Archive for the ‘Morten’ Category

NDR2 and Brisant interviews

Interviewed on Brisant, March 30th

Morten has now done around 20 various media interviews in Germany this week.

Today he was a guest on NDR2 Radio in Hamburg, where he was met by a few contest winners.

Host Elke Wiswedel wanted to know if he’s able to connect with a live audience on a personal level when he’s doing concerts.

“What I would say is that I am not an entertainer. I am an engager. That is what is interesting for me, and it’s what attracts me to music. I’m not a sing and dance man, in a way. So it is intimate, it’s personal, it becomes private very quickly. And I am fascinated by this. So I do think that it is true that there is a personal level of contact, kind of with everyone there. But you can’t distinguish it”, Morten said.

There is a photo gallery from the radio visit at ndr.de, along with a short audio clip from the interview.

While at the radio station, he was also interviewed by TV news show Brisant. A video clip of the report can be seen here.

Afterwards, he decided to visit the Planten un Blomen botanical garden in Hamburg, with newspaper BILD. A short interview is now up on BILD‘s website.

The single “Scared of Heights” was released in Germany today. The music video can now be seen in high quality on YouTube, and don’t forget to order the CD single from amazon.de.

FFH and RPR1 radio interviews

Outside the FFH studios, March 28th 
(Picture by Silvia)

Morten continued the radio interviews in Germany yesterday.

In the morning he was a guest on FFH Radio in Bad Vilbel, where he was interviewed by Felix Moese. There are some photos from the visit on ffh.de. Outside the studio he was met by a group of fans. There is a gallery of photos on Flickr, taken by Silvia.

Later in the day he appeared on RPR1 Radio in Ludwigshafen with host Julian Krafftzig, where he was joined in the studio by two  fans who had won meet and greet tickets.

When asked about the lyrical topics on the new album, Morten said:

“Well, you don’t really have an agenda in topics. Maybe some people do. I never believe really, in telling people what to do. Topics are what life is about. So it will be existential issues. It will be obviously love, which is a central one, of this. Self-awareness. There is one exception to this, on this album. There is a political song, “Burn Money Burn”, which is really a song about values. But in general I don’t really believe in propaganda as a way. I believe in propaganda in that it works, I just don’t like the results of that. I believe in engaging people, trying to get people engaged in things that I think are important. But you need to find your own way. And that goes for all people.”

Audio clips and pictures from the RPR1 interview can be found at rpr1.de.

SWR1 radio interview

Interviewed on SWR1, March 27th 
(Picture from swr.de)

Morten is in Germany this week to promote his new solo album and yesterday he was interviewed by two shows on the radio station SWR1 Baden-Württemberg, with hosts Stefanie Anhalt and Günter Schneidewind.

“I was committed 100% to a-ha while we were together, and so I didn’t really plan for anything. There wasn’t any time. And I didn’t want to separate myself into two halves – one planning for other things. So I was 100% committed in a-ha, committing to this final year as well. But when I went off stage in December 2010, I took a very needed break for a little while. But I knew instinctively that I would be doing more. There were a lot of things that I felt like doing. But when you do music, you do what you believe in, you know. I’ve done that with a-ha, always, and you reach for the things you believe in. And that’s what I do now”, Morten told Stefanie Anhalt in the first interview.

There’s a photo gallery and audio clips from both interviews on swr.de.

A new TV-appearance has also been announced; on April 11th he is scheduled to be a guest on Thomas Gottschalk’s talkshow “Gottschalk Live” on ARD, which is broadcast from Berlin.

The “Scared of Heights” 2-track CD single will be released in Germany on Friday this week. It includes a “Stockholm Version” of the song and can be ordered from amazon.de. The CD single is also available at amazon.co.uk, but with a later release date.

Morten performs at Telenor Arena

Morten was one of the artists performing in front of 2000 people at Telenor Arena in Oslo yesterday, as part of a corporate event.

Other artists performing included Jahn Teigen, Vamp, Rita Eriksen and Vinni. This according to an update posted on Twitter by Rita Eriksen.

 

Meanwhile, the music video for Morten’s international single “Scared of Heights” premiered today. It can be seen on Universal Germany’s website. According to a-ha.com the video was shot in Berlin, directed by Wolf Gresenz and produced by Mutter & Vater Filmproduktion.

And amazon.de has now posted 30-second samples of all songs on the album. You can hear them here.

Extra concert in Oslo

Newspaper ad

Morten’s concert at Sentrum Scene in Oslo on September 14th has now sold out. Therefore an extra concert has been added on September 15th.

There will be a fan presale on Billettservice.no starting tomorrow at 9am CET, according to Morten’s official Facebook page.

 

In other news, the official website at mortenharket.com has now been updated with a new design. And apparently Morten will be a guest on Julian Krafftzig’s show on German radio station RPR1 next Wednesday, March 28th.

Morten interviewed, Oslo concert announced

Morten has recorded parts of the new album in this old farmhouse from the 17th century 
(Picture from Dagbladet)

Morten’s “Lightning”-single was released in Norway on Friday and can now be purchased from iTunes and other download shops. It can also be streamed in Spotify and Wimp.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the “Scared of Heights” 2-track CD single can now be pre-ordered from amazon.de, along with the Out Of My Hands album.

 

In connection with the “Lightning” single release, Morten has done a few Norwegian interviews in the last few days.

On Friday he was a guest on P4s Radiofrokost, where he talked about the new album and a variety of other topics. The complete 23-minute interview can be downloaded here.

Yesterday, there was a story on him in TV2’s Lørdagsmagasinet. The video clip can be seen on TV2.no or on YouTube.

There was also an interview in Dagbladet yesterday. Here are a few quotes:

“The collaboration with [Kent members] Jokke and Martin was very interesting on many levels, and I really like Kent. They are straight to the point, no bullshit, and they’re a friendly and seasoned bunch of guys. We wrote two of the songs on the album together, and there’s also an English version of “Kärleken Väntar”, for which I’ve written the English lyrics.”

“Burn Money Burn” is unavoidably a political song. It’s first and foremost about values, but there’s also a direct criticism of the money system we live by, which I quite frankly feel is extremely dangerous, because there are only certain values in life that can be measured in money.”

“I’m looking to find something new in myself by interacting with others. Incredibly exciting things can happen when different people come together, and that’s what I’m after. a-ha is also an example of this.”

“There are parts on this album that I feel are shamelessly commercial. And that’s fun. But the difference between a show like “Idol” and myself, is that they give people what they want, while I try to give people something they didn’t know they wanted. For me, that’s where pop music starts to get interesting.”

 

There was also an announcement made yesterday by a-ha.com, that Morten will do a solo concert at Sentrum Scene in Oslo on September 14th, as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of a-ha that weekend.

For more info about the events in September and a special fan pre-sale starting on Monday, check out this article on a-ha.com.

Morten and Tomine to appear in Mirror Mirror movie

The new fantasy movie Mirror Mirror, based on the story of Snow White and starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins, is set to premiere on March 30th.

According to TV2.no, both Morten and his 18 year old daughter Tomine are part of the cast that will provide the voices for the Norwegian-language version, entitled Lille speil på veggen der.

But which of the original characters they will lend their voices to, is not yet known. The trailer of the Norwegian version can be seen here.

Morten has previously appeared in the movies Kamilla og Tyven (1988), Kamilla og Tyven II (1989) and Yohan – Barnevandrer (2010), while Tomine is a veteran voice-over actress, having dubbed hundreds of cartoons and live-action shows over the years.

Morten appears in Stargate documentary

Morten made a small appearance in a new documentary about Stargate that aired on NRK1 in Norway last night.

But those of you now eager to hear Morten’s views on the Goa’uld System Lords or Samantha Carter’s theories on wormhole physics, will be disappointed.

The documentary was actually about the Norwegian producer duo Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen, also known as Stargate. Based in New York, they have enjoyed big success in the US in recent years, becoming the first Norwegians to top the Billboard Hot 100 since a-ha. Stargate have written and produced such #1 hits as “Irreplaceable” (Beyoncé), “Firework” (Katy Perry), “Rude Boy”, “Only Girl (In the World)” and “S&M” (Rihanna) and “Black and Yellow” (Wiz Khalifa).

“When these guys manage to top that chart, which is the most difficult chart in the world to enter and which is based on airplay/sales statistics among an enormous amount of people – that’s like the ultimate achievement, in competition with everyone else”, Morten says in the documentary.

“They’ve done something formidable, which should be celebrated”, he added.

As some of you may remember though, Morten and Magne have made less favourable comments on Stargate in the past.

“Personally, this is not music that I’ll care to spend any time on. Success on its own doesn’t impress me, but if on the other hand you’re successfull with something good, that will really impress me”, Magne told VG in 2006.

“There’s one side of the music business that’s pure industry, and one side that’s more focused on the musical content, and then you find yourself situated somewhere between those two extremes. a-ha and Stargate aren’t exactly positioned in the same place on that scale”, Morten said in the same 2006 interview.

As for Paul; as a fellow New Yorker, he is a good friend of the guys in Stargate. The song “Shadowside” on Foot Of The Mountain was written specifically for one of Stargate’s artists. Eventually it ended up as an a-ha song instead.

“But without Stargate I wouldn’t have written that song. I’m looking for challenges like that, as I’ll come up with material that I otherwise wouldn’t have written”, Paul said in 2009.

The Stargate documentary can now be seen on NRK’s web-TV, but only within Norway.

Interview with Just Loomis

Acclaimed photographer Just Loomis, known for his past work with a-ha, teamed up with Morten again in Los Angeles last year to take the cover- and press photos in connection with Morten’s upcoming solo album Out Of My Hands.

I recently had the chance to ask him some questions about those photo sessions. Loomis also shared his thoughts on the trip he did with Morten to Jamaica, seeing a-ha live on the Farewell Tour and visiting Norway for the first time last year.

Read the full interview here.

Album tracklist

The tracklist for Out Of My Hands has now been posted on Morten’s official site:

1. Scared of Heights 
2. Keep the Sun Away 
3. Lightning 
4. I’m the One 
5. Quiet 
6. Burn Money Burn 
7. When I Reached the Moon 
8. Listening 
9. Just Believe it 
10. Out of my Hands 

“When I Reached The Moon” (aka. “When I Reach The Moon”) is a previously unreleased song from the Wild Seed-era that Morten has performed live on occasion.

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