2013 marks the 20th anniversary of the release of Memorial Beach, regarded by many fans to be a-ha’s perhaps best album.
Recorded with producer David Z at Paisley Park near Minneapolis, the album was a continuation of the organic sound on East Of The Sun, but more guitar-based and largely recorded live.
I recently re-read an interview with Paul from Norwegian music paper Puls in June 1993, which I thought I’d share with my readers by translating it. I don’t think it has been posted online before. In the interview, Paul talks about the recording sessions at Paisley Park, the challenging mixing process in New York and his songwriting in general.
“Memorial Beach is full of high-tech, but the recording itself went by very quickly. Never more than two takes, David Z wouldn’t allow more than that. So we had to rehearse a lot in advance, and I think this had a very positive impact on the final result. ‘Let’s knock his socks off!’, Paul says in the Puls interview.
Read the whole translated interview here: The new a-ha is born