Norwegian hitmakers A-ha can now speak of “40 years down the line”, with plenty of listeners who weren’t even a twinkle in their first flush of stardom. Carl Marsh chats to Magne ‘Mags’ Furuholmen, the man behind that keyboard hook in Take On Me…

So then, Mags – July sees A-ha taking over our iconic Cardiff Castle, built nearly a thousand years ago when, if the Vikings had reached the capital of Wales, wouldn’t have had easy access to it. Clearly, we’ve softened over the years…

[Laughs] I don’t know my Viking history well enough to know what the last visit was like, but if it’s a thousand years old, then that’s probably around the time we were being a little more forceful in our way across the British Isles. So I think we’re a little bit more polite this time around.

We’ve always enjoyed coming to Wales and playing. It’s a beautiful country, and we’ve always had really nice fans from there. So I’m glad we got that included in the UK tour. Because of the pandemic, the routing is completely off the charts. We’ve been to South America, we’re going back to Brazil, we’ve been to LA, then we’re going back to LA! Even in Europe, we had to go from Berlin to Hamburg, then back to Berlin to go the other way around. It’s just a logistical nightmare these days because every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to be out touring. But I’m super happy that we are going to make it to Cardiff.

Sounds like a bloody nightmare for you and your tour crew, but problems like getting venues are the aftermath of two years of lockdowns, and artists can’t help these issues.

Yeah, it goes for everyone. But on the upside, I think the audiences are gagging for it. They’ve been waiting for two years, probably, in many places, holding on to tickets. So you feel a lot of love from them when you’re up there. And then some new places have been added in – I don’t actually remember if Cardiff was on the original tour?

It wasn’t!

But, either way, it’s a nice thing for us to do on this round.

“Every time there’s a video that sort of looks like Take On Me, A-ha fans are pretty aggressive about pointing it out. We have our own little police force”

Mags Furuholmen, A-ha

I’m of an age to qualify as an original A-ha fan from when you hit the big time in 1985. Yet my daughter loves your music too – she discovered it on YouTube or TikTok. You all must love that your fans come in all age ranges, appreciate the music, and are not just middle-aged like we are?

We actually find that the audiences have a surprisingly high number of young faces out there. It does feel like something is going on in that regard. There was a mother who was there with her daughter, and she said, “you know, I’ve been a massive fan my whole life” – and now her daughter was a huge A-ha fan too. Of course, I made the mistake of saying, “well, that’s borderline child abuse!” [laughter] Plugging A-ha records to her children from the get-go! But she said, “No, no, she’s found it out all by herself – being honest, I hadn’t been playing you guys for a long time, and had kind of been less passionate about music for a while, and then my daughter reintroduced me to that”.

Part of it is probably because our music has been featured in films quite a lot over the last five, six, seven years. And I think many artists have been very gracious about being inspired by A-ha, and then pointing that out to fans. And then, you know, word spreads. Every time there’s a video that sort of looks like Take On Me, A-ha fans are pretty aggressive about pointing it out. “Oh, this was A-ha that started this…” [Laughs] Or if it sounds a little bit like something we’ve done, you know? We have our own little police force, schooling young kids of where it came from originally.

For whatever reason, it’s nice to have that, but obviously, we appreciate people our own age who grew up with A-ha and have stories about how the music helped them through various periods of their lives. It’s a good feeling to get, because we’re not actively recruiting in the sense that we’re not promoting or doing a lot of high-profile stuff other than the touring. So the fact that they come to us for the music, and that it lives on, is very gratifying.

In those early years, the era of Take On Me hitting the charts, I recall either you or Morten admitting that you were reluctant pop stars?

Well, I think there was a period when we were desperate to get out of the basement and onto the world stage. Just being recognised as big news was kind of our ambition, I guess. But all along, I think we’ve had this really quirky and maybe slightly unusual music: I’ve always felt that. And then you have Morten’s voice, that mitigates that and brings people in. Those key elements are part of what has made us. I feel extremely confident that if we didn’t have Morten’s voice, those records would have been smaller, indie records, you know what I mean?

I think we always tried to make meaningful music, whether we were in the mood to burst into the charts or we were ambitious as a stadium-bound band down the line. The basic principles of trying to make good quality music has always been the key element. And maybe that’s why, 40 years down the line, it finds a new audience or even maintains loyalty from fans over 40 years. It’s quite a unique thing, to be honest. To me, it’s more striking now than when we were 25; I think [at the time] we took things a little bit more for granted. But to go out there and see the joy you give to people, the meaning you’ve had in people’s lives, is a unique thing. You’ve just got to count yourself lucky that you got there.

And am I correct in saying that Morten insisted that your keyboard riff for Take On Me was on that record, or else he’d walk away from the band? Perhaps the reality wasn’t quite as dramatic as that…

No, I don’t think it was quite like that. I think we were experimenting with lots of different things, but we were writing new stuff all the time. Still, right in the beginning there was also the case of a back catalogue of songs, where we were trying to bring in what felt like the strongest material from the past year. But you’re right in the sense that that riff was something that stood out, as you know, and Morten then duly pointed out that this is very catchy. So, yeah, he was right!

I don’t envy you, what with having to select your setlist for the event in Cardiff, because it’s not like you’ve not had many album releases over the last 37 years now, is it…

Yeah, we’re right in the middle of augmenting the setlist – because we were on our anniversary tours, and many of these indoor and arena shows were billed as a celebration of [1985 debut album] Hunting High And Low. And it’s starting to feel a little bit like we should be moving on… Two years down the line, and then these new shows came up. So we’re going to make it a blend of old and new. And, of course, try to make it as good as we can.

A-ha, Cardiff Castle, Tue 5 July

Tickets: £45. Info: here

words CARL MARSH