Dieses Interview kam gestern über die international Mailingliste:
I WANT TO WAKE UP THE SENSES
(By Olav Solvang. Translation by Jakob Sekse)
MORTEN Harket has just released the solo-album Wild
Seed. A comeback in the world of pop-hysteria, with
screaming young girls and muscular idol-posters,
almost begging Take on me? No!
Harket claims that he is finished with his life as a
pop star.
The life as a pop star didn`t give me any kick, it
was in many ways an abnormal situation. I found that
out quite quickly, along with the others in a-ha says
Morten when we meet him in the offices of the record
company Warner in Oslo.
A new CD, with a lot of self-composed music and lyrics
by Hevard Rem, is ready. The a-ha vocalist is partly
breaking away from old style, but the marketing fuss
surrounding the realease is almost the same as before.
The man (Morten is now 35) has after all sold around
20 million albums and played for an unbelievable crowd
of 200 000 people at one concert (Rock In Rio 1991)
with Norway`s most popular popband ever. This smells
of new success.
I don`t take myself too seriously anymore, and I have
developed a very relaxed attitude towards these
[music] business things. When I was on stage in Rio
and saw the sea of people screaming at me, some of
them had been waiting for 12 hours to get in, I just
felt sadness. It should have been the party of my
life, but I didn`t have any good feelings, I just felt
like a guest. I knew that something was wrong in my
life, that my feelings were not being expressed in a
way they should have been. That`s why I don`t have a
need to stribe for new success I have been there,
and I`m not longing back to it."
- But perhaps the new album doesn`t give you much of
an option?
Oh, but it does! I have learnt how the pop-business
works, and I can take my own precautions. Besides, the
new record is much more than an album-release, it is a
result of changes in my life.
Wild Seed is a collaboration between Morten Harket
and the writer Hevard Rem. While Morten has composed
most of the music, Hevard has written the lyrics. But
in close co-operation with Morten.
Hevard and I hit it off pretty fast. He is a
listening soul. He is an old chapel-boy, I personally
belong to the state church, with an open door to the
chapel. [Norw: bedehus]
- The latter is perhaps showing in the song Lord?
Yes, that is a proud, but also a bit moderate
confession. I know that God is there for me, but I
also know that I have it completely OK in my life.
Nevertheless and that is important I sing: I know
I`m gonna need You some day.
- Not exactly a very big and clear proclamation?
No, I`m against proclamations. What`s solid and
certain can be right in small moments, but the world
and we who live in it are constantly moving. That`s
why it`s probably most precise and adequate to speak
in parables, like Jesus did. I wish to explore the
spiritual side with a clear view, but I don`t want to
be too detailed when I pass on that experience.
- You have, as far as I know, seldom or never spoken
about your Christian faith on stage. Some people will
probably claim that you for example had an
extraordinary possibility to preach to those 200 000
in Rio?
No, that would just have been completely wrong. I`m
sceptical towards evangelists, or any others, who
preach to large crowds of people. What might start as
something honest, often develops into a need for power
when they see how easily people are affected. I`m also
against all the money-talk that often follows along.
- Doesn`t pop artists, like yourself, have just as
much power over their audience as a preacher?
Yes, if you choose to take advantage of your own
position otherwise not. You have a responsibility
for what you say and do. But for the most part the
audience handles their relation to the pop artists
well. It won`t harm anyone to have a picture of a pop
star on the wall, for example. I have hung on a few
such walls myself, and I don`t have a bad conscience
for that. It`s of course worse when people identify
with artists who play black metal and nazirock.
- Do you have any good advice to parents who have
children with such inclinations?
They have to learn about it, get it out in the open
and talk sensible with their children about it. Ask
them what it is they like about it. Not at all scream
and nag, or even worse pray over it. At least
not just that.
- Has your role as a family man (Morten is married to
Camilla and has three children with her) changed you
as a person?
Yes, of course. You end up in a totally different
situation than when you are single. I have always had
a need for order in my life, but that is also what has
lately led me to feeling an increasing need for chaos.
That forces me to confrontations, and I grow on that.
When we are talking about the family man, I would
also like to underline that my relationship to
Camilla, my wife, is completely different than the
relationship to my children. The woman, who is here my
wife, is like an abyss that you don`t have control
over a kind of stranger in the night. Being a father
is completely different.
- What do you hope that Wild Seed will do to the
listener?
I wish that the album will wake up mine and others
world of senses, give us back the instincts. Many of
us have fallen asleep, and that is very dangerous. Eli
Wiesel said it like this: the opposite of love is not
hate for they are broher and sister no, it is
indifference.
- You have involved yourself in different
environmental issues in the last years?
I have tried. And most of it has not been visible in
the media luckily. When a charity project crashes
it`s often because the media makes a big fuss of it,
not of idealistic purposes, but to make money. There
are exceptions, where the media can help a good cause,
but that`s not often. Remember Sting`s rain forest
project, for example, it became a fiasco because he
brought in the media.
It`s important to be aware of giving and not least
receiving, Harket continues. It has to be a good
purpose. Sometimes it can be better to help a rich
friend than a poor person. Look at Jesus, who he
helped; it was people from different social layers.
- What on earth does Wild Seed mean?
Interpret it as you like.