Around The World

Do you remember that time, in the late ‘90s, when every child knew the words to Barbie Girl? And then the entirety of the catchy bubblegum-pop album Aquarium? As the millennium approached, 5ive were being 5ive, S Club 7 were having a party and Vengaboys were riding the Vengabus, but it was Aqua who have managed to stay in the global consciousness. 

René Dif, ie the Ken to lead singer Lene Nystrøm’s Barbie in their most famous single, while sleep-deprived, is cheerful on the phone to The Music. He’s found coffee in his hotel, and the Danish electro-pop lord is ready to chat. 

“First of all we are very, how do you say, flattered, is that the right word, that all our fans and people Down Under want to see the Aqua team come down there. Last time we were there we had probably the best tour ever… We are like small kids in a candy store, looking forward to go Down Under.

“You never get tired of playing a hit. That makes me sound big-headed, doesn’t it?”

He admits that it’s difficult for bands these days to reach the kind of success Aqua did so early in their career: the success that lead to this, their second Greatest Hits tour through Australia. 

“Nowadays with a band they start with a single and it goes okay, and then the next single goes even better, and then they kind of hit it, but in our case we did our first album and it kind of just, most of the tracks just hit it right away. And that was as big a surprise to us as it was for our agent at that time. We just wanted to make really good pop music and spread some happy tunes. We had a good feeling about some of the tracks and we knew that they had something, but getting that reception as we did, way back, was mind-blowing.

“I think when we peaked was in our eyes not early; we peaked with Barbie Girl, Dr Jones or My Oh My, then all of a sudden we had several #1s in the UK. We had #1s in Australia, in New Zealand, we had #1s all over Asia. It did a big impact in many countries, really great, and of course there was a game-changer for us in the sense that we knew we had good pop songs but we didn’t know they were would hit as hard as that.” 

The band, of course, has split and reformed since those early days. There’s potential for a little bit of awkwardness there – Dif and Nystrøm were a couple during the early days, but by the time of the band’s split Nystrom was actually married to keyboardist Søren Rasted! Dif laughs it off. 

“We’re all friends and we’ve been together since day one so of course [it’s not hard]. This is our baby. Aqua is our baby and it’s our, how do you say, it’s our place where we meet up and play music. It was not hard at all. It was fantastic I think.”