Morten Harket, who for more than 40 years has been the frontman of the Grammy-nominated Norwegian pop trio a-ha, confirmed this week that he has Parkinson’s disease.
Harket, 65, made the announcement Wednesday by sharing an article written by music journalist and author Jan Omdahl on a-ha’s official website. In it, the singer-songwriter said he’d been experiencing vocal issues as a result of his condition, and admitted he was unsure about a return to the concert stage.
“The problems with my voice are one of many grounds for uncertainty about my creative future,” he said.
Though Harket said he had “no problem accepting the diagnosis,” he added, “I’m trying the best I can to prevent my entire system from going into decline. It’s a difficult balancing act between taking the medication and managing its side effects. There’s so much to weigh up when you’re emulating the masterful way the body handles every complex movement, or social matters and invitations, or day-to-day life in general.”
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A native of Kongsberg, Norway, Harket formed a-ha with keyboardist Magne Furuholmen and guitarist Paul Waaktaar-Savoy in 1982. Three years later, the band catapulted to international fame with their breakout smash, “Take On Me.” The song’s success was buoyed by its now-iconic music video, which combined live-action performance footage with pencil-sketch animation.
Though a-ha never replicated the success of “Take On Me” on a global scale, the band continued to release music throughout the ’80s and ’90s. In 1991, they broke the world record for paid attendance at a rock concert when they performed before more than 198,000 fans at Brazil’s Rock in Rio festival. Their 11th studio album, “True North,” was unveiled in 2022.
There is no cure for Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that can cause muscle stiffness, impaired speech and uncontrolled movement. The disease can be revealed by a mere tremor of the hand, according to the Mayo Clinic.
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Furuholmen reacted to Harket’s announcement with a heartfelt post on Instagram. Acknowledging he’d known about his bandmate’s diagnosis “for some time,” he said the news “brings sadness,” but stressed “there is also a lot of gratitude: for all the amazing memories, for how our combined creative efforts as a band have been so generously embraced by the world, and for how lucky we are that people continue to find meaning, hope and joy in our shared musical legacy.”
In his chat with Omdahl, Harket said he didn’t expect to regain “full technical control” over his vocals, but had nonetheless been working on new songs “that I’ve got great belief in, and I feel the lyrics, especially, have something of a different aspect of me in them.”
“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish them for release,” he continued. “Time will tell if they make it. I really like the idea of just going for it, as a Parkinson’s patient and an artist, with something completely outside the box. It’s all up to me, I just have to get this out of the way first.”
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