Anita Hegerland talks about her career, the music she and Mike Oldfield did together and their relationship.
I’m introducing something new to my blog: I will sporadically be posting old interviews I’ve done with artist over the last 3 decades. The first one is this interview I did in 2004 with Anita Hegerland. It was published in my old, old blog way back then, but since the blog shut down, it has not been available online and even the wayback machine is not able to dig it out. I get several requests a month about this particular interview, which shows you just how big of a star Anita is abroad. The latest request was just last week (from Italy). That gave me the last kick in the butt that I needed, so I decided to go into the database of my old blog and dig it out. So here it is. At the time of publication, social media like Facbook and YouTube did not exist. The videos included below are therefore added solely for this version of the article.
PS! This interview is 21 years old. Thus, some of the information here will be outdated. So take it for what it is: A snapshot of the situation back then.
As some of you might have gathered, I’m a huge fan of Mike Oldfield, and I’ve been a subscriber to Amarok, the Mike Oldfield mailing list for over a decade. Several subscribers of Amarok and people from both Oldfield and Anita Hegerland fan clubs have been pestering me with questions about why I didn’t interview Anita Hegerland on behalf of the list. Not only is she Oldfield’s former girlfriend and mother to two of his children (one of whom has contributed to one of his albums), she also recorded and performed with him for seven years.
For several reasons the interview never happened and my contributions to the mailing list fell below minimal. About two weeks ago I received an email from two German fans who asked me if I realised that Anita would be performing in my hometown the following Sunday. I told them yes, and then they replied that I should really get my act together and finally do that interview. Since I vaguely knew the man, Einar Strande, who arranged the concert, I got in touch with him to ask if he could assist me in this endeavour. He told me that he knew Anita personally and that he would set it up for me. So, three days later,I could finally interview her.
We met on a Sunday morning at Seilet hotel in Molde, and she was a bit surprised when I told her this was a sort of an interview, and that it was for Amarok.
After explaining to her what the mailing list was all about, and that I had received several questions from Anita Hegerland fans in Germany, she said it would be okay to talk to me for a while. We talked for about an hour, and I got through all of the submitted questions. Anita was very gracious, and I had my copy of Voices autographed as well as getting her to pose with me for a picture.
After discussing Snoopy and how fast news travel on the Internet (“I should really get my own web-site”) we just went straight on with the interview.
What are you doing nowadays?
I’m just getting back in to the music business again. I’ve been laying low for a few years because I have prioritised my family. As you probably know I became a mother again five years ago. I have also worked a lot the last 10 years with patchwork designs, designing many of my own quilts. I love sewing! I’m working on a book with my own designs and patterns that will be released autumn 2005/spring 2006.
From 2000 up until 2002 I worked at Pinjata, a video games production company, as vice-president, and it was a challenge to do something else for a while. I had a very interesting job where I was involved in the whole production of the games, writing some of the storybook and I wrote some music for them as well. The games about the rabbit Josefine gained a huge popularity in Norway, and it was nominated for several awards in the EU.
I’ve now left that job and I’m eager to revive my musical career again. I just wrote a song about the tsunami disaster in Asia, which I found absolutely heart breaking and sad. It’s horrible. When I saw this stuff on the news, especially seeing all the children being so badly affected, I sat down there and then and wrote a complete song in less than twenty minutes. It will be on my next cd, and is called Flowers will forever grow.
In January this year I’m going to record a song for an album where they have put several of Henrik Wergeland’s poems to music, and I have been invited to write the music to one poem.
During the last four months I have also been writing music for a new solo album which I probably will be able to put out later this year in Norway and hopefully also in Germany. I’ve received a lot of flak from people going “Anita, isn’t it about time you released something new?” (Lifts up my newly autographed copy of Voices) I mean, it’s been eleven years. They’re absolutely right.
So you have a home recording studio?
Yes, my partner is a very good sound technician and we have a studio at our house where I cut the demos. It would be nice to get the album out this year. I can celebrate my 35th anniversary as a recording artist in Sweden this year, and the same in Germany next year!
How big were you in the 70s and 80s?
[Einar Strande blurts out that she was huge, which makes Anita laugh]. It’s hard for me to say, really. I’ve had a somewhat strange career. Already as a little girl I had my first big breakthrough in Norway back in 1969, I became a star overnight (as the papers love to put it) and my first record sold more than 100.000 copies. The next year I did the same thing in Sweden in 1970 with the song Mitt Sommarlov which sold nearly 200.000 copies. This song was so popular in Sweden that I set a record for the longest period as number one on the prestigious Svensktoppen radio chart, a record that stood for 26 years, until just a few years back. This song is today an evergreen in Sweden.
In 1971 I went to Germany where Roy Black and myself made a furore and sold 1.8 million records of Schön ist es auf der Welt zu sein (1.2 million copies were sold in Germany alone). We received several trophies and also did three movies together. Sadly Roy died 12 years ago, In 1998 the song was voted the biggest schläger in Germany ever, and I received a trophy on behalf of Roy and myself. This song is an evergreen in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries.
I more or less stopped singing at the age of 14, except from sporadic tv-shows in Germany, Sweden and Norway. I wanted to go to school and be like everybody else. By the end of my childhood career my record sales were more than 4,1 mill records. It’s kind of funny, but I’ve had a number one hit in Germany every decade since the 70s, so that’s why I need a new album out soon so I can keep the tradition in this decade (laughs).
How was the Norwegian press treating you? Were you acknowledged or was your career an example of the fact that you never become a prophet in your own country?
I received a lot of attention in Norway. I know they respected me for what I did, but I was very often asked by both the press and people I met about why they didn’t see me so often on tv. But I think you’re right that you don’t become a prophet in your home country. Mike [Oldfield] also felt that way about Britain and his own career. He was always bigger in Europe than in the UK. Since then I have also heard Rod Stewart say this about himself in interviews.
We’ve covered the 70s, what about the 80s?
In the 80s I was touring a lot in Norway, and I also did a couple of movies. In fact, only three months before Mike called me, Polydor in Germany offered me a worldwide contract as a solo artist. This was in 1985. I also remember that in 1984 I met John Travolta while in Stockholm, and when he came to Norway a few years later VG (Norway’s biggest newspaper) ran an entire page where Travolta asked, “Where is Anita?” He told the reporters that he had met this blonde singer in Stockholm who had told him she came from Norway, and that he wanted to meet her again.
While I was living in London with Mike, Travolta sent me an invitation to be his personal guest at the grand opening of his comeback movie “Look Who’s Talking,” but I was seven months pregnant at the time and decided that it was probably not a very good idea to accept (laughs).
In 1985 my career with Mike started with Pictures in the dark.
Were you a fan of Mike Olfield before you met him?
I did have a few of his albums, I especially remember owning QE2, but I wasn’t a huge fan. My biggest idol was Louis Armstrong, a fantastic charismatic singer and musician whom I never grew tired of listening to when I was a kid. I was also very much into the Beatles and Elvis Presley. And of course ABBA happened during my teenage years.
How did you meet Mike Oldfield?
I met him in Drammenshallen outside Oslo in 1984. I was at the gig he did there during his last world tour and I met him backstage. We just hung out and chatted, Simon Phillips was there as well, and we played Yatzy because of Mike’s love of games involving dice. He asked me what I was doing for a living and I told him I was a singer. He then wondered if I wanted to go out to dinner with him and the rest of the band that night. I accepted and he told me to bring along a tape with my music. I brought with me my album All the Way. I didn’t hear anything from him, but a year later the phone rang. “Hi, it’s Mike! I’ve written this new song, and I would like you to come and sing on it!» That was Pictures in the Dark.
That is the song that got me into Mike Oldfield. You appeared on a Norwegian music video show where you talked about the song and they showed the video. I wore that tape out watching it over and over again.
Really?!
Yes, and the video had state of the art computer animation that I found amazing.
Yes, Mike had a huge setup in our home. He was totally into making computer animation and he became more interested in making those than making music almost at one stage. He became very good at it and he learned how to handle the equipment very easily and so fast. He was the first artist to ever release a video album.
Yes, The Wind Chimes.
That’s the one, yes.
What was it like making that video album?
It was very interesting. We went to Bali and shot movies of the locals doing chants and dances. It was a fantastic trip and I love the music and the people of Bali. Then we went to Cornwall and shot some beautiful landscapes. It’s a very nice product, very much ahead of its time.
Did you know that it’s out on DVD now?
No, I didn’t know that. That’s great.
Yes, it’s a part of a compilation DVD called Elements where all of his videos are included. There’s even a live recording of him doing Tubular Bells on BBC in the mid-70s. And the entire Wind Chimes movie is on it as well.
I didn’t know that!
You are in four or five videos, including Pictures in the Dark.
Really? I should find a copy of that, shouldn’t I? (Laughs)
Yes, I think it’s great that they included the entire video album. It was released five years too early, I think.
Yes, Mike has always been ahead of his time.
Did Mike involve you much in the creative process?
He sometimes asked for my opinion, but he’s really more like “this is my project and I want to do it my way,” which I think is the right way to do it. If you’re in the middle of a project you have to shut other people’s opinions out, otherwise it’s not your project anymore. And everybody has an opinion…
What’s your favourite piece of music of his that you’re on?
Pictures in the Dark; I’m also very fond of When the Nights on Fire, which was the original version of Islands. That one song turned into two songs.
That’s typical of Oldfield, repeating themes and melody lines. What’s your favourite piece of music that you’re not on?
Millennium Bell and The Songs of Distant Earth. Those two are beautiful.
Have you followed his music since you split up?
Yes, and of course our two children are interested following what their dad is doing.
Some segments of his fan base were severely disillusioned by all the Tubular Bells sequels. What do you think of them?
My personal favourite will always be the original, but he has added some interesting new twists to the recent ones. Mike also writes some really, really beautiful pop songs and I kind of miss that part of his work. He’s made some tremendous music in his career, there’s no doubt about that.
What do you think of his computer games?
I’ve only tried the demo to the first one, and it looked interesting. What sort of reactions have they received?
Not very good. My impression is that people who don’t play much computer games favor them more than serious gamers. The reactions on his official forum weren’t very good either, and suddenly the forum was closed down. And the reaction on the mailing list was almost unanimously negative. But I doubt he pays much attention to what the fans speak about on the Internet.
You’d be surprised. If I know him as well as I think I do, he knows what’s going on (smiles).
Hmm, interesting. Do you think he was inspired by your Josefine games?
Haha, I seriously doubt that. I don’t think he’s even seen them.
Do you still buy his music?
Yes, of course I do. Lots of my friends have received his albums as Xmas and birthday gifts, especially Millennium Bell and The Songs of distant earth.
Are you still much in contact?
Yes, we have contact through the children.
How did you go from collaborators to become lovers?
That was just a process that happened over time.
Some people have described him as difficult. Is he?
I’d call him a very private person.
Is he anti-commercial on purpose?
I think he only does what he feels like doing. And that’s how it should be.
Did you learn much from him, musically?
Yes I did. It was very inspirational and Mike is good at getting the best out of me. He is a magician in the studio and he is among the world’s best composers.
Has there been talk of you two working together again?
No.
Do you know why your name isn’t even mentioned in the booklet for the Elements box set?
No idea. It’s probably an error.
Are you sorry that you didn’t get to tour together?
Not really. We did do promotion tours, and did some of the biggest tv-shows in Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. He is not fond of doing promotions, so when we promoted Innocent he sent me out to promote it. “You go,” he said. We also played “Pictures in the Dark, Innocent and Moonlight Shadow in concert halls with between twenty and thirty thousand people at each venue, and that was fantastic.
How did Mike react when he discovered how big your name was in Germany?
I remember when we were in this big hall, I think it was Grugahalle in Germany. There was a big poster with Roy Black and myself hanging on the wall. Mike saw it and gathered the entire band and said: “Look, it’s Anita she was here in 1971!” He thought that was very funny and quite sweet.
I listened to the twelve-inch version of Pictures in the Dark today, and it has an extra verse in it. Did he do that a lot?
Yes, he loved doing different versions of songs, but when we performed it we always did the single version.
Speaking of versions, Mike and I went into Abba’s studio in Sweden and made a new version of Moonlight Shadow, and he really liked it. We did this version because this German tv-show wanted Mike to play that song. Neither Mike nor I thought it would be right for me to mime to the original version that Maggie [Reilly] did, so that’s why we made a new version. Unfortunately there is quite a lot of miming on tv-shows, and I hate that! Nothing is like the real thing.
There is a recording of you singing Moonlight Shadow with Mike on acoustic guitar floating around on the net.
Really? I’d love to have a copy!
I’ll see what I can do. Speaking of Innocent, that was a song that came from Earth Moving, which probably is the most hated of his albums among the fan base, is it true that it was an album that Virgin forced him to do?
This was a difficult period for Mike. His relations to the label were not very good, and I think it’s safe to say that Earth Moving was a half hearted effort from him to get out of the contract with Virgin.
He took revenge with Amarok, though.
Yes, that’s a very underrated album. I love that album!
Yes, and it’s his favourite among the fans. It even includes a greeting to Richard Branson. What was their relationship like?
I don’t wish to comment on their relationship other than saying that they respect each other, and we had always had a pleasant co-operation with Branson. I never experienced anything but a civil tone between them.
Is it true that Mike sang the songs on Heavens Open himself just to do the album quickly so that he could get out of his contract with Virgin?
I’ll tell you a secret [smiles]. He came to me one day saying that he had made a tape for me. I listened to it, and I was amazed when I heard him sing. I told him that he should really make an album where he sang a couple of songs himself, because it sounded great. So he contacted an singing coach who gave him lessons and then he did the album with himself as the lead singer. So it was my suggestion that made it happen. In fact, I have a tape at home with unreleased songs that he has done, and they are great! One of them is especially beautiful.
I want you to tell me what it was like working with some of the artists Mike worked with during your time together.
Jon Anderson
He was very nice, a bit of a character and great fun to hang out with. We went to his house in Barbados to work on the song and the video. He is a fantastic singer, and he is a one-take kind of guy. He only did first takes. “Anita, if you can’t do it in one take, don’t bother.” he said to me.
Simon Phillips
He’s my favourite. When Mike and I lived in France he came and stayed with us for three weeks to work on Islands. He’s really sweet, hard working and professional.
Michael Cretu
We’ve only worked together once. He is very professional in the studio and very intense. Arms and legs go everywhere. He had a huge respect for Mike, and it was obvious that Mike was among his heroes.
Tom Newman
He worked with Mike on Amarok and came to our house daily. A very nice, talented and quiet guy.
Finally, what are your best memories of your time together with Mike?
First of all we have two kids together, and there are lots of great memories involving the children. We also had some great musical moments, and playing in front of thousands of people was fantastic. Most of all I have great musical memories from our time together.
I would also like to use this opportunity to thank all my fans around the world!! You are my inspiration and I wish you all a Happy, peaceful and strengthening new year!
To the love of music.
AnitaX
With that I had finished all my questions, and Anita and Einar wanted to grab a bite to eat before they left for the airport. I want to thank Anita for being very kind and gracious to take her time to remember the past with the subscribers of Amarok. Oh yeah, I also promised that we would promote her album when it came out later this year.
Also thanks to Einar Strande for setting up the interview for me.
I hope you enjoyed reading this. And Anita did eventually put out a new solo album, a very nice album called Starfish, produced by Norwegian guitarist extraordinaire Ronnie Le Tekrø. Here is my favourite song from that album:
Molto interessante