clips online for those who missed the broadcast.
When asked why the band is calling it quits now, Paul said,“Every album is quite hard to make…we go through a big process, and we don’t make it easy on ourselves. It’s a lot of tugging and pulling. So I think maybe that was the biggest thing…It’s not creative anymore in a way, that becomes too desctructive.”
Was the decision to end a-ha mutual among the three members, or were there any opponents?
“If there was an opponent, it was probably me, because I was sort of halfway into the next album and writing for that. So I kind of advocated doing one more album. But having said that I am kind of excited. There’s lots of other stuff we can do, and that’s exciting.”
When you look back now at 25 years of a-ha, what is the first thing that comes to your mind as a resume?
“For me it is always linked to the albums and the music, and that’s like a scrapbook for me. Every song you wrote brings back a memory of that time, it’s like a picture book. Every album has a very distinct flavor, and it feels like we did quite a lot. We really got to live a boy’s adventure tale. We went round the world many times, we got to record in lots of different places, we got to see and meet everybody. Best thing of all, I met my wife right before it all started, so I got to share the whole thing with her. So it is linked to a lot of good memories.”
If you could desribe a-ha in one sentence, what would that be?
“Three solo artists.”
Paul also talked about songwriting, the band’s musical influences and the beginning of a-ha.
Paul interview, part one|Paul interview, part two
Morten talks about the‘Take on Me’ success:
“The only regret, when you have success like that, is that you don’t get to prove that you would have been a success without it. I have many times wished that we came out as a band before videos started to become important. Which was exactly when we started.”
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“I would have liked to have been in a band, for instance, 10 or 15 years earlier, or 20 years earlier for that matter, where the focus would be much more on audio so to speak, much more than it was in our time.”
Morten also talks more about the three releases of‘Take on Me’ and the importance of having the right promotion plan and a record label fully behind them.
Magne discusses‘The Living Daylights’, the Rock in Rio concert, and the mechanics of the music industry.
“When you’re hot, you’re hot, and when you’re not, you’re not. Every young kid that asks me for advice, I say it’s hard to give them because it is not what you want to hear. You’re just lucky to be there one day, and the next day even luckier to be there.”
About the breakup in 1993, Magne says:
“I think we all felt a little bit battle fatigued. I know certainly from my point of view, I was really sick of fame. I got to a point where you understand why people get lost with their success. Success stops meaning something to you, it becomes something that empties you out, instead of fills you.”
“It’s hard for people to understand if you haven’t been in that position. It’s interesting because I had a long talk with Chris Martin about that in Barcelona a few weeks ago. And I said that, I said you have to find a way back into enjoying going on stage every night. Because you put out so much energy that in the end you stop taking something back. And when you stop taking something back, it gradually hollows you out and takes things out of you.”
“You can be at the top of your game– I mean you can’t be much bigger than Coldplay are at the moment– you can be at the top of your game and not enjoy yourself. And it’s a scary thing because you create that world yourself, you do everything you can to make it happen. And when it does happen, all of the sudden the feeling gets lost, you get the sense of why did I do this? Why was this meaningful to me? And sometimes you have to step on the sand castle to start again.”
Fans in Germany can access all the interview clips viaKabeleins.de. Outside Germany, a selection of clips is availablehere.
