Rok Music Magazine - PAN - Interview with Arne Wurgler (bass) and Thomas Puggård-Muller (guitar) - By Erik Kramshøj Musicians And Records Rok: Your record. You have already told me before this record came out that it had been already outdated.   Arne Würgler: "It is like this. When man has made a record, he wants it to come out as soon as possible, and I think it took too long time, and I had a feeling when it finally came out that we could have made it better."   Rok: Have you changed your style since that moment?   Arne: "Not style, but now we are maybe playing better together."   Rok: You also did it amazingly fast after you started playing together, was it a self-initiative?   Arne: "It was us, Thomas and me knew how hard it was to strike a group up that it is why we decided to try the opposite way: practise hard and concentrate on the record and let it work for us. I got this idea about the time when Crosby, Still, Nash and Young were giving concert in Copenhgagen: here a relatively new group came to the country but people already knew most of their songs."   Rok: Is it not like corporations recently have become happier about making records with the Danish groups?   Arne: "I do not think that it is about corporations; it is simply about groups which are pressing so hard that corporations must do something. It is also because a big part of the groups are professional now so they have to think sompletely different."   Rok: Can man make a living now of being a professional beat musician?   Arne: "That is what we are doing. From the economical point of view, it is not the happiest life."   Thomas Puggard-Müller:  "I prefer now to live in payment difficulties and to play like a professional. I can not imagine that I could have been doing something else."     Film Planes   Rok: You should perform in the film, for which you have already made some snapshots.   Thomas: "This is a Danish-Swedish cooperation, film is supposed to be financed by Nordisk Film and one Swedish company called “”Omega. Actors will be both Danish and Swedish and we will play practically ourselves. Film’s supposed title is ”Deadline”."   Rok: What about plot?   Arne: "This is practically a science fiction movie. Some bacteria, which should be used in case of a biological war accidentally escapes during summer in the resort town with plenty of happily walking tourists. Somebody gets infected and nobody has an antidote; the only thing that they can do is to isolate the whole town with military surroundings, and these poor tourists have no idea what is going on. Topic reminds me a bit of problematical issues from Camus’ novel ”The Plague”. The person, who was making a script, is called Stellan Olson; he is also a movie’s producer."   Rok: When is it coming out?   Arne: "In the beginning of 1971, I hope. And it will be a colour film, cinemascope and everything."   Rok: Is the music for this film Judgment day music?   Arne: "No, for God sake, our music is soft and romantic and I actually think it is more intended to make a contrast to the picture."     Beat Musician As A Committed Person   Rok: You are a permanent writer for ”Politisk Revy” and you seem to be very angry at everything. What are you angry about?   Arne: "I am not angry but we live in an aggressive society and we cannot use a man who just sits back and doesnothing. I do not like writing aggressive music but writing words is another thing; if man wants to say something, it has to be quite concrete. As a musician, I think first and foremost is to create something together with the audience you are playing for. When I am writing something, on the other hand, I am doing it to attract the publicity’s attention to these numerous practical troubles which man can face being a beat musician."   Rok: This is highly unusual for a musician to be so much committed to society's problems.   Arne: "Obviously not and I think that this is wrong, when I am writing for “Politisk Revy”, I am doing it because this magazine is very dialectical and I can really like it. It should be much more debates about the whole scene and there is a huge interest towards it but ordinary press do not notice it. Maybe only Hans Jørgen Nielsen from “Information”, but only to a certain extent when his work goes far away from music and this is, saying politically, making him weak. He puts more accent on himself than on the topic."     Shit And Scene   Rok: Have you noticed a big difference between seasons 68/69 and 69/70?   Arne: "Yes, one can notice an obvious worsening."   Rok: What has really happened? Do people smoke too much shit?   Thomas: "I do not know if they are smoking too much, but there is something that shows that they are smoking it in a wrong way."   Arne: "I practically think that this is a kind of hopelessness which exists now."   Rok: Where is this hopelessness?   Arne: "People were too naïve, but eventually they have found out that man did not mean the things man used to say walking around, and that the things were more complicated."   Rok: And so man gave up…   Thomas: "I think that man has discovered in 69/70 that he was still not more free than Mr.Hansen which was going to the office every day and that man was made in the same way as Mr. Hansen, and if you go here and talk to Mr Hansen, he is damn shy as they were also shy also towards each other but they were so damn busy to show that they were not, but they were, and so there is such a feeling which was of course reinforced by damn wrong approaches: Sorry, it is not me, it is another guy aside from me”. And so they flaked out. And man also became paranoid about smoking. And there are so many people who just cannot realize how insecure man can be when man is 14. When man smokes chillum, sometimes everything becomes reinforced so they prefer to flake out rather than participate."   Arne: "I also think that drugs have given bigger acknoweldgment and with that knowledge of how wrong the whole thing is and it is really not much man can directly do about it man prefers escapisms and chillum."   Thomas: "At the same time what happened is that the older smokers have found out they they can live normally with it, and I believe that it will also occur to these younger ones at a certain point later. I believe that it will be better again; it is just like a culmination now."   Rok: Do you have a feeling that musicians have a culmination now? Can it go further?   Thomas: "It will not go further before the audience will find out that they can participate in the whole process as much as a group which is standing on the scene."   - Thank you to Claus Rasmussen for the original Danish article, and to Raj from GAF for translating it into English.