Band members

• Morten Harket - Vocals (1982-94; 1998-present)
• Magne Furuholmen - Keyboards (1982-94; 1998-present)
• Paul Waaktaar-Savoy - Guitars (1982-94; 1998-present)

History

Take On Me & Hunting High and Low

First phase (1986-1994)

Solo careers

Paul Waaktaar-Savoy has released five albums with his wife Lauren Savoy and their band Savoy.

Second phase (1998-present)

Miscellaneous

Trivia

• a-ha lead singer, Morten Harket is responsible for the '80s "ripped jeans" fashion trend. He was rushing to the stage in a 1985 performance where he ran past an amplifier and accidentally tore his jeans on the edge. He later stated "Oops! I didn't see that!" He later used razor blades to achieve the same effect, as did many other bands that followed.

• During the promotion of a-ha in the USA in the '80s, the American media often compared Morten Harket's looks to the looks of a young Elvis Presley and James Dean.

• a-ha won 8 MTV awards during the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. This was until then the most awards an artist/band had ever won in one night.

• In 1989, a-ha played in Rio de Janeiro at the Praça da Apoteose (the place where the Rio carnaval takes place annually). The organizers expected an audience of 40,000; however 100,000 showed up.

• On the tour of South America in 1991, a-ha played for over three million people in under a month and twenty-five shows, in addition to their world record performance at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

• In 1991, a-ha set a Guinness Book World Record by playing for the largest paying audience in the world: 198,000 people.

• East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which was used as an a-ha album title, is the name of a Norwegian folk tale.

• The song "Angel In The Snow" was actually written by Paul for his wife Lauren, in 1991, when they got married.

• An a-ha poster can be seen on the wall during the Seinfeld episode "The Pez Dispenser", which was aired in 1992.

• Songs by a-ha have been included as background music in episodes of popular TV series, such as Baywatch, Melrose Place, South Park, Smallville, and The Simpsons, as well as movies such as 007 - The Living Daylights, One Night at McCool's, Grosse Pointe Blank, Corky Romano and Beavis and Butthead.

• a-ha's music video for the song "I Wish I Cared" was the first fully web-based animated flash music video to be made available.

• In 1999, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy received an award: a-ha have been played 2,000,000 times on U.S. radio-stations.

• "A-ha on the net" in 2001 from Valhall in Oslo, Norway, was the third most viewed webcast concert ever as 3.6 million hits were recorded, 500,000 with an average viewing time of 28 minutes. The average viewing time was the longest for a webcast concert. Only webcasts by Madonna and Paul McCartney recorded more hits. The webcast was made possible in connection with MSN, Mercedes Benz, and Accenture.

• a-ha tours with a backing band. The current band includes the drummer Per Lindvall, who used to play drums in ABBA's backing band, and has toured with a-ha since 2000.

• In June 1991, the last episode of American TV series "Twin Peaks" (directed by David Lynch) aired for the first time. As a Lynch fan, Paul sent him a tape containing three to five songs. Amongst them was "Sycamore Leaves" from the album East of the Sun - West of the Moon. He sent them in the hope that Lynch might sometime direct an a-ha video. Lynch was too busy with "Twin Peaks" to work with a-ha. Nevertheless, Lynch used a song similar to "Sycamore Leaves" in the last episode (slightly changed, but with the same structure and called "Sycamore Trees") without credit to Paul.

• According to Paul in the official a-ha biography, The Swing of Things, whilst recording in Prince's Paisley Park studios, Mags scrawled the word 'Prince' in felt pen on an urinal in the men's washrooms, referring to Prince's incredibly small frame. Apparently, it was removed "impressively fast".

• a-ha has performed at two Nobel Peace Prize concerts. a-ha performed in 1998 and 2001. (Morten Harket has also performed solo once.) The 1998 performance was a-ha's comeback into the world of music.

• a-ha has worked together with a number of other artists such as Jevetta Steele, Graham Nash, The Everly Brothers, and Anneli Drecker.

• a-ha was featured in the ninth episode of the fourth season of the TV show "Family Guy" when one of the main characters, Chris Griffin, was pulled into a parody-version of the "Take On Me"-video.

Commentary on a-ha

"Morten looked like Elvis Presley and had the operatic voice of Roy Orbison" (Jeff Ayeroff, Warner's marketing genius in 1985. Comment from 2005)

Tours

• Hunting High and Low World Tour 1986 / 1987 (Europe / USA / Canada / Japan / Australia)
• Stay On These Roads Tour 1988 / 1989 (Europe / Japan / Brazil)
• Walk Under the Sun Dance Under the Moon Tour 1991 (South America incl. Brazil, Argentina and Chile)
• East of the Sun West of the Moon Tour 1991 (Europe)
• Memorial Beach Tour 1993 / 1994 (Europe / Russia / South Africa / Middle East)
• Minor Earth Major Sky Tour 2000 / 2001 (Japan / Europe / Russia)
• Lifelines Tour 2002 (Europe / Russia / Brazil)
• Mini Tour of Russia and Norway 2003 / 2004 (Russia / Norway)
• Analogue Tour 2005 / 2006 (Europe / USA / Chile / Senegal)

Tour 2005 / 2006 is currently running. So far it includes Europe and one show in the USA, Chile and Senegal.