Zürich’s Fueled By Fear revisit a-ha’s ‘Take On Me’
Fueled By Fear (Photo by Marcel Bruderer)
Zürich metalcore and melodic death metal band Fueled By Fear have released an official video for their version of a-ha’s 1985 hit “Take On Me.” The track appears on the five-song EP “Ordinary Evil”, which was produced and mixed by Oscar Nilsson at Studio Bohus in Kungälv, Sweden.
Guitarist Daniel Zopfi says: “We didn’t want to copy the original we wanted to reinterpret it in a way that feels honest to who we are as a band.” Drummer Mauro Galasso adds: “We embraced the 80s aesthetic, added a bit of parody, and mixed it with our heavier sound.”
You can watch the video for Fueled By Fear’s take on “Take On Me”right below.
The full “Ordinary Evil” tracklist is: “Suffer”, “Edge of Sanity”, “Godmade”, “End of Time”, and “Take on Me (A-ha cover).” Mauro Galasso says the EP title was inspired by Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil,” and as a response to conformity, abuse of power, and indifference.
About Fueled By Fear
Fueled By Fear are from Zürich, Switzerland. They have been active since 2011, first under the name Bloodbound, then briefly as Blood Will Bound in 2016, before the band settled on Fueled By Fear. The rename happened after they discovered another act was already using the earlier name.
After roughly six months of songwriting, the group played its first show supporting Requiem. Fueled By Fear then joined Sepultura’s Baltic tour in March 2012 and supported In Flames on a Russian mini-tour in 2013.
The debut album “Two by Eight” was released on October 16, 2016 via Ashburn Productions. The EP “This Forsaken Place” followed in early 2019, also through Ashburn Productions. The second full-length, “Death for You All”, was released on January 28, 2022. A standalone single, “Flawless Victory”, followed on February 3, 2023.
The “Ordinary Evil” release was preceeded by the singles “Suffer”, “Edge of Sanity”, “Godmade”, and “End of Time”, followed by “Take On Me (Cover)” in January 2026 and the full EP at the end of that month.
The current line-up is Marco Böhlen on vocals, Manuel Elber and Daniel Zopfi on guitars, Josh De Souza on bass, and Mauro Galasso on drums.
About a-ha’s ‘Take On Me’
“Take On Me” was written by Pål Waaktaar, Magne Furuholmen, and Morten Harket. The song grew out of the earlier Bridges composition “Lesson One” and first appeared as an a-ha single on October 19, 1984. That first release drew notice in Norway but did not become an international breakthrough. A re-recorded version followed in 1985 for a-ha’s debut album “Hunting High and Low”. Backed by Steve Barron’s rotoscope-based video, the song became the band’s global breakthrough, reached No. 1 in the US on October 19, 1985, peaked at No. 2 in the UK, and the video went on to win six MTV Video Music Awards.
The song has been covered many times since. Among the better-known versions are the versions by Cap’n Jazz in 1995, Captain Jack in 1996, Reel Big Fish in 1996, A1 in 2000, D.A. Wallach in 2017, and Weezer in 2019. A1’s version was the biggest chart hit among the covers, reaching No. 1 in the UK. But there are of course many other additional recordings, which shows how often “Take On Me” has been revisited across pop, punk, ska, soundtrack, and rock.
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