Posts Tagged ‘cast in steel’

UK promotion and VG interview

a-ha on BBC Breakfast, September 2nd

a-ha on BBC Breakfast, September 2nd

a-ha were in London yesterday, where they spent a few hours at the BBC Studios, doing a number of radio interviews. Some of them have already been broadcast:

– BBC Radio 5 Live: Afternoon Edition
– BBC Local Radio: The Mark Forrest Show (starts at 1h 36min)

Morten and Paul also did a video interview with Reuters.

Today the guys were in Manchester, where they were guests on BBC Breakfast. A video clip of the interview has been posted on YouTube.

Later on they did a signing session at HMV Manchester. A selection of pictures can be seen on the event page on Facebook.

For lots more links and pictures from the UK promo, visit my Twitter profile.

Meanwhile in Norway, VG had a 3-page interview yesterday, where each of them give their honest opinion on the process of making Cast In Steel. Here is a little sample:

A new album, Cast In Steel is ready, but the band members haven’t been together in the studio during the recording process. That is something Paul Waaktaar-Savoy regrets.

“I wish we could get together, that is the way we should be recording music”, Waaktaar-Savoy says. He was also eager to have one producer on the whole album: Alan Tarney, who produced a-ha’s three first albums. But that’s not how it turned out.

Morten Harket also feels they should have recorded the album together, after first doing a tour.

“In fact, from a band point-of-view, we should have recorded the album in one studio and lived together for three months. You are more tuned in after a tour, we should have done writing sessions, hung out together and made music.”

– That’s what Paul also said?

“Yeah, but he’s so slow to join! Bloody slow. So that’s not how it actually is.”

In the end, 12 songs were selected for the album, while many others were rejected.

“I came into the process very late, and I think Paul felt the album was already finished. But then the majority expressed a clear wish that we should go all in. a-ha is the three of us and needs those three voices”, Furuholmen says.

Waaktaar-Savoy describes the song selection as “total chaos” and says he really missed an A&R-guy like they used to have in the past. Someone from the record company who could interject and make a decision.

“How are we supposed to agree on things, when all three of us have different things that we care about? It ends up being so much noise, and it saps so much energy that I’m all like: OK, next album! I feel like I need another ten years before I can listen to this album again. And now I have plunged headfirst into another new project. That’s the way I manage to keep going.”

And here are the first Norwegian reviews of the new album:
VG (4/6)
Aftenposten (4/6)
Dagsavisen (4/6)
Vårt Land

‘Cast In Steel’ promotion this week

Screenshot from the video greeting posted by Hydro on Facebook

Screenshot from the video greeting posted by Hydro on Facebook

Promotion is kicking into high gear this week, with the new a-ha album Cast In Steel being released on Friday, September 4th. Below are a few of the events and appearances coming up, with lots more to come:

2 September: Manchester: HMV in-store signing
3 September: BBC Radio 2: Interview on “Steve Wright in the Afternoon”.
3 September: GoTV (Austria): a-ha present their favorite music videos in a 1-hour “Hosted by”-special.
3 September: Hamburg: Deutscher Radiopreis (The German Radio Awards), performing “Forest Fire” and “Foot Of The Mountain”. They will also receive an honorary award. ARD radio/NRD television.
4 September: Berlin: Aspekte (German talkshow), performing live. ZDF
5 September: Berlin: Goldene Henne 2015 (German award show), performing “Under The Makeup” and another new song. MDR/RBB
8 September: Oslo: Platekompaniet in-store signing, at Oslo City Shopping Centre

In Norway, Radio Norge is playing a new song from Cast In Steel exclusively on their morning show Morgenklubben each day this week, as well as other times throughout the day. Morten has done an ad for this – which can be heard below:

 
In connection with yesterday’s announcement of two private a-ha concerts for Hydro employees in the Pará area in Brazil, Hydro has posted a short video greeting from a-ha on Facebook.

Hydro has also posted a YouTube video where the members of a-ha share their thoughts on Kygo’s new remix of “Take On Me”.

German interviews

a-ha interviewed in Berlin, July 2015

a-ha interviewed in Berlin, July 2015

Two new interviews in German have been posted online recently, by Mittelbayerische and Berner Zeitung.

Here are a few quotes:

– This time you’re doing the interviews together. Does that mean you’re finding it easier to agree on things than before?

Magne: “We’re doing it because it feels good. It’s like group therapy.”

Paul: “It definitely feels different than before. This might be the beginning of a new era for our band”

– Has it been easy to record this comeback album?

Morten: “The songwriting is always the easiest. The hard part is trying to agree on which songs that will end up on the album. That is always an enormous challenge. Personally, I’m surprised by how strong the new album has turned out to be. It’s not inferior to our earlier albums.”

– The music of a-ha is easily recognizable. Did you want to build on this tradition with Cast In Steel?

Paul: “What do you mean, ‘easily recognizable’? Our second album was very different from the first one. With every record we want to take things one step further. Morten’s voice has a clear identity, but in terms of arrangements and melodies we’re not guided by the past.”

Magne: “Morten’s voice is an important element of a-ha, but so is our songwriting and the way we arrange the music. For me personally, it’s completely irrelevant whether the new album sounds like our first, third or fifth album or whether we go in a completely new direction. The main thing; the songs are cool. There aren’t many bands from the 1980s that are still active and keep releasing new material.”

– Do you already know when you will disband again?

Magne: “2015 and 2016 will be all about a-ha. We’re really looking forward to the tour, it will be great. As for 2017, we don’t know yet. We haven’t ruled out anything, but there are no specific plans.”

Paul interviewed by Aftenposten

A selection of pages from Paul's notebooks are included in the Aftenposten article

A selection of pages from Paul’s notebooks are included in the Aftenposten article

Today’s edition of Aftenposten includes an extensive 7-page article that tells the story of how two of a-ha’s biggest fans, P.A. Stenersen and Christopher Hopkins, managed to rescue a number of early a-ha recordings and notebooks, ending a decade-long legal stalemate between a-ha and their controversial first manager John Ratcliff.

Many of these early recordings are now included on the new 5-disc 30th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of Hunting High and Low, to be released on September 18th.

Getting his old notebooks back also inspired Paul to record one of the early songs, “She’s Humming a Tune”, which has ended up being one of the tracks on Cast In Steel.

“When I got the books back, I saw the lyrics and remembered ‘oh yeah, that one was cool’. Then I thought it would be cool to record this one in particular now”, Paul says.

Paul also talks candidly about what he thinks of the new album:

“It is very hard to think of this as a-ha, because it seems to me that there are three different things – which one calls a-ha. It often ends up like this, and many bands do it this way. But I do miss the feeling of us being in the same studio, working on the same song in real time.”

An English translation of the entire Aftenposten article has been posted online at Aftenposten.no.

“Under The Makeup” music video premiere

Morten in the music video, filmed inside one of the tents at Canvas Hotel in Nissedal

Morten in the music video, filmed inside one of the tents at Canvas Hotel in Nissedal

The “Under The Makeup” music video officially premiered on YouTube yesterday, after a preview clip was first shown on German TV on Friday.

The video is now also available on VGTV in Norway.

The video was shot in the Nissedal area in Telemark two weeks ago, and features the actresses Sofie Gråbøl from Denmark and Frida Farrell from Sweden.

Sofie Gråbøl

Sofie Gråbøl

“The German director [Bode Brodmüller] came in contact with Gråbøl, and the band members are big fans of her, so they were really happy”, a-ha manager Harald Wiik tells VG.

“In our opinion she is one of the most interesting character actors we have in Scandinavia. A music video doesn’t necessarily involve much acting, but her presence adds more weight to it – it suddenly becomes “The Killing” meets James Bond”, Magne says.

“It’s not the first time someone kills Morten in our music videos, but it’s extra fun when Sofie Gråbøl is taking part in the crime!”, he adds with a laugh.

“Director Brodmüller was very focused on keeping the Scandinavian landscape and the Scandinavian feeling – a certain Wallander atmosphere – and also trying to get an actress who was already well-known in Scandinavia and Germany for her role as a detective inspector. Luckily the schedules matched up and she was able to be a part of this project, albeit in a slightly different role”, Britta Ostermann of a-ha’s German management tells VG.

The version of the song used in the music video is quite a different mix than the radio version released last month. The orchestra is more muted, while the piano, acoustic guitar and backing vocals are brought forward in the mix. An improvement, some would say, as the orchestra was quite overwhelming in the first version. This new mix is also the one used on the album, judging by the preview clips.

Album previews and new TV performances

The final version of the album cover differs slightly from the first version that was posted

The final version of the album cover differs slightly from the first version that was posted last month

The first preview of the rest of the songs on Cast In Steel was posted by a-ha.com today; the Harket/Olsen/Kvint song “The Wake”.
More previews will be added daily, check out the full list on a-ha.com.

Meanwhile, German TV promotion in the week of the album release is shaping up nicely:

On 3 September, a-ha will be performing two songs live at the Deutscher Radiopreis (The German Radio Awards) in Hamburg; “Foot Of The Mountain” and “Under The Makeup”. This according to a post by the German forum. The show will be broadcast live on ARD radio and aired later in the evening on NRD television.

On 4 September a-ha will be performing live on the ZDF talkshow Aspekte, which is taped in Berlin. All tickets are already gone, but the TV broadcast will apparently also be streamed online.

And on 5 September is the previously announced Goldene Henne 2015 award show on MDR and RBB – now confirmed to be a live performance of two songs.

More German promo and new music video

a-ha in the video clip on Universal's website

a-ha in the video clip on Universal’s website

“Under The Makeup” is currently being used to promote the German TV station Sat.1’s weekly Samstagskino (Saturday Movie) in August.

A video clip where a-ha also appear at the end can be seen here. There’s a special emphasis on the 2012 movie Mirror Mirror – a movie in which Morten and his daughter Tomine provided the voices for the King and his daughter Snow White in the Norwegian-language version.

Another new promo clip has been posted on on the website of Universal Germany, where fans can win guestlist-access to one of the German concerts next year.

Meanwhile, a-ha seem to be filming a new music video in Telemark, Norway this week. Whether it’s for “Under The Makeup” or “Cast In Steel” remains to be seen. Paul posted a short video clip on Instagram, while Magne posted the picture seen below:

a-ha to perform at Goldene Henne award show

a-ha will be performing at the Goldene Henne 2015 award show in Berlin on September 5th, the day after the new album Cast In Steel is released.

The show will be held at the Berlin Velodrom with 4500 people in the audience, and will air live on the TV stations MDR and RBB.

Other acts scheduled to perform include Karat, Die Prinzen, The BossHoss, Andreas Gabalier, Santiano, Oonagh and Johnny Logan w/ Olaf Berger.

More info in German is available in a press release at presseportal.de.

‘Cast In Steel’ tracklist

The Cast In Steel tracklist has now been posted on the official site:

Update July 24th: Added length of each track.

01. Cast In Steel (Waaktaar-Savoy) (3:50)
02. Under The Makeup (Waaktaar-Savoy) (3:25)
03. The Wake (Harket/Kvint/Olsen) (3:45)
04. Forest Fire (Furuholmen/Harket/Terefe/Kvint) (3:54)
05. Objects In The Mirror (Furuholmen) (4:14)
06. Door Ajar (Waaktaar-Savoy) (3:45)
07. Living At The End Of The World (Harket/Kvint/Olsen) (4:06)
08. Mythomania (Furuholmen) (3:49)
09. She’s Humming A Tune (Waaktaar-Savoy) (4:02)
10. Shadow Endeavors (Waaktaar-Savoy) (4:21)
11. Giving Up The Ghost (Furuholmen) (4:15)
12. Goodbye Thompson (Waaktaar-Savoy) (3:34)

It’s worth noting that the Vinyl LP will only include ten of the twelve album tracks. And the song “Open Face” seems to have been left out, unless its title has changed. “She’s Humming A Tune” was originally an early demo that a-ha was working on in London in 1983/84.

The Deluxe Edition and Fanbox Edition will also include the following tracks on the second disc:

01. The End Of The Affair (Furuholmen) (3:31)
02. Mother Nature Goes To Heaven (Original Version) (4:33)
03. Nothing Is Keeping You Here (Original Version) (4:41)
04. Shadowside (Demo Version) (4:16)
05. Start The Simulator (Stereophonic Mix) (5:19)
06. Foot Of The Mountain (Mark Saunders Remix) (4:18)

To see the complete list of songwriters and producers, visit the a-ha.com article.

‘Cast In Steel’ to be released in four versions

Album cover

Album cover

The new a-ha album Cast In Steel (Sep. 4th) will be released in four different versions, according to the German a-ha forum.

Here they are, with pre-order links to Amazon.de:

1. Standard CD

2. Deluxe Edition (2CD)

3. Fanbox Edition (2CD)

4. Vinyl LP

Meanwhile, the first band interviews from last week’s Berlin promotion have started appearing online. There’s a short video clip at sueddeutsche.de and an interview at bild.de (subscribers only).

Powered by WordPress