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Somehow I missed this when it was first broadcast, but Magne was interviewed on NRK P2’s radio programme “Mozart og Madonna” on June 15th.

The theme of the week was England, and Magne had been invited to talk about how a-ha went to London to make it in the music business. He says that staying in London had an important impact on Paul and himself as musicians:

“We discovered and opened up to more commercial music than what we had listened to before. We were rather stuck in the sixties, in a way. We had noticed punk music and thought it was cool, but we tried our best to hold onto the sixties-sound in the music we did ourselves.”

This month’s promotional push in the UK was also mentioned:

“We’re going to play and talk our way through July in London. There’s a surprising amount of interest and love directed towards the band over there these days.”

I have made a full translation of the interview, which can be found here.

And if you want to listen to it yourself, the June 15th programme is available for download from nrk.no as a podcast. The interview starts after 9 minutes.