[3] After gigging locally throughout 1982 and 1983 in their hometown Sarajevo at various university student clubs such as Kuk, Trasa, and CEDUS, Zabranjeno Pušenje was ready to take the next step — releasing a studio album.

Consisting of seven energetic youngsters in their early 20s, itching to increase their profile on the scene, they recorded demos for some dozen tracks during spring 1983 in a studio in Kiseljak.

The lineup that recorded the demos was – frontman and vocalist Dr. Nele Karajlić, rhythm guitar player and main songwriter Sejo Sexon, lead guitarist Mujo Snažni, bassist Samir "Ćera I" Ćeramida, drummer Zenit "FuDo" Đozić, keyboards player Seid Mali Karajlić, and saxophonist Ogi Gajić.

It took about 7 months to complete the recording, not because we struggled with the material — we could do those songs in our sleep — but because the combination of us and Paša Ferović was like one long continuous anecdote.

Just one of the many things we had to overcome was for example that our typical working day during that time consisted of seven band members getting up in the morning and then around 10 am splitting up in groups that went from one kafana to another around the city of Sarajevo, looking for Paša Ferović who had spent the entire previous night drinking at one of these places.

And it's precisely that raw honesty that later struck a cord with a lot of people... Once we finally finished recording Das ist Walter, we were literally spent, both physically and emotionally, as evidenced by the fact that each and every person involved in making it was so stressed that we all fell ill from ailments ranging from liver cirrhosis to pneumonia.

For example, one day Goran Bregović showed up at the studio to take back his 8-channel sound board, but we somehow persuaded him to leave it with Paša just a little while longer.

It was a critical time for us, we were going into our fourth year together with very little to show for it and our families were already nagging us with stuff like 'what's the point of all this' and 'how much longer are you gonna be doing this pointless crap of yours'.

He first offered it to PGP RTB, but after they refused it, Marić contacted Jugoton's creative director Siniša Škarica who accepted it.