James Bond: A-ha speak out on The Living Daylights theme DISPUTE 30 years on (EXCLUSIVE)

Back in 1987 Timothy Dalton replaced Sir Roger Moore as James Bond in The Living Daylights.

Following Duran Duran’s A View to a Kill, eyes were on another hit 1980s pop band to take on the latest theme.

Following the success of their debut album in 1985, a-ha were called upon to write the next Bond theme.

The band’s guitarist and writer of The Living Daylights Paul reveals: “We were actually in the middle of our second album then and were starting to release singles for that and heard there was a competition to try and get this next Bond song. And we were invited to submit a track for that.”

The 56-year-old continued: “I was very happy when I heard the title because it immediately seemed to suggest that melody for me. The chorus came super fast.

“We did a demo and it was a lot of back and forth and waiting, but we heard that [Bond producer] Cubby Broccoli was a fan of our song and in the end we got it.”

However the process of producing the record, one a-ha’s most memorable singles alongside Take On Me, wasn’t exactly easy and the band got into a dispute with veteran 007 composer John Barry.

Paul, who also spoke out on a-ha’s future, said: “As I say we were in the middle of doing our second album so we were busy doing other stuff.

“I was a little bit…we had different working methods and we came across as a little too efficient. We were like, ‘okay we’ve just got to get this done.’

“And we didn’t want to cancel a show to come to the premiere, so there were certain things like that that rubbed him up the wrong way.

“So he got really…y’know. And we felt there was a wrong note in the string arrangements, so we fixed it, but he didn’t like that.”

Nevertheless Paul doesn’t have any bad feelings over their disagreement.

He added: “But do I think he did a great job. It was a fantastic string score. We just had one chord in the middle that was important to us that was changed and hey, stuff like that happens.

“To us it wasn’t that huge of a deal, so we were a little surprised he got that cheesed off by it.”

“Maybe I’ve dulled to it over the years, but really of most of our recordings there was some sort of argument and a lot of heated discussion, so this wasn’t really out of the ordinary for us.”