a-ha frontman Morten Harket “never doubted” the group would land massive success with their debut album ‘Hunting High and Low’.
Recorded at Eel Pie Studios in Twickenham, London, and produced by Tony Mansfield, John Ratcliff and Alan Tarney, the LP arrived in October 1985 and featured the hit singles Take On Me and The Sun Always Shines On T.V.
Celebrating the release of a six-disc vinyl box set, featuring demos, extended versions, alternate mixes, and B-sides, Morten looks back on the creation of the record in RETROPOP’s April 2023 issue, admitting: “It’s funny, I feel that it’s out of my hands because it was a long time ago.
“Of course, I played my part in it and did my thing, but then it becomes not what you imagine – it becomes itself. One can only feel good about that, of course.”
Formed in Oslo, Norway in 1982, Morten, along with guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, keyboard player Magne Furuholmen, relocated to London to work on material for a-ha’s first LP – a process that saw them refine the band’s sound.
“You discover it and you listen to it and you hear it. It’s a combination of a number of things,” he reflects. “It was a spirit. The way it’s performed, sonically, and the synth treatment it’s given.”
The band is known for the infamous feuds between its members, with plenty of bickering having gone on behind the scenes throughout the years, but they were never so united as at the very beginning when, as Morten admits, they had everything to prove.
“There’s a power struggle, which is between the minds of all three of us individually, but at the same time a deep respect for what a-ha is and what makes something a-ha,” he muses. “When does something become a-ha?”
So what does make a record an a-ha record? “The fact that it’s genuine; it’s not trying to be something, it just is,” he says. “That doesn’t mean we hit the mark everywhere on it, but we just had so much to give and so much to offer, and it was all waiting to happen. We just needed the means or setting where it could happen.”
Upon its release, ‘Hunting High and Low’ entered the global Top 20, charting on the Billboard 200, hitting No. 2 in the UK and topping the charts in their native country.
Did they expect those levels of success? Morten smiles: “Quite frankly, yes. It was natural, because I never doubted those things. I knew that it would be unavoidable, given that we just needed to work to a position where it was possible to do what we were supposed to do. And then it would just unfold itself.”
‘Hunting High and Low’ 6LP box set is out now on BMG.
Read the full interview in the April 2023 edition of RETROPOP, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
