A-ha frontman Morten Harket reveals he has Parkinson’s disease

A-ha frontman Morten Harket has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, but the 65-year-old singer says he had “no problem” accepting the diagnosis, even after undergoing brain surgery twice.

The news was announced in an article written by the Norwegian synth-pop group’s biographer, Jan Omdahl, and shared on their official website. In the piece, Harket — best known for his iconic falsetto featured in group hits such as “Take On Me” — quipped that “with time” he’s come to follow his father’s way of life.

“I’ve taken to heart my 94-year-old father’s attitude to the way the organism gradually surrenders: ‘I use whatever works,'” he explained.

Omdahl wrote that Harket’s diagnosis previously remained private from those outside his immediate circle because of “the unpredictable consequences” of going public.

“Part of me wanted to reveal it. Like I said, acknowledging the diagnosis wasn’t a problem for me; it’s my need for peace and quiet to work that has been stopping me,” Harket shared. “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.”

With his diagnosis public, Harket must answer the biggest question A-ha fans will want to know: what does this mean for his singing career?

“The problems with my voice are one of many grounds for uncertainty about my creative future,” he told Omdahl. And when asked if he can sing now at all, Harket admitted: “I don’t really know. I don’t feel like singing, and for me that’s a sign.”

He continued, “I’m broadminded in terms of what I think works; I don’t expect to be able to achieve full technical control. The question is whether I can express myself with my voice. As things stand now, that’s out of the question. But I don’t know whether I’ll be able to manage it at some point in the future.”

However, Omdahl noted that Harket doesn’t consider losing his voice to be “any great tragedy.”

“When I say that my identity isn’t about being a singer, that’s my direct response. It comes straight from the heart. People associate me with it, naturally enough, and I realize that,” Harket said. “I see singing as my responsibility, and at certain moments I think it’s absolutely fantastic that I get to do it. But I’ve got other passions too, I have other things that are just as big a part of me, that are just as necessary and true.”

While Harket has accepted his illness, and Omdahl stressed that he will have to live with the disease for the rest of his life, the singer shared that medication and brain surgery at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. have “softened the impact of his symptoms.”

Harket first underwent a neurosurgical procedure called deep brain stimulation (DBS) in June 2024, then a similar procedure in December 2024, which was also successful.

“With the right electrical impulses now reaching Morten’s brain, many of his physical symptoms practically vanished,” Omdahl wrote.

The biographer explained how, on good days, Harket shows “virtually no sign of many of the most familiar physical symptoms of Parkinson’s” but still requires a “round-the-clock effort” to balance medication, signals from the electrodes in his brain, sleep, blood sugar and his mindset, all to keep the symptoms at bay.

“This isn’t always successful, and is more like a never-ending rollercoaster ride,” Omdahl added. “It becomes obvious that the strain of talking about the disease, and of what lies ahead when it becomes public knowledge, only makes him worse, in the way that all forms of psychological stress are known to affect Parkinson’s sufferers.”

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As such, the singer isn’t putting pressure on himself to get back to the mic anytime soon. Harket said he’s going to “listen to the professionals” and urged his fans not to worry about him.

“Spend your energy and effort addressing real problems, and know that I am being taken care of,” he added. “It used to bother me to think about my sickness becoming public knowledge. In the long run, it bothers me more to have to protect something that is strictly a private matter by treating it as a secret.”