00:02
Jørgen Klubien
I have a 21-year old son who is wanting to be an artist. And we spend a lot of time together sketching, painting, and talking about art.

00:12
Jørgen Klubien
I have a particular love for a painting by Henri Matisse, called Interior with a Violin. It's a little room with the open window and it looks out onto the sea. There's palm trees. And the sea outside and the palms remind me of California and the sea breeze and the lovely sleep you can have close to the ocean, and it's just the best.

00:31
Jørgen Klubien
I like his colors. They're fun. They're almost cartoony, and loose, which is how I like to draw myself. I like to do loose styles. And the violin represents music, so it has that little footnote for me.

00:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the National Gallery of Denmark and the American Friends of the National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who've made a significant mark in the US.

01:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today our guest is Jørgen Klubien, a multi-talented Danish artist who can pride himself on being a writer, musician, and animator. Welcome, Jørgen.

01:20
Jørgen Klubien
Many thanks.

01:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
As mentioned, you are a multi-talented artist, but you are probably mostly known in Denmark as a musician because you rose to fame with the band Danseorkestret in Denmark. You are now based in Los Angeles, and about a decade ago you wrote a song called "City of Angels," which I happen to like very much. And in the lyrics you say about Los Angeles, "you set my mind free." What do you mean by this? What is so freeing about being in LA?

01:51
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, thanks for listening to that song, first of all. I came here the first time in 1975. I think I was 17 at that time. And I was curious about all things culturally that America represented to me, which was mainly its music and the animated films by Disney. And I just fell in love with the climate out here, and the light, the sunlight.

02:21
Jørgen Klubien
And it did something to me, and I know it does to most people. But it just made me feel more alive. And that's what I mean by that, that it sets me free to be the person I feel that I am. It's a place where you can reinvent yourself, in a way.

02:40
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
In this music video for the song "City of Angels," you're seen leaving your house in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, which is the location that we are at right now. Tell us about your little oasis here. As you worked as an animator at Disney, you have a lot of historical Disney artifacts in your house. It's like a little bit of a mini museum upstairs, where your office is. Can you talk a little about that?

03:07
Jørgen Klubien
Yes. This house was built in 1935. I'm the second owner, and I knew the guy who owned it. He was a Disney artist, and was Walt Disney's right hand man in the early days of the '30s and '40s. He directed Dumbo, and he had a lot to do with finding the right artist and the stories that Disney made.

03:34
Jørgen Klubien
And in the later years, when I was part of the new generation that took over in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, we found Joe still alive and living here in this house, and we brought him back to the studio as a wise old man. I was lucky to work alongside him in the development department where we worked on movies like The Lion King and Mulan and Pocahontas. I was in what was called the development department and so was Joe Grant.

04:06
Jørgen Klubien
When he died in 2005 in this house, in the studio upstairs that you described, his two daughters wanted to sell the house to somebody in the business so it wouldn't be torn down and changed too much. A sentimental thing, you know. And I was the guy who bid on that. I guess I'm a romantic.

04:29
Jørgen Klubien
Like you said, I collect art from my animation business and it's meaningful to me to live in this place where I knew the guy and I can picture him here in the '30s and '40s. His daughters told me about how Walt Disney would come by here and all those sorts of things that to me, is meaningful.

04:50
Jørgen Klubien
The house has a large property as you can see. We're surrounded by these hills. It's in the shade. So we're in the shadow side of the hills, which is nice in the summers. The studio upstairs is a lovely place. I just love it and when I met Trine, and she decided to move over here ten years ago, I was lucky that she liked this house, too, because it is a little old and run down. It's not for everybody. I'm very fortunate to have found somebody who shares the romance of this place with me.

05:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And maybe talk about some of the things that you have upstairs, some of your favorite things that you have.

05:29
Jørgen Klubien
I did collect some furniture from the Disney Studio, because in the mid '80s, there was a regime change at the Disney Studio. And the new guys that came in from Paramount were live action guys, and they really didn't have knowledge of animation and didn't see the romance of the place like I did and some of my fellow artists.

05:53
Jørgen Klubien
And so they decided to change the interior of the old classic 1940s Art Deco building. They lowered ceilings and tore out old beautiful wooden doors, replaced them with glass doors. And some of the beautiful furniture that had been designed by the same architect who designed the studio, they sold them off at little auctions. So some of my friends and myself, we bought some of those furniture.

06:18
Jørgen Klubien
I have equipped my studio upstairs with old Disney furniture. So that's also extra meaningful to me. And then, the art that I have collected through the years is drawings from the classic Disney movies, animation drawings, development art, and what's called cels. And back in those days when I started, it was all hand drawn animation. Of course, now animation has become more CGI created, and so there's a shift there that's happened. But I'm still into the old hand-drawn animated movies.

06:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How important is it for you to be surrounded by these things? You say that it has meaning for you. What does it mean to you?

07:05
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, that's a good question. Many collectors say this, that it's a disease. Part of it is the hunt for something great. But I'll say this though. I have traded a lot of my own drawings. Because I was lucky to work on a lot of famous movies, and I did storyboards, and I did animation, and so a lot of my original drawings, I was able to trade for more of the old classic artwork, so I haven't really spent so much money on it.

07:32
Jørgen Klubien
I'm friends with collectors, and there's quite a big market, even in the auction world, where they sell comic books, original comic art, and also animation art. And so it's a whole business there. What it means to me is it gives me continuous inspiration to look at my heroes, and then to realize that I got this close to it.

07:57
Jørgen Klubien
That I worked with some of the old people, worked in the old studio. All these things that were just so far from a little boy's dreams, you know, in Denmark back in the '60s. It reminds me of how lucky I've been I guess.

08:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Working for Disney as an animator seems like a dream come true, as you mentioned, being a little boy in Denmark. What led you to become an animator in the first place, and what made you decide to study animation at CalArts? I believe that was back in the '70s, right?

08:27
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, that's right. Let me go back. I think it was the Donald Duck magazine on a sand blizzard, and I was a fan of that as a boy. And I realized that some of the best stories in that were by one guy and his name was Carl Barks. And I realized that before he did the comic books, he had been a story artist at the Disney animation studio.

08:49
Jørgen Klubien
And it piqued my interest as I wasn't that good in regular school, but I could draw a little bit. So I decided I was going to try to become an artist, and I got in contact with the Disney studios here in Los Angeles when I was about 15. There was some correspondence, letters and such. And they were telling me that they were actually looking for a new generation of artists to come in.

09:13
Jørgen Klubien
And they were interested in people from everywhere. And that there was a school here in Los Angeles that Disney sponsored, and where its teachers in that particular little department of the film department were ex-artists from Disney. Some of the old retired guys that were heroes of mine were teaching there. Actually Walt Disney, his plan was to be a teacher there at CalArts.

09:38
Jørgen Klubien
He founded the school, it's a whole story in itself, but it is the offspring of a school that was here in Los Angeles called the Chouinard Art Institute, where Disney in the '30s recruited artists from when he wanted to do Snow White, because he needed his artists to get better at drawing humans, and move away from just the cartoony Mickey Mouse stuff, wanted to get more sophisticated.

10:05
Jørgen Klubien
So he contacted this lady, Mrs. Chouinard, who had this art school here in Los Angeles, and had some of the school's teachers come out and teach his staff. And he also recruited from the school. So he had this long relationship up through the '30s, '40s, '50s with Mrs. Chouinard. At some point, Walt decided to invest and make that school a bigger school, and so it merged into becoming California Institute of the Arts.

10:37
Jørgen Klubien
And it really is Walt Disney's idea. It was supposed to first have been placed over by the Hollywood Bowl, but then they found property up in Valencia, just north of here, you know, and that's where it is today. And I got in on a scholarship in 1978, and I was the fourth class of that program which was called Disney Character Animation.

11:05
Jørgen Klubien
And some of the senior students were people that I became friends with, like John Lasseter. And I became friends with him in school. Tim Burton was a third year student when I was a freshman. And so I knew all these guys at CalArts. And we lived at the school on campus. And it was really the first time I lived away from my parents when I came here.

11:28
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Maybe we should tell the listeners who John Lasseter and Tim Burton is for those who don't know.

11:33
Jørgen Klubien
Well, John Lasseter, like I said, he's my age, just a little bit older. I had gone to art school in Denmark prior to coming to CalArts. So I could already draw a little bit. But John became the creative head of Pixar, which led this new revolution in animation where it was all computer generated.

11:53
Jørgen Klubien
And so John had that interest in computers, not that he was technically savvy, but he liked that it could do the work for you. He was not as good a draftsman as some other people. But he was interested in that, and he led that revolution.

12:08
Jørgen Klubien
All the people I worked with throughout my 45-year career here, have been people that somehow I knew at CalArts. And CalArts is really the place that fed the animation boom in this second generation. I refer to us all as Walt's children, because that's how I feel. I feel like we owe it all to Walt Disney. And it was his idea to create that school. And that's where we met.

12:35
Jørgen Klubien
I have friends that came from Michigan, from the East Coast, from Germany. And we all congregated there at CalArts and then went to work at Disney and then later to all these other places like DreamWorks and Pixar and what have you, you know.

12:49
Jørgen Klubien
Tim Burton was also there. We know Tim from lots of things. I think some of his more famous movies are Edward Scissorhands. I worked on four or five of his movies — Dumbo, I worked on Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. And so, Tim did both live action and stop motion animation. I've known him all my creative life.

13:13
Jørgen Klubien
And he lives in London. He was born here in Burbank, and found it more interesting to spend his adult life in Europe. Whereas I did just the reverse. I was born in Europe, and decided to come here and live in Burbank, in a way.

13:30
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned some of the larger projects that you worked on. But what was your first job as an animator? And how did you get it?

13:37
Jørgen Klubien
I went to CalArts, and all of us students, throughout the year, we were supposed to work on a little short film. And then at the end of the year, that film would be shown and people from Disney would come and they would handpick the guys whose films they liked. I was picked right away. I was picked the same year as they picked Tim Burton and John Lasseter.

13:56
Jørgen Klubien
So in 1979, we started at the Disney studio, and they were in the middle of making a film called Fox and the Hound, in Danish, Mads og Mikkel. And so that was the first film I worked on. I was an assistant animator. I worked under a bunch of famous animators like Glen Keane and a bunch of other people that have become legends from my generation. And that was fun and that's how I got my start.

14:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you have since then worked for the giants in animation, Disney, Laika, Pixar, and Dreamworks. What would you say that you appreciate the most about these experiences?

14:35
Jørgen Klubien
I think the reality of it all is that I cherish the fact that I became a professional in a business I never dreamt I could be part of, and that I actually succeeded and became someone that other people wanted to have on their team, was just a big thrill for me. Of course, when you work a whole life in any business, you have your ups and downs. And I wouldn't say that it's been a complete 100% smooth ride.

15:07
Jørgen Klubien
But I remind my friends who, if they complain, you know, about why didn't I get this, or why didn't that happen? I remind them of how far we actually got from our boyhood dreams. And that in any endeavor, especially if you're an artist, how you're bound to run into good times and bad times. I like the whole ride, if you will. I think it's fun.

15:31
Jørgen Klubien
I've retired now from the actual business. So I'm not actively out there looking for work anymore. I'm working on a little short film of my own. And then from time to time, friends call and ask if I can help out, and then I happily help out. But other than that, I'm not really out there trying to get a job anymore because the business has changed in that it's so driven now into this computerized world.

15:57
Jørgen Klubien
And there's a lot of young people, and there's the gaming industry, and there's a lot of young people who come out of the art schools, and they like each other, they want to work with their friends. And so suddenly I'm an old — I'm the wise old man now, so I'm wondering if one day I'll get a call and I'll be the new old Joe Grant. That would be fun, but I don't know if that's going to happen. We'll see.

16:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
When visiting Pixar in Northern California, you get the feeling that you're at a playground, where there are toys, table tennis and lots of other playful things going on. And it seems like a lot of fun working there. But it's also, I mean, reality is that it's serious business with a lot of money involved. What is the animation business like?

16:46
Jørgen Klubien
It just all depends on where in the hierarchy you are. If you're a young person, and you dream of working on a Pixar movie, and you get a job there, I'm sure it's heaven. If you are more experienced, and you bring your ideas there, and you have creative ambition of seeing some of those ideas up on the screen in its purest form, that's a tall order.

17:12
Jørgen Klubien
Because they always want to have a hand in it and change it and mess with it. And that's the difficulty of working as a creative person. The older you get, the better you get. You get more confidence in your own abilities and your own ideas. And yet you are constantly watching how your ideas are adapted by other people, changed a little bit, and not always to something that you think is a better idea.

17:43
Jørgen Klubien
And so there's that compromise that happens. And so I would say it's very different where you land in a big company like that. I think it was easier for me when I was young to just be starry eyed and enjoy everything. And then as I got older, I wanted to have more influence. And I had some, but my ambitions probably outgrew the invitation, if you will. Yeah? Does that make sense?

18:11
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, of course.

18:12
Jørgen Klubien
A little bit.

18:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's the reality of the studio system.

18:14
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, it's the reality of it. And therefore I'm happy to not be there anymore, to run my idea up against other people and have them change them and take them and run with them. I'd rather do my own thing now.

18:27
Jørgen Klubien
And the interesting thing is that the two old people that I looked up to the most — Carl Barks is one, like I said, who ended up doing the Donald Duck comic books. And that was exactly the same reason he was a story man, but didn't enjoy that his ideas were changed all the time, and this group effort that it always was.

18:50
Jørgen Klubien
He liked his own stuff. So he decided to leave the studio and just sit in his house and do these comic books. And they're genius. And so I understand him, much better now than I did as a young person. I can totally relate to his desires and why he left, I understand it 100%.

19:11
Jørgen Klubien
It was the same with Joe Grant, whose house I bought here. He had a falling out with Walt over how Lady and the Tramp was supposed to be handled, because it was an idea of his, based on his dog that lived in this house, Lady.

19:26
Jørgen Klubien
And it was the same with another one of my all time heroes in the business. His name is Bill Peet. He was Walt Disney's most famous storyboard artist. And in the late '60s, a year before Walt dies, he left in the middle of Jungle Book. And then he sat over in Studio City and for the next 30 years, and I got to know him personally, he sat there and produced a children's book every year. Beautiful drawings, beautiful stories.

19:56
Jørgen Klubien
And he became one of America's most read and bought children's book authors, alongside the Rey family who did Curious George, and Maurice Sendak. Bill Peet's like the third most bought and read children's book author here in the States, as far as illustration and writing. Just a genius, and it was the same thing, he ran up against this sort of creative frustration. So there's that, yeah.

20:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You have to be very collaborative and be on a team and bounce ideas off each other.

20:26
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I said, I think if you're really a strong willed artist — many artists have a certain ego, and as you build up your confidence in your abilities and your ideas and such, maybe, I think it's natural that you don't always want to just give in to when somebody else comes and says, Oh, I think you should do this instead. And you go, no, I think this is the right way. But that is difficult in a studio situation. And that's why you need to leave at that point and just go do your own thing.

20:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, so it's not a one person vision.

20:58
Jørgen Klubien
It's just difficult to be a lot of artists working together for one person who has the final say.

21:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And to those of the listeners who do not know, can you explain what an animator does and what makes good animation?

21:16
Jørgen Klubien
Sure. An animator is the guy who makes the characters perform, much like an actor would. In the old days, it was hand drawn, so you had to have a lot of skill in terms of being able to draw stuff in dimensions and in space. So I would say you had to have more skill than today, where you move a puppet around in a computer that has controls and stuff. But it still needs to be a performance that is fun, entertaining, and convincing.

21:47
Jørgen Klubien
And so you are given the voice actor's performance. Let's say it's Woody from Toy Story, you're given Tom Hanks' voice, and it's been recorded and you know what the scene is supposed to be. You see the storyboards there and then you get this puppet in your computer and then you're supposed to move it around to this performance and you deliver it. A good animator creates something that's convincing and believable, I would say, and often has a little something extra spark of fun or entertainment, you know.

22:21
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it takes a lot of animators to create an animated movie. How many on average do you think work on a big scale movie like a Disney film or a Pixar film?

22:32
Jørgen Klubien
Not as many as you would think. I would say anywhere from 20 to 30 on a feature film, if we're talking Disney or Pixar, where you cherry pick the best talents and give them time to do it right. So the productions take a long time. If you are a television production and your budgets are maybe smaller, you may hire some folks out in Canada, or Europe, or Far East, India, and there it's almost like you could maybe hire 50 to 100 animators and they could work on something for three months and it's done. But you have less control with that.

23:16
Jørgen Klubien
And so it becomes a little bit more of an average sort of product, if you will. Whereas if you have these sort of top-end Disney, Pixar movies where you have these fine artists and a director walks around and you look at screen tests every day and you refine them and you tweak the performance and all that, it just gets to another level. If you can imagine that. But it also costs a lot more.

23:41
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And it takes a lot of years.

22:42
Jørgen Klubien
And then it takes, on average, from an idea to writing a script and storyboarding and developing it, and animating it and post production recording voices, doing the music and all that stuff, it's usually three to four years for one movie. Yeah, for those top qualities. Then there's newer productions that are able to crank them out in less time. Yeah.

24:07
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your favorite animated movie, and why?

24:13
Jørgen Klubien
Maybe Lady and the Tramp. Maybe because we're sitting here in Lady's house. I would have to say that, yeah.

24:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yeah, that's a good one. You are 65 years old —

24:24
Jørgen Klubien
That's right.

24:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
— at the time that we talk, but you are still going strong. If you were to look back at your career from the perspective of the present, what would you say were the highlights?

24:37
Jørgen Klubien
Boy, highlights. There are many. I've been fortunate. From when I was accepted into CalArts, it was a highlight. Whoa, really, I'm going to the States and going to the school with Disney artists? Oh my God. Then when I got hired at the studio, that was a highlight. Whoa, I'm hired? And on and on. Then I had ideas of mine that suddenly got into a film.

25:00
Jørgen Klubien
I animated The Little Mermaid swimming around the statue of Eric, and it ends up in the film and people know the scene when I talk about it. I had ideas for films that got made. And so I've been very fortunate, I feel very lucky.

25:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you are part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

25:19
Jørgen Klubien
Yes.

25:20
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How does one become part of it? And what does that mean to you? What is it like being part of the people who give out the Oscars?

25:29
Jørgen Klubien
We're many now, as you know, Tina. They expanded, they doubled the membership over the last three or four years. I think we're almost 10,000 members now. 9,000 or 10,000. And they've had a lot of focus on diversifying and bringing in people of color and different genders and races and young people, because it was viewed as an old white boys club.

25:54
Jørgen Klubien
It's professionals judging other professionals. I think we do a good job. To me, awards are fun, but also very rarely reflect what I personally think is the best. Oftentimes, the movies that I like the best don't even get nominated, and they rarely win. And I always bring it up, Hitchcock never won an Oscar. That says a lot about the Oscars.

26:17
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, it's a great, fun thing. I love seeing people bringing their game. It's a fun evening. But it's becoming slightly too important, I think. You need to remind yourself that it is just people judging something, and now we're 10,000 judging it. And who knows? A thing could get half the votes and then the other one could get one more vote, and then suddenly that's in, the other guy's out, so.

26:45
Jørgen Klubien
But it's fun to be part of it. It's one of those things. I remember when I got my first American Express card, I felt very adult. And it's the same with being a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures. You feel oh, I'm part of this exclusive club.

26:59
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
When did it happen?

27:01
Jørgen Klubien
I've been a member for 20 years or something now. I had a little short film that got shortlisted, but didn't get nominated. I've worked on movies that were nominated, feature films and such, and you can get voted in by other members or you can become a member automatically by being nominated.

27:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which movies did you work on that were nominated?

27:21
Jørgen Klubien
Oh, God. Cars is one, for instance. They created the feature animation Oscar award at some point not too many years ago, but yeah, that's a whole other issue, Tina.

27:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, that's very political too.

27:34
Jørgen Klubien
I disagree with that particular Oscar in a way, because I don't think animation should be viewed as a genre. It's more a style of making film. And to me, I would rather we had it like best comedy, best drama, best family film, best fantasy film, something like that, I think would be more appropriate.

27:55
Jørgen Klubien
Because also now animation is starting to blend. You see live action films that have so much CGI animation in them that you're starting to wonder, does that qualify as animation or does it, so it's kind of confusing.

28:08
Jørgen Klubien
I don't particularly think that's such a great divide, that there's one for animation and one for live action films. I think there should be many more categories, but more genre based.

28:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
A movie is a movie.

28:20
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, you know. So that way you could have five or six best Academy Awards. Best comedy. Comedies never win Academy Awards. You could have the best comedy of the year. You could have the best drama of the year. Best sci fi of the year. Best family film of the year. And in that could be a lot of animation, for instance. You know what I mean?

28:42
Jørgen Klubien
I think that would be better. It's kind of like the Grammys. Best R&B. Best Jazz. Best Contemporary. Best Rap, whatever. They have more genre-based best of. Then they have, of course, the record of the year, and you could have that too. The movie of the year, whatever. Yeah.

28:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How busy are you during awards season? What do you do? And I assume you've been to the big show itself. What is that like?

29:08
Jørgen Klubien
We get invited to a lot of screenings that are fun because the filmmakers are there. Sometimes the actors are there, and they do these panels where they sit and talk about the movie to make it interesting for us who vote. So it's a treat to go out there and hear, you know, Alexander Payne talk about The Holdovers. That's a treat. And meet Paul Giamatti. And that happens to be my favorite movie this year.

29:33
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's very good.

29:35
Jørgen Klubien
You know, that's fun, and that happens every year. We have screeners here at home. You could sit here and watch the films up on our projector here. And so that's a luxury in itself.

29:45
Jørgen Klubien
I've actually only gone to the Academy, physically, once. And it was fun. It was a year where there was a bunch of Danes that had been nominated among them, Kim Magnusson, a friend of mine, who was often nominated, as you know. And I remember Mads Mikkelsen was there. I can't remember if it was—

30:03
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
The Hunt, maybe?

30:04
Jørgen Klubien
It could have, no, I think it's—

30:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
A Royal Affair?

30:07
Jørgen Klubien
I think it might've been A Royal Affair, yeah. Weren't they nominated for that?

30:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes.

30:10
Jørgen Klubien
Nikolaj Arcel? Yeah, ten years ago, maybe, I think, something like that. And it was just fun. I remember I met Judith Hill, who was in this documentary called 20 Feet from Stardom, and that was a pleasure. It's just fun. I sat in the cheap seats and actually, you have better viewing at home on TV.

30:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And as a singer, you've created songs both in Danish and English. In Denmark, a few huge hit songs. One was called "Kom tilbage til mig," "Come Back To Me" is the English title, from 1985. And people from my generation all knew the lyrics to that song back in the '80s. And we actually still do. Which language do you prefer today when writing lyrics?

30:56
Jørgen Klubien
I just did a new album in Danish, and I did it mainly to have more material for when we go out and play live. Because those old hits that you describe allows me to go back every summer and play with my band and make a little money and have a little fun. And that audience is anchored in Danish, the Danish material. And mostly what I play live is the Danish songs.

31:27
Jørgen Klubien
The English songs were more for myself in a way, and just fun to try my hand at singing in English and doing a few songs that my American friends could understand. I did an album maybe ten years ago in English called Soul Cowboy and that was fun to do, but it didn't really create any big stir or anything.

31:47
Jørgen Klubien
I'm still known for the old '80s hits mostly, and yeah, I mean, it's comfortable, it's fun to write in Danish. Yeah, I like it both. I can't really answer which one is better. I feel very bilingual. I've lived here in the States permanently since '78, so it's been 45 years. So I feel very comfortable in both languages.

32:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned your new album. Can you tell us the title of that? And what is the album about?

32:13
Jørgen Klubien
It is called Wonderland, and it refers to Denmark, in a way. I did write a song on the album that specifically points out the wonderfulness of Denmark seen through the eyes of an expatriate who's lived away from Denmark for 45 years. So everything starts looking a little bit more fairytale-esque. It's a little bit sugary sweet, I suppose, but I do mean it.

32:43
Jørgen Klubien
And I dubbed it Wonderland. And it's also referring to the fairytale aspect of my life. And the way I see my life having been played out. And also, Denmark is a little bit of a fairytale land, I think, that just happened to fit.

33:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You picked an English word for the title of the album —

33:06
Jørgen Klubien
Well, originally I was going to call the album Danish Inside, but in Danish, which is Dansk indeni. But my co-composer on the album, who's a young Dane, who's 29 years old, hated that title because he dreams of leaving Denmark. And so he thought it was way too nationalistic. Although it wasn't meant that way at all.

33:31
Jørgen Klubien
It was meant more of a romantic love letter to Denmark, that you feel Danish inside no matter how many years you're away from it, as I think a lot of people do when they emigrate. They still have that country of their childhood inside and never leaves you. But at rate, I decided to change the title mostly for his sake. And I don't actually sing "wonderland" in that song, but we just brainstormed and we came up with that title and I thought it was fun. And so that's why that is.

34:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your favorite Danish word?

34:03
Jørgen Klubien
For helvede.

34:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Can you please spell that and tell us what it means?

34:09
Jørgen Klubien
"For helvede" means "for hell," which is basically a curse word. It's just good punctuation for something, if you say, go get that thing, goddamn it, it's like goddamn it in Danish, I guess. For helvede, F-O-R is for, the same word, I guess, and then "helvede" is hell, H-E-L-V-E-D-E.

34:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which Danish values do you think you've taken along with you on your road to success in the US, and which ones did you leave behind?

34:40
Jørgen Klubien
Oh my god, that's a good question. And I know exactly what to say, because I don't think it led to success. It led more to trouble. I think it is the bluntness that I brought with me as a Dane. This — I don't know if it is a Danish thing, particularly — but a little bit of European, slightly Danish thing, that we're very honest and blunt about our honesty and we don't think twice about expressing it.

35:05
Jørgen Klubien
It took me many years to understand that that was not a great thing in meetings to just blurt out my actual opinions about things because it ruffled feathers and embarrassed people in the hierarchy. When I had a great idea, better than theirs, and I just blurted it out. It actually didn't do me well.

35:27
Jørgen Klubien
It embarrassed people, and it took me many years because they don't come back and tell you, don't do that because you're embarrassing me. They just get mad at you, and behind the scenes, they get rid of you. And it takes you years to find out why that happened. And so I would say that's a Danish trait in me, at least, this took me many years to learn to be a little bit more politically correct and also respect people's religions, because that's also something that I thought was a thing of the past coming from Denmark.

35:57
Jørgen Klubien
I didn't realize people were still reading the Bible over here and going to church and thinking that those things were still real. I would say I've learned to not be so politically blunt or be a little bit more careful with my opinions or maybe not talk politics or religion with people unless they invite it, things of that nature. I've just sort of learned a little bit more diplomacy, I think, I would say. But too late!

36:29
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Too late. 

36:30
Jørgen Klubien
A bit too late.

36:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What did Denmark offer you in terms of preparation for your career? How did the country shape you as a professional? I know you were there shortly.

36:42
Jørgen Klubien
I was there all my, you know, formative years.

36:45
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes.

36:45
Jørgen Klubien
I was there until I was 19.

36:47
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes. But you didn't create a career there.

36:50
Jørgen Klubien
No, that's true. I mean, I think being brought up in Denmark in the '60s and '70s was just a great time. We had great food, great schools, great entertainment. I was very much influenced by American culture, even though I was brought up in Copenhagen. We watched things on TV that was from here, heard English and American music. It was like it glided into becoming a Californian.

37:16
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So you almost answered my next question. When you're in Los Angeles, do you gravitate towards the Danish community, or do you mainly have an American network?

37:27
Jørgen Klubien
I would say this. I think I'm a bit of a loner, to be honest with you. I worked so much that I really haven't cultivated any kind of Danish groups, but that goes the same with Americans. The only people I see or talk to were people who worked in my business, pretty much. And then when I go to Denmark for the summers, it's all my musician friends over there. Those are my friends. So it's very work-oriented. And that's me in a nutshell, I think.

37:58
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Sometimes expats find themselves in between two cultures. How do you experience that?

38:05
Jørgen Klubien
The airplanes make it easy. We hop on a plane here at LAX. We sit for 10 hours and watch a few movies and then we're in Copenhagen. It's easy as pie. Our times have enabled us to be very international that way and not lose yourself. And we're lucky we have a little summer house in Denmark. So, like I said, we go there every summer, and I feel very connected still to my family there and my friends there.

38:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you still feel at home in Denmark, and could you imagine ever moving back?

38:35
Jørgen Klubien
Yeah, we talk about it often, when should we move back there. I have children there who are young adults now, and want to come here for a little while. But Trine and I, we do talk about, as we become older, do we wanna be old here or there. But the climate here is hard to beat. And you get used to a certain lifestyle in California, I think, the food, and yeah. I mean, it's still magical for me to be here. And Trine feels the same way, so we're not quite ready to go back. But we always talk about it. Yeah.

39:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My last question, which I might ask far too early for you to even think about, because you are far too young for that. But where would you like to be buried: Denmark, the US, or somewhere else?

39:21
Jørgen Klubien
Well, I've talked to Trine about it, because I'm 65, you don't know how long you're going to be around if you're lucky to be here for a long time, which I hope I am. In a way, I don't know if it's up to me or up to my descendants.

39:40
Jørgen Klubien
I wouldn't mind being here in Forest Lawn in Glendale where Walt Disney is at and Bill Peet and some of my heroes and sunshine and imagining myself there. But at the same time, I wouldn't mind being in Denmark either, Assistens Kirkegården alongside Hans Christian Anderson. So I feel, depending on where I die, if we live here or there, that's fine.

40:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You could be divided into several pieces.

40:06
Jørgen Klubien
They could— they have two urns, two half size urns, and they can, you know.

40:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Exactly. Brilliant idea.

40:14
Jørgen Klubien
Like the Big Lebowski and "The Dude," to buy two half cans of Folgers Coffee and put me in there.

40:22
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Well, Jørgen, thank you so much for being part of Danish Originals. We appreciate it.

40:27
Jørgen Klubien
Sure. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

40:32
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Jørgen Klubien chose Henri Matisse's Interiør med violin or Interior with a Violin from 1918 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.