How did Paul Waaktaar-Savoy become so involved in the songwriting side of A-ha? “Well, it’s how I really started with music in the first place,” he explains. “At school we had to use a recorder in music class and that was when the first few songs I wrote came about, just with that recorder. I was finding poetry – not my poetry – and just setting a melody to some stuff I’d found here and there. I was about 10, or something like that. For me it’s weird because unless you release the song it always feels fresh – because you haven’t put it somewhere. It exists in your head at that point, so it feels sort of new even though you might have written it 20 years ago! Unless it’s out there for everyone to hear it’s still yours and still part of the stuff you are stewing over, you know?”
Paul is constantly working on new material but, despite the band performing one new song on their current tour, he thinks it’s unlikely that any more of his songs will be recorded by A-ha. “I’m always recording and working on new stuff and figuring out ways to release it, and I now have the material where I’m thinking: ‘Right, I really have to start releasing stuff’. I’m still finalising how I’m going to do that, but definitely this year. Shoot me if I don’t release an album this year…”