Excerpt 6 : " Getting a record contract " Pål spent many evenings brooding with his guitar on his lap . Whether he was picking out some melodies on the instrument or planning their next step , it was always the band that dominated his thoughts . It had become clear to him that it wasn ' t possible to go right to the big people . To get an appointment , one needed a reference - from an agent , a manager , a publishing company , from somebody . So he remembered Lionheart Publisher , who they ' d spoken with the year before . Poem [ 1 ] had of course been turned down rather emphatically , but now things were different . No one could accuse a - ha of being ten years after their time . This time they got what they were looking for . Lionheart wanted to meet them . At twilight the day before the meeting was to take place , Magne wanted to help some friends out of the room they were sharing at Dalgarno Gardens . They had said something about needing a taxi soon , and Magne didn ' t hesistate to use the chance to get rid of the guests . With a shirt thrown over his shoulders and nothing but worn socks on his feet , he ran out to the street , and before anyone could yell " Taxi ! " he had crawled over the roof of a car and into the arms of a waiting bobby . The police whistle sounded angrily , two minutes later Magne stood surrounded by shocked friends and a hullabaloo of constables . He spent the night freezing in a damp cell together with prostitutes and some rather lewd homosexuals . A much more muffled Magne was fined ten pounds the next morning for " drunkenness and disorder ". Also in the room was Pål with an open wallet . Morten was luckier . The same morning at Lionheart they were finally rewarded for all their work the previous autumn at Nærsnes . The demo tapes were well received , and it was hinted that a contract could be within reach . one problem : Richard at Lionheart didn ' t hide the fact that newer , better demos would be needed , and the band would of course have to finance those themselves . There was no money for that , no way around a trip home . Pål stayed , supposedly to keep contact - but mostly to avoid facing the disgrace another time . By now it was the middle of March , and back home Dikemark Hospital needed workers . Morten and Magne spent the next three weeks working among depressed souls ; in their free time they " celebrated " their involuntary trip home with sympathetic friends . Morten also took the opportunity to relive the memories of the previous year ' s soul seances with Arild Fetveit . Under the catchy name Sporty Morty and the Houserockers , they went back to Hot House [ an Oslo night club ] - this time with music that blew the fuses out of the wall . The evening came to a strange end . A rich poseur at a table in one of the darker corners far from the stage sent magnum bottles of champagne up to the artists in an excited attempt to buy the show . Back in England Pål was living out his aesthetic bent to the fullest . As soon as Morten and Magne had left , he moved out of Dalgarno Gardens . The next weeks he lived at subsistence level - better known as Chinese take - away , the city ' s absolute cheapest food . He was living in a shack and eating for less than one pound a day . And working . A week after the separation he met a couple of hashish - smoking engineers with an obsession for music . In their smoky house studio , Pål tortured their simple equipment , and got through the period with some backing tapes and a powerful headache as a result . When the other two came back in early April , Pål moved into a hotel room with them . In record time they found a decent apartment in Orfalay House near Queensway . And after a quick look through various music publications , they had an overview of the city ' s eight track studios . They chose Rendezvous Studios in Sydenham - according to Magne because it was the only one that advertised that it had a Space Invaders machine . Unfortunately it took more time to get used to the rest of the equipment than the three optimists had planned . When the time they had reserved was up , they had only two songs on tape . Further studio time would mean they had to leave their apartment , and soon after , the country . .. At the same time , things that would have consequences they couldn ' t yet imagine began to happen . The manager of the studio , John Ratcliff , had noticed the three foreigners . Probably because they had surprised him by stopping to introduce themselves , something that rarely happened at Rendezvous . The usual degree of contact was limited to dissatisfied grunts and bargaining about prices . So Ratcliff listened to their tape , and liked the naive charm of " Dot the I ". When Pål came in to his office to pay the bill , Ratcliff mentioned that he was thinking about playing the tape for a friend of his in the business who had some influence with the right people . They grabbed the chance like a drowning man clutching at straws . Their confidence in Lionheart , meanwhile , had cooled considerably . Now that some demos were ready , they were told that it was unlikely anything could happen these next few months . Attracting the attention of the big boys took time . A - ha was offered a contract that gave them no rights except for the right to withdraw from the contract if Lionheart couldn ' t get them a recording contract in nine months . The little publishing company offered time , not money . Pål , Magne and Morten agreed to try something drastic - tell Lionheart that they had given a tape to John Ratcliff , who had given it to someone named Terry Slater . Use all the weapons at their disposal to squeeze an advance out of Lionheart . After a half - hour at a lunch counter on Regent Street , their plan was ready . Pål headed up to the Lion ' s Den . Everything was all smiles and friendship until Pål dropped the bomb . It detonated . Ten minutes later , ashen and sweating , he came back to his friends . The insults were still ringing in his ears . It was a quiet and depressed weekend . They still hadn ' t heard from Ratcliff , and the rest of the misery they had created themselves . The only thing they had left was an unpleasant certainty that all the hard work of the last five months had been for nothing . Early Monday morning a very bubbly Pål stumbled up the stairs and into their room at Orfalay House . The ringing of the phone down in the hall had woken them . It was John Ratcliff : " Terry loved it ! " [ 1 ] Pål and Magne ' s former band , Bridges , had changed their name to Poem after releasing their first and only album . The three young Norwegians had no idea what Terry Slater ' s enthusiasm for their demo tapes was really going to mean for them in time . Right now , his reaction was just one guiding star in an otherwise dark sky . A - ha lacked everything : money , contracts , and solutions . Lionheart was now enemy territory , and Slater ' s interest was their last hope . It had to be him or nobody . only very slowly did the three boys begin to understand what a great bird had folded his protecting wings over them . Terry Slater turned out to be a legend in the music business , a man whose nose for new talents had taken him to the top of the EMI skyscraper as England ' s best paid A & R man . The respect he enjoyed was not only due to his astuteness for business matters , but most of all for his rock solid understanding of the rock world at street level , which is after all where the music is created . He had met the Beatles back when they played for beer , sandwiches and pocket money in Hamburg early in the sixties , and for ten years had played bass and written songs together with the Everly Brothers . Terry Slater knew all of the record business ' nobility , and they all knew him and his many gold - plated discoveries . Slater was the man who had brought Queen into the EMI stable . Later he had caught people like Kate Bush , Duran Duran and Kajagoogoo . At the time he heard a - ha ' s demo tape he was voluntarily unemployed . He wanted to put all his talent , experience and influence to work for just one project - but it had to be a project he had absolute faith in . Limahl from Kajagoogoo had already contacted him , trying to sign up Slater ' s help as manager . He had been politely turned down . Terry Slater was waiting for something really big . While working at EMI , Slater had nearly signed up a group whose frontman and songwriter was named John Ratcliff . Because the company had so many resources tied up in launching Duran Duran , there was in the end no record contract for the former stuntman , sprinter and race car driver , but he and Slater kept in touch . As consolation for the lack of a contract Ratcliff had demanded something like 10 , 000 pounds from EMI , which due to his unbelievable audacity he actually got . With this money and gallons of sweat , the boarding school educated wild boy had built up Rendezvous Studios , where a - ha had come stumbling in with their charming manners and fascinating music . Slater ' s enthusiasm was the green light John Ratcliff needed . Like a true workaholic , he put everything he had into a - ha . The group was told to start work on more songs immediately . To save time and commuting money , a little place to live was found close to Rendezvous , at 221 Dartmouth Road . The studio was booked solid during the day , but when normal people pulled the covers over their heads , the three Norwegians poured their hearts into their work in the crowded little rooms . Their determination had been rewarded . The ecstacy they felt for having been rescued from a dead end spilled over into the new recordings . The five or six songs that were recorded over the next few weeks had both John and Terry dancing on air . Originally the pair had thought they ' d just try for a single with a - ha , but it soon became apparent that they had a group here who should be allowed to try out a larger format . Terry let a - ha know that he planned to take them all the way to the top , and as the first formal step on the way to a record contract , T & J Management was created . T & J Management ( T & J stands for Terry and John ) would throw their fate in with a - has . The two Englishmen would take care of the management responsibilities while a - ha delivered the music . Income would be split with 25 % going to each band member , and the remaining 25 % divided between Terry and John . As soon as the management deal was settled , Terry started working on several music publishing companies . A contract with such a company was necessary to secure a - ha ' s control over the rights to their songs , rather than letting the rights go to whatever record company they signed with . In the mean time John kept the geese that he hoped would lay golden eggs alive by paying for their rent and food out of his own pocket . He didn ' t have to wait long . In June 1983 Peter Cornish from ATV - the company that owns the rights to the Beatles ' songs - was in the audience at a - ha ' s first live performance , among the wires and mike stands in the dim light and crowded rooms of Rendezvous . The eager Norwegians left no doubt in Cornish ' s mind . Shortly after a contract lay on the table , together with an advance of 3000 pounds . This was no more than two months after Pål , Magne and Morten had first stepped off the train at Forest Hill station to visit the studio in Sydenham . But Terry Slater was not going to rest on his laurels . He arranged for similar performances in July for a number of somewhat skeptical record companies . only the bosses in the big companies - RCA , EMI , Warner Bros . , CBS and Phonogram - were invited . Terry wanted a guarantee that the new apples of his eye were going to get the best possible economic and technical support . June came and lay its heat over the metropolis . In Sydenham , a - ha sat and tuned their instruments . Andrew Wickham leaves his office in Wardour Street to fight his way to a small basement room in one of London ' s more depressing districts . He ' s had to put up with similar trips before in the months he ' s been here in the city - so far without result . Earlier the same week , he got a phone call from an old colleague who had just quit his job as the head of EMI ' s scouting department ; vice president Wickham allows himself a cautious hope that this time he won ' t be meeting rough - mouthed , bad - tempered rockers , that ' s not the kind of artists the company is looking for . Warner management has just cleaned the pensioners out of its stable , which has been cut in half , but in England there doesn ' t seem to be much to be found to replace them . He ' s looked and listened , with spotlight and stethescope , but so far he ' s found no sensations to report home to Burbank . Now it ' s time for Slater ' s project - in Rendezvous Studios , where backing tapes are ready to be played in the tiny practice room ; Pål , Morten and a very drowsy Magne walk back and forth between their instruments , the pinball game and the mirror , apparently without the least bit of nervousness . So the Warner man leans back in his chair and Slater sits on the edge of his . And a - ha gives the performance everything they have of music and theatrical charm - at that time no more than what came naturally , since they had almost no experience in posing . Andrew Wickham looks and listens , A few minutes later he puts down his demand : " Terry , you gotta give me these guys - you can have a million now ! "