Pål Waaktaar

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Pål Waaktaar, later Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, is the guitarist and main songwriter of the Norwegian pop group a-ha. He was born in 1961 as Pål Gamst in Tonsenhagen, near Oslo; Waaktaar is his mother's family name. As a child he learned to play the flute and studied composition, and he admired Jimi Hendrix. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was singer, guitarist and writer of the Norwegian rock band Bridges, in which keyboardist Magne Furuholmen also played.

Music and breakthrough

With Furuholmen and singer Morten Harket he formed a-ha in 1982. Waaktaar wrote or co-wrote most of the group's big hits, such as Take On Me, The Sun Always Shines on T.V. and Hunting High and Low, and also the Bond title song The Living Daylights (1987) and the ballad Summer Moved On. His songs combine the sound of synth-pop with broad melodies, which give Harket every room for his high voice. A-ha has sold more than fifty million albums worldwide. In 2012 the three members were made knights of the Order of St. Olav.

Influence

Besides a-ha, Waaktaar started the band Savoy, with his wife, the American filmmaker and musician Lauren Savoy, and drummer Frode Unneland. Savoy sold more than 300,000 records in Norway and won three Spellemannprisen, the Norwegian counterpart of the Grammy. Later he worked with singer Jimmy Gnecco in Weathervane and with Gnecco's daughter Zoe in the duo Waaktaar and Zoe. Waaktaar is also a painter and lives in New York and Oslo.

Listening

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Mixtape 7: The 1980s^NL Reader