Morten Harket (born September 14, 1959 in Kongsberg) is the lead singer of the Norwegian pop band a-ha, who have released eight studio albums and topped the charts in several countries after their breakthrough hit "Take on Me" in 1985. The son of Henny and Reidar Harket, and brother to Gunvald, Håkon, Ingunn and Kjetil, Morten grew up in Asker. Early musical influences included Uriah Heep, Queen, Johnny Cash, David Bowieand Peter Gabriel Before joining a-ha in 1982, Harket appeared on the Oslo club scene as the singer for blues outfit Souldier Blue. After a-ha took a break in 1994, Harket pursued a solo career, and has so far released three albums. Two of those albums were sung in Norwegian, but his 1995 album, Wild Seed, became more of an international success because of its English lyrics. Harket worked with Håvard Rem, a Norwegian poet, to write most of the songs. "A Kind of Christmas Card" and "Spanish Steps" were the most successful numbers. The rest were either easy, simple songs, or more profound ones, such as "East Timor" and "Brodsky Tune", which had political messages in them. Harket re-joined his colleagues in a-ha in 1998 to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize concert. Since 1998, Morten Harket and his bandmates in a-ha have released several albums together. Their eighth studio album (Analogue) was released in 2005. Harket holds the record for the longest single note, for a man, in a song, having held a note for 20.2 seconds in a-ha's 2000 song "Summer Moved On". This overtook the previous record of 18 seconds held by Bill Withers in the song "Lovely Day".[1] Harket has three children with ex-wife Camilla Malmquist Harket (married 11 February 1989 - 1998); Jakob Oscar Martinus Malmquist Harket (b. May 14, 1989), Jonathan Henning Adler Malmquist Harket (b. December 30, 1990) and Anna Katharina Tomine Malmquist Harket (b. April 14, 1993, uses Tomine as her first name). Harket's ex-girlfriend Anne Mette Undlien gave birth to their first child, a daughter, named Henny in 2003. Harket is currently dating his personal assistant, Inez Andersson.