With “True North” A-ha release their first album in seven years: a declaration of love to their Norwegian homeland, but also a reminder to the world to treat nature more gently. At the same time, Morten Harket, Pål Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen will release the “True North” film, a mixture of documentary and feature film, which will present the band recording the record together with the Arctic Philharmonic Orchestra. The twelve ballad-like songs are accompanied by images of the rough sea, as well as young coastal residents who fall in love or die as old people and are then buried at sea. The three a-ha musicians, on the other hand, ponder their closeness to flora and fauna on cold nocturnal walks and warm themselves at campfires. A conversation with Harket, 63, about the time we have left to save Earth.
In 1986 you sang elated “We’re Looking for the Whales”, in 2009 you sounded sadder in “Mother Nature Goes To Heaven”. “True North” seems like a swan song to the planet.
A-ha are just reacting to what is happening around us. The time has come, we have received the receipt for our behavior towards the environment. We have known what can happen for at least 40 years. I have been involved in environmental protection for years. I’m not saying that people don’t know we’re getting worse and worse – it’s more that they don’t want to do anything. Have we gotten wiser over the years? no more afraid? Definitely. We don’t have much time left to save the earth. This is about the Great Pendulum.
What is that?
Nature’s Great Pendulum. Because it should vibrate little. For hundreds of thousands of years it has hardly moved – then the earth was fine. With the Ice Age, it moved extremely strongly. Within the last ten thousand years there have been fewer global weather extremes, a reliability that man has known to exploit for his needs as civilizations have expanded. It’s just that man himself makes the pendulum swing, which causes extremes. Back then you could read the seasons, they offered us reliability. The weather cleared up today.
The “True North” film shows diving whales. Commercial whaling is permitted in Norway. Do you think this is legitimate?
Whaling, like so many things that go wrong, shows us that the human species simply has not understood its place in nature. Whaling points to an even bigger problem: that we exploit any animal species from which we hope to make a profit. Of course I am against whaling.
What are A-ha doing to travel and perform in a climate-friendly way when touring?
Here, too, there is a larger problem. Our governments, whose representatives have received mandates from us, have to make drastic decisions. What scares me is that our world community is splitting up because we interpret climate forecasts differently. When what we call “the West,” or Europe, falls apart, we can no longer afford the costs of cleaning up natural disasters…nature takes a slap on her wrist and a third of the country is under water.
But one thing has improved: anyone who presented themselves as an environmental activist at the beginning of their career in 1985 was often mocked – “Pop and politics don’t belong together”. Today we commend every musician who takes a stand for nature.
Oh, I never had a problem with critics saying: musicians and their blah blah world view! But I disagree with people just not listening to science. And I don’t agree with big corporations paying scientists for good study results. We turn our backs on nature. But nature should be our backbone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3JSIEZ8LXE
The song “You Have What It Takes” is aimed at Greta Thunberg’s generation who want to stop climate change. Have you already written off the older ones?
Of course, it looks like the people of my generation have failed. After all, we who wield the power simply continue to live as we have. What we did yesterday, we still do today. Everything has to happen quickly now, and we have to accept the costs and consequences. I can understand the problem: in human history, mankind has never pulled itself together. But the cost of repairing damage from natural disasters would be colossal.
In Germany there is the “Last Generation”, young demonstrators who stick to the asphalt in protest against climate policy and cause traffic jams to force politicians to act.
I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know an answer to the politics of my generation, the one that doesn’t stick to the pavement. The answer is: Our actions are not okay. How could we presume to say to these young people: Stop, what you are doing is not okay!? It looks more like things are escalating. It’s gonna get ugly.