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Paul’s studio engineer Eliot Leigh has recently added a new bio page to his website, which includes the following piece of information:
Day to day, Eliot also works closely with A-Ha songwriter and guitarist Paul Waaktaar Savoy on all of his current projects, which include several new artists on major labels.
Exactly who these new artists are, remains to be seen…
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Memorial Beach (1993)
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
Posted in a-ha, Paul Tags: a-ha, memorial beach, paisley park, paul waaktaar-savoy Comments Off on From the archives: Paul on the Memorial Beach recording processEliot Leigh, who works as an engineer in Paul’s studio in SoHo, NY, has his own dubstep project called Infuze. Last November he released his debut EP called Far Away on Smog Records. In a recent interview with house music website icangiveyouhouse.com Leigh reveals that the vocal melody and lyrics of the title track were written by Paul and Lauren:
The title track of the EP features your own vocals. Was this the first time you’ve sang on one of your own songs? Where’d you get the pipes?
I work really closely in my day job as an engineer with a guy named Paul Waaktaar Savoy. He’s the songwriter/guitarist of the Norwegian band A-Ha. He wrote “Take On Me”, one of the biggest songs of all time. I played him the instrumental of Far Away and he suggested he and his wife Lauren have a go at writing a vocal. He’s got an unbelievable knack for melody and she for lyrics, and I really liked what they came up with, so I went home and demoed it with my own voice with the intention of finding another singer. So many people told me they liked the sound of my vocals that I decided to keep them! To be honest, I sung pretty seriously when I was kid in choirs and stuff, but I hadn’t used my voice in many, many years before this.
Here you can have a listen to the song:
The full 5-track EP, which also includes a radio edit of the same song, is available on iTunes, Beatport and Amazon.
No word yet on Paul’s own projects, but Leigh reportedly came over to Norway to do some work in Paul’s studio in Oslo a few weeks ago…
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Magne, Morten and Paul with their medals
The three members of a-ha were today appointed Knights First Class of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav for their “outstanding musical contribution”.
The invite-only ceremony was held at Gamle Logen in Oslo, and was attended by family, friends and fans.
The ceremony, which was broadcast live online, included music by a string quartet and speeches by Viggo Bondi (bassist in Bridges), Terry Slater (a-ha manager 1983-1994), Trond Giske (Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry) and Anders Flågen (representing the Royal Palace) who presented a-ha with their medals.
After receiving the medals, Morten spoke on behalf of the band. Here is a translation of his speech:
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Morten speaking
“If only I could have said as my aunt Magny, when the Mayor of Kristiansand told her that uncle Bernt would be awarded the King’s Medal of Merit.
“What was that?” I heard her say, as people around her started clapping.
“Bernt is to be awarded The King’s Medal of Merit”, someone repeated to her.
“Is that so? Then it can’t be very prestigious.”
[Audience laughing]
When Paul, Magne and myself set a course for England, we had great plans. But we didn’t imagine that 30 years later, we would be here at Gamle Logen to be appointed Knights. We had to leave Norway to become a-ha. Norway is a leader on natural resources, but not on refining them. That’s true within most fields, including our own. Talents have to be refined and managed. No one can succeed on their own. You need to have the right people around you. If you don’t find them here [in Norway], you have to leave in time. And here comes my little case in point:
We have great resources in Norway, not least of the human kind. But we have to focus more on the unknown, if we want to be part of discovering the future. If not, it will just be presented to us. In Norway we have an immature view on failure. It brings with it a sense of shame. We don’t like to take risks. Risk-taking is seen as irresponsible. We need a more realistic view of what it actually takes to succeed.
If there’s one reason to honour us here today, it has to be this: We have stayed true to what we believed in. Together and on our own. Congratulations guys!”
—————————
If you missed the live broadcast, it can be seen again at VG.no.
Related articles and video clips:
Heder for å gjøre det umulige mulig (Aftenposten)
Ridderlige a-ha (VG)
Kongens orden til kongene av pop (NRK)
Nå er de riddere av 1. klasse (Dagbladet)
A-ha fikk St. Olavs Orden (Adressa)
– Jeg er mer forlegen enn stolt (VG)
Morten Harket: Jeg føler meg stolt, men kanskje mest forlegen (Aftenposten)
A-ha hedret med St.Olavs Orden (TV2)
– Det bringer skam med seg å feile (Se og Hør)
A-ha hedret av Kongen (Budstikka)
Posted in a-ha, Magne, Morten, Paul Tags: magne furuholmen, morten harket, paul waaktaar-savoy, st. olav Comments Off on a-ha receive Royal Order of St. OlavSondre Lerche is currently touring in Norway. In an interview with newspaper Gjengangeren he mentions Paul, who he often meets up with in New York:
“It would have been fun to collaborate with Paul. He’s writing some great material at the moment and is showing no signs of slowing down, even though a-ha is history.”
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Picture by Jakob
During Saturday’s Q & A session, a fan wanted to know what Paul is up to these days.
Catherine from a-ha.com said:
“I actually have some information from Paul. He is really excited to be getting prepared to release some music very soon. He asked me to pass along his thanks to all of you for your interest in his projects. And I told him that we get a lot of questions on the website about what Paul is doing, and he was excited and glad to hear that. Very soon you’ll hear more, and he’s looking forward to connecting with you more online.”
Harald Wiik added:
“He is doing really well, and he’s written a lot of new music. I think he’s got probably a couple of albums worth of songs. Of which I’ve heard around 7 or 8, but they’re really, really good, so I hope you get to hear them soon.”
Another fan followed up on this, asking if this new material is in connection with Weathervane or Savoy.
“The plans are not that concrete, so I can’t really speak on behalf of Paul. But I don’t think it’s Weathervane. It may be Savoy. It may also be…there’s a female singer that has recorded a lot of Paul’s songs, that may be released. And maybe he’ll write a song for Morten, who knows…”, Wiik said.
Paul in his home studio
(Picture by Lauren, from sonicscoop.com)
Music journalist David Weiss recently visited Paul in his home studio in SoHo, New York, to talk about his studio equipment and working methods. The interview has now been published on music website sonicscoop.com.
In the last few months, various equipment from Paul’s studio has appeared for sale on eBay. And in the interview he says that he’s indeed becoming more selective about his tools:
“10 years ago I had a Trident desk, every synth in the book, and gear up to the ceilings. Now it’s more computer-based, and I’m just trying to keep the stuff that we really love, and get breathing space.
It works a lot better. I like to experiment, but if you have too many things, you don’t get around to it. Synths with 15,000 presets becomes like Lord of the Rings – it’s endless.”
But he still has a lot of gear to help him create that special sound he’s looking for.
“Most of the stuff I write needs a certain atmosphere to work at all, so I’m very sensitive to achieving that for an instrument or vocal – I have to have that thing that gives me shivers. If I don’t feel it, we’ll work on something else. Obviously the performance is the most important thing, but you can help it along”, Paul says.
Read the whole article, which includes a lot of pictures from the studio, at sonicscoop.com.
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Paul Waaktaar-Savoy – the incredible songwriter and guitarist in a-ha, Savoy and now Weathervane, the live performer, vocalist, instrument collector, producer and visual artist – can celebrate his 50th birthday today, September 6th.
Happy Birthday, Paul!
(You can post your own birthday greetings to Paul on a-ha.com and on a-ha.com’s Facebook page)
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On stage at the Amanda Awards
The Weathervane promotion in Norway continues. Today Paul and Jimmy appeared on P4’s morning radio show, where they performed another acoustic version of “Weathervane”.
A shortened MP3 podcast of the show can be downloaded here. The interview starts at 11:45 minutes.
In an interview with newspaper Bergensavisen Paul says that Frode Unneland, who played drums at the Amanda Awards on Saturday, could be joining Weathervane on a more permanent basis:
“Yes, that’s absolutely an option. He’s part of the family, after all. Frode is a fantastic guy, both as a musician and as a person.”
Frode himself wouldn’t mind doing more work with Weathervane:
“That would of course be interesting – it’s always fun to work with Paul”, he tells the newspaper.
He’s also looking forward to more Savoy:
“There will definitely be another Savoy-album, we just need to find time to do it”, Frode says.
Paul tells Bergensavisen that his unused a-ha songs could turn into Weathervane songs instead:
“I always have a bunch of material lying around and I may end up using the songs intended for a-ha in Weathervane. We have already tested out some stuff in the studio.”
He also hopes to do something with Weathervane in the US:
“That would have been really interesting. All of Jimmy’s contracts have been signed in the US and he has his whole network of contacts over there. For him it’s actually very exotic to be here in Norway.”
Posted in Paul, Weathervane Tags: frode unneland, jimmy gnecco, paul waaktaar-savoy, savoy, weathervane Comments Off on More Weathervane promotion
Picture from side2.no
Paul and Jimmy have continued promoting Weathervane in Norway this week.
Yesterday they were interviewed by NTB, Side 2 and Dagsavisen.
And this morning they were guests on NRK P3’s morning radio show, where they were interviewed, answered questions from the listeners and did an acoustic version of “Weathervane”.
The whole radio show can be downloaded as an MP3 podcast here. The interview (in English) starts at 29:30 minutes and lasts until 48:00 minutes. (The acoustic performance starts at 37:45).
Below are a selection of quotes from the various interviews:
Jimmy on the Amanda Awards performance:
“It was really exciting. When we stepped up there to do soundcheck, it felt like we’d been doing it for years together. It felt really natural. And I just looked to the side and felt like I was standing next to my brother, and we really had been doing it forever. I had to find my footing at first, when we started, but once we locked into it I felt really good.”
Paul:
“With Weathervane there is no pressure, no plans. It’s like resetting yourself and starting all over. A new spring – springtime in Paris! I’ve been there before and know the feeling.”
Jimmy on being compared to Morten:
“There are bound to be comparisons. I have always been a big fan of Morten. It’s flattering to be compared to him, but our voices are different.”
Picture: Universal promo
Paul on the song lyrics in “Weathervane”:
“We don’t have to analyze our own lyrics. But it’s actually a very domestic story about Lauren wanting to go to London for a week to spend some time alone.”
Paul on their international ambitions:
“The movie’s been sold to so many countries that now it’s just up to us how far we can take it”.
Jimmy on working with Paul:
“It feels really natural. I don’t know what it is, if it’s because of similar influences that we both had growing up, or that I’ve been influenced by Paul’s music as well, why it feels so natural to me. It’s like working on my own songs, it’s just the same. I feel completely at home with it, and connected to it all.”
Paul on Jimmy:
“Jimmy has a fantastic voice. It’s incredibe to hear when he starts the song and what he can do with it.”
Paul on future plans for Weathervane:
“Ideally we would love to have an album out around Christmas time, or after Christmas. You know, on stage in Haugesund I was like ‘Oh, this could actually be really cool’. I think we would both like to do festivals or something next year.”
“We’ll take one step at a time. We can easily put out three-four singles before the album is released. I like that kind of build-up.”
Paul on a-ha’s performance at the National Memorial Ceremony:
“Being asked to participate was a great honour. We said yes at once. It turned out to be a completely heartbreaking experience. I find it hard to describe with words. For me, music is what brings the most comfort.”
Posted in Paul, Weathervane Tags: jimmy gnecco, paul waaktaar-savoy, weathervane Comments Off on Weathervane interviewed in newspapers and radio
