Picture from Adresseavisen

Adresseavisen has an interview with Magne today, which was done while he was in Trondheim on Wednesday.

I have translated some parts of it:

About talent grant winner Moddi:
“Of all the artists that ended up being nominated, Moddi is probably my favorite. He has a very strong stage personality. He makes me a bit happier to be Norwegian. He is part Sigur Rós, part Damien Rice, he writes interesting songs that he performs in a sad and believable way.”

About the farewell tour:
– How is it to say goodbye throughout a whole year?

“It’s better to make a one-year farewell, than keep doing it for ten years, like some bands are doing.”

– You don’t feel like a Rolling Stone dinosaur when you’re standing there, still singing “Take On Me” after 25 years?

“No, no. And the Stones are 30 years older than us!”

– Will you be suffering from mental phantom pains when a-ha is finished for good?

“Maybe I’ll be longing back to what has been. Still, even if you’re fearing phantom pains, it’s not wrong to amputate your foot if it’s the only way out.”

Picture from Adresseavisen

About Apparatjik:
“Even though the music isn’t too far removed from a-ha, we still can’t be compared to a-ha. It’s not a particularly commercial concept. We’re a kind of loose collective of creative individuals who work with other people within the field of arts.”

“I guess the name [Apparatjik] plays on the fact that we want to make things a bit difficult for ourselves, tear up the format a little.”

About the upcoming a-ha concert at Trondheim’s Lerkendal stadium:
– People in Trøndelag are known to be slow [ticket buyers]. Do you fear a low audience turnout?

“I’ve been given that warning, yes. It’s strange really, the people from Trøndelag that I know are far from being slow.”

“For fuck’s sake, you guys have to come to our concert! We’ll put on a real show and turn up the heat at Lerkendal. We’ll offer less make-up and less pyro than when Kiss played there, but there will be much more feelings instead. Because this is the end, a-ha will never again return.”

The newspaper has also asked Magne about some of his favorites:

Favorite albums: Beck’s “Sea Change”, Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate”, Radiohead’s “The Bends”.
Favorite movies: Everything by the Cohen brothers. I quite like movies by Kieslowski og Sydney Pollack. “Repulsion” by Polanski and “Midnight Run” with Robert De Niro.
Favorite books: “The End of the Affair” by Graham Greene, “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, “Possession: A Romance” by A.S. Byatt, “The Idiot” by Dostoyevsky.
Favorite comics: I don’t read comic books.
Favorite TV-shows: “The Sopranos”, “The Wire”, “South Park”, “Entourage”.
Favorite theatre plays: I really liked this Strindberg play that I saw at the national theatre not too long ago.

Where do you go out on the weekends: I never go out on the town.

Magne’s weekend: My weekends are not too different from the weekdays. I’m working on things that I find interesting. I read books, watch movies and spend time with my sons, 16 and 20 years old – if they can be bothered to hang out with their father. I drink way too much espresso, take the dog for a walk and cook (my wife will probably object to the part about cooking, I don’t cook as much as I used to).