DOORS, ANTHOLOGY. TABLATURE
The Doors Anthology
Series: Guitar Recorded Version TAB
Artist: The Doors
A must-have for any Doors fan! This deluxe collector's edition songbook features: note-for-note transcriptions with tab for 20 of the greatest hits from this classic rock band; The Doors essential discography, with photos of each album cover; “The Music of The Doors,” an extensive interview with guitarist Robby Krieger; 'The Story of The Doors,' an in-depth interview with keyboardist Ray Manzarek; and lots of great photos. Songs include: Blue Sunday - Break on Through (To the Other Side) - Crystal Ship - Hello, I Love You - L.A. Woman - Light My Fire - Love Her Madly - Love Me Two Times - People Are Strange - Riders on the Storm - The Unknown Soldier, and more!
Inventory #HL 00690347
ISBN: 9780634002052
UPC: 073999493221
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
144 pages
Titles:
Blue Sunday
Break On Through To The Other Side
Crystal Ship
Five To One
Hello, I Love You (Won't You Tell Me Your Name?)
L.A. Woman
Light My Fire
Love Her Madly
Love Me Two Times
Love Street
Not To Touch The Earth
People Are Strange
Riders On The Storm
Roadhouse Blues
Soul Kitchen
Spanish Caravan
Touch Me
Twentieth Century Fox
The Unknown Soldier
You Make Me Real
THE DOORS
12 14 Settembre 1968 i Doors suonano a Francoforte,
LIGHT MEIN FIRE:The Doors tape a performance for German television, 1968.
In March 1969, Jim was arrested and charged and convicted of indecent exposure. The episode opened the door, so to speak, to the band's destruction, as Morrison's action led to a virtual blackl isti ng of the Doors for a year by concert promoters across America. Things "were never quite the same again," according to Krieger. Now, nearly 30 years after Jim Morrison allegedly waved his flag in Miami, fans of the Doors will be able to hear the actual sound of the great overexposure. The very first track of The Doors Box Set, the new four-CD compilation assembled by surviving members of the band and soon to be released by Elektra, is the Doors' 1969 Miami Dinner Key Auditorium rendition of "Five to One." The song is one of many in a set which appears to have been designed to appeal to curiosity seekers as much as mainstream fans. "The record company has wanted us to do a box for years now," explains Krieger, "but we put it off until we could come up with something really good-and different." And different it is. Four years in the making, The Doors Box Set was meticulously and imaginatively conceived. Taken as a whole, the set adds depth and shading to the band's short but prolific career. (The Doors managed to squeeze in six studio albums, plus a live album, in the five years between their debut and Morrison's death in 1971.) Included in the collection are dozens of rare outtakes, b-sides, soundcheck recordings and an entire 1969 performance held at New York's Madison Square Garden. There is also "Orange County Suite"-a new tune featuring a recently recorded instrumental backing track to a Jim Morrison demo dating from 1970. But perhaps the most surprising aspect of the set is that only the last disc of
the four, entitled "Band Favorites," includes any previously released material. Clearly,
this is no ordinary greatest hits collection. "Everyone in the band had different
ideas of what to put on the fourth CD, so we arrived at the idea that each of us would be allowed to pick our five favorite songs," says Krieger. "We didn't want to create a 'best
of,' because that had already been done." But it is no surprise that Krieger and company
placed a premium on crafting such a unique product; the Doors were always true
originals. Though their first album arrived in 1967, during the heyday of flower power,
the band's music was dark and apocalyptic. While the Beatles chanted "all you need is
love," Morrison fantasized about killing his father and fucki ng his mother.
The Doors were full of contradictions and riddles. They were a rock trio with a jazz
drummer and no bass player (Ray Manzarek filled in the bottom by playing murky, hypnotic
ostinatos on the Fender Rhodes keyboard bass he placed on top of his organ).
Lead singer Morrison was both a strikingly handsome teen pin-up type and a deeply
tormented alcoholic who died at the age of 27. And then there was Krieger.
Krieger joined the Doors in 1965, when he was only 18. At the time, the sum total
of his experience on electric guitar was six months. His only real background was in
flamenco guitar-two years-for which he used a nylon-stringed instrument. As a
result, he played his Gibson guitars with his fingers, producing a spidery, sensuous
tone that is unique in the annals of rock. "I brought Robby to the band," says
drummer John Densmore, still displaying pride in his discovery 32 years later. "I wanted him in because he was my best friend and could play some cool leads. Little did I know that he had this phenomenal melodic sense and innate understanding of song structure. It's impossible to imagine where we would have been without him. He wrote perfect melodies for Jim to sing; Jim couldn't have written them more appropriately himself." Krieger not only collaborated with Morrison on countless tunes but also penned on his own many of the Doors' best songs and biggest hits, including "Light My Fire," "Touch Me" and "Love Me Two Times." "Robby's playing in the Doors displayed as much passion as anyone ever has," adds Bruce Botnick, the band's longtime engineer, who co-produced the box set with Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek. Botnick joined the project after the death of Doors Producer Paul Rothchild, who had catalogued over 40 hours of the band's music. "That struck me allover again as I went through the archives. There were many nights when he just transcended himself, went inside and rose to extraordinary levels of inspiration." Late last summer, just days after the band members recorded "Orange County Suite," Krieger sat down to go through the four discs. "It never entered my mind to think, 'Hey, isn't it a bit presumptuous to ask Jim Morrison to sing my song?' Jim was adamant about it being 'The Doors,' not 'Jim Morrison and the Doors.' And I think that was a big reason for our success."
THE DOORS
of the box set song by song. His assessments are-in the finest tradition of the Doors
themselves-insightful and brutally honest.
GUITAR: The box set starts with
one of the most controversial moments of your career-the Doors' performance of
"Five to One" at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium, in 1969, during which Jim
allegedly exposed himself, leading to his
arrest and ultimate conviction of indecent
exposure. Why did you want to start there?
ROBBY KRIEGER: It's a very revealing track.
It shows you where Jim was at the time,
and where the band was as well. It's a very
visual track-you can listen to it and imagine
what's going on. The quality, of course,
is pretty bad, but it is way better than the
bootlegs which have long been out there.
Besides, we figured that the poor sound
quality is offset by the content.
That was truly a crazy night. Jim was very
late getting to the show, and by the time he
got there, he was pretty drunk. He had just
had a big fight with his girlfriend, and
future wife, Pam. And not only that, but just
before leaving Los Angeles, he had seen a
performance by this theater group, the
Living Theater. They were the first some:
what legitimate stage ensemble to use total
inudity. It was very groundbreaking stuff,
where the people in the cast would run out
in the audience and get everyone involved.
They'd rile everyone up and get in their
faces. It was pretty cool, and Jim really dug
it. He brought all of us to see it. He saw that
again just before he left for Miami, and I
ithink he was pretty affected by it; he was
getting more into the idea of being very confrontational
with the audience.
All of those conditions came together to
cause what happened at the show. And
even though I never saw him pull it outand
I still don't think he really did-people
said he did. At the trial, they displayed
hundreds of photographs, and nobody
caught it on film.
guitar: It's interesting that the band seemed to
have been able to keep playing throughout
those chaotic moments.
KRIEGER: Well, that was what we did; that's
what we were good at. But let's be honest:
it did fall apart that night. Usually, we were
at least able to make it through the show,
no matter what, but Miami only lasted
maybe two or three songs after "Five to
One." It was bedlam, just total craziness.
The place was incredibly over-sold and
sweltering hot. Thousands of people
swarmed the stage, and it collapsed. I
remember Jim just rolling around in the
midst of all those people, and I was wondering
if we would ever get out of there. It
was very much like in the movie [The
Doors]-they did a real good job on that
one. And the last thing I remember was Jim
out in the audience, leading this huge line
of people like a big snake. And we were
running for the rafters. It was pretty crazy,
and the track reflects that.
Guitar: Did you have any sense at the time
that the incident would blow up into such
a big thing?
KRIEGER: Hell, no. Even though we didn't
finish the concert, no one seemed to be
angry. Nobody asked for their money back.
And the cops were all friendly-they sat
around drinking beers with us after the
show. Nothing happened until a week later,
when somebody decided to make a stink
about it. Some politician decided to make
his career at our expense. Then it fucked
everything up. We basically couldn't play
anywhere for a year. It was never quite the
same again.
guitar: Some time during that period-right
before the Doors recorded L.A. Woman-you
cut the demo of "Hyacinth House" at your
home studio. What do you remember about it?
KRIEGER: I had a little house up in Benedict
Canyon, which is near Laurel Canyon,
California. Jim and John and a couple of
other people came over there one night. We
were just fooling around, taping some stuff.
I had this pet bobcat at the time ...
guitar: A pet bobcat?
KRIEGER: Yeah, yeah. It would mostly stay
outside, but sometimes it would come
inside. But by that time it was getting real
big and kind of dangerous, so I didn't let
people pet it or anything. And that's where
Jim got that line about the lions. And
"hyacinths" referred to some hyacinth flow-
ers that were right outside the window. And
in that line about the bathroom, Jim was
talking about this friend of ours who was
there and kept hogging the bathroom all
night. Jim wanted to go to the bathroom,
and he couldn't. Finally, the guy got out of
the bathroom, and Jim goes, "I see the
bathroom is clear." He wrote the song on
the spot, and I think that was how some of
the best Doors songs were written. Then we
just recorded it on my little Sony four-track,
THE DOORS
which was a real nice, high-quality tape
recorder. To call it a home studio is kind of
funny, but it was a pretty revolutionary
piece of home machinery at the time
because it ran at both 7.5 and 15 [ips].
guitar: "Who Scared You," a b-side to
"Wishful, Sinful," has been a something of
a "lost" Doors song, one I've never seen on
any bootleg. Yet it's a great song. What
made it pop back into your consciousness?
KRIEGER: Actually, I always liked that song,
and I don't know why we never put it out on
an album. Maybe it was a little bit dark,
but we should have put it on The Soft
Parade [1969J, which is when we cut it.
I've always thought that the Doors were lost
on that al bum because of the orchestration,
and it became Jim and the big band.
"Who Scared You" is one of the few songs
that I feel was enhanced, rather than overwhelmed,
by the horns. I think it's up there
with "Touch Me" and "Wishful Sinful." I'm
happy to get it out there, really.
guitar: In a sense, this box set presented you
with an opportunity to rewrite history and
to rethink some old decisions, like keeping
that song off the album.
KRIEGER: Yeah, that's true. And it's nice.
Everyone knows hindsight is 20-20, and
it's great to get a chance, some 20 or 30
years after the fact, to ask, "Wow, why didn'
t we do this or that?" Because when
you're making a record, you're blinded by
the fact that you want everything to be perfect
rather than going with the best songs
or using the takes that have the best feel or
groove, even if there are some mistakes.
And it's just nice to have a second chance
at putting some of the stuff out. "Who
Scared You" is toward the top of that list.
guitar: "Black Train" is a medley of
"Crossroads," "Mystery Train" and "Away
in India," recorded at a 1970 concert in
Philadelphia. It sounds pretty cohesive and
flowing. Is that something that you guys
often played, or was it a one-time jam?
KRIEGER: We played it quite a few times for
about a year. I always liked that song a lot.
There was a bootlegged version from a
show in Seattle, that I really liked, which
we were going to use. But then we found
this version, which seemed a little better.
That's another one I'm happy to get out.
guitar: Another interesting-blues is "I Will,
Never Be Untrue," taken from a 1970·
show at Los Angeles' Aquarius Theater.
KRIEGER: I love that song! That's one of my
favorites on the whole box set. It's just a
simple blues, with Jim making up some
words, and it really takes off. The two of us
originally did that alone at a benefit concert
in New York. It was just a good example
of the type of thing we'd often do: we'd
start playing a blues, and Jim would come
up with some words and just make them
work. A lot of those lines might stick, but a
lot of them would be different all the time.
That was always a lot of fun for me, and
Jim really liked it too. I really think that if
we had done another album after L.A.
Woman [19711, it would have had a lot
more straight blues, which Jim was getting
more and more into.
guitar: There are several other improvised
blues medleys on the set. When Jim got
going on something like that, did you generally
have any idea where it was headed?
KRIEGER: Not really, no. He would just
ramble. But, hey, you always know where a
blues is heading. [laughsJ
guitar: "Whiskey, Mystics and Men" is a
Morrison Hotel outtake.
KRIEGER: Right. That's a very cool track.
We overdubbed a bunch of stuff on it when
we were doing An American Prayer [the
1978 recording of Densmore, Krieger and
Manzarek backing some 1970 Morrison
poetry readingsJ, but we never used it for
some reason. It's unusual: Ray played
Mellotron, and it had Fritz Ritchmond, the
jug player in the Kweskin Jug Band, the
great bluegrass mandolinist Jesse
McReynolds and some people chanting.
Very interesting stuff. That's another one
that probably should have made it onto an
album but for some reason never did.
guitar: The set includes the band's first five
demo tracks, recorded in 1965, before you
joined the Doors, including a version of
"Moonlight Drive," which is followed by
another take from a year later, with you on
it. It's interesting to hear what your addition
meant to the band.
KRIEGER: Oh yeah, definitely. It sounds a
lot better. [laughsJ The truth is, it wasn't
just me, of course. Everybody was playing a
lot differently, and a lot better, by that
time. You have to realize that when they
did those first demos, it wasn't really a
band. It consisted of Ray, Ray's brothers
playing guitar and harmonica, Jim and
John, and this lady bass player. And it was
just an early demo, the kind every musician
has. We just thought fans would find those
tracks interesting. What I brought to the.
band were just some different musical
ideas. Ray's brothers were good musicians,
but they were like a surf band. I came from
a different place. I had learned flamenco
classical guitar, so I played with my fingers.
I had the slide thing, and I was into
New York urban blues, all of which were a
little different, and maybe helped the band
develop its own sound.
But I think what I really added is the
writing aspect, which pushed things in a
different direction. When I joined the
group, those songs on the demo were about
all they had. And when I got in with them,
Jim and I just started writing a lot. And
that's where most of the material on the
first and second albums came from.
guitar: Did you have a strong impact on
Jim's writing?
KRIEGER: Yeah, I really did, actually. Jim
and I started hanging out a lot and jamming
and writing, but it wasn't only that. The four
of us just started jamming more and doing
different things, getting more musically
adventurous and unusual. Even on the first
album, there are a lot of odd songs, like
"Take It as It Comes," "Light My Fire," and
"The End"-stuff that's very different from
surf music and blues. Stuff that made it
more musically complex, more interesting.
guitar: Ray and John are generally regarded as
the band's jazz influences, but some of your
material, in particular
"Light My Fire,"
shows a strong
modal jazz influence,
reminiscent
of Miles Davis' Kind
of Blue period.
KRIEGER: I think
we all were equally
influenced by that.
John and I used to
Iisten to jazz all the
time, long before
we were ever in the Doors. And Ray was
into it, too. John actually played with jazz
bands in high school and had some friends
who were into it heavily and played some
very good jazz. Whereas I never played jazz
at that time, though I often do now. I listened
to it, but I didn't know how to play
guitar very well yet. I had enough trouble
playing rock and roll, so I couldn't worry
about playing jazz. [laughs] I knew my limitations
as a player, but I always loved the
music and was influenced by its ideas.
guitar: "Rock Is Dead" is probably going to be
RAY MANZAREK
do European existentialism in music. And if
that's dark, well so be it. So is the human condition.'
The drive to deny that is one of America's
problems. To deny Dionysius, to deny the darkness
of the soul, the darkness of the human spirit,
is to be only half of a human being. That's why
the madness comes out; that's why things like
Waco, Texas, happen. That's why we have religious
fanaticism. If we go inside of ourselves
and examine the fact that we do have darker
desires along with the joy, it will be okay. With
the Doors we tried to combine the joy of creation-
the solos of "Light My Fire" are as joyous
as it gets, man-with the parallel depths and
darkness of creation.
THE DOORS
... one of the more talked-about songs on the set.
KRIEGER: That was recorded while we were
in the studio doing TheSoft Parade.We went
out to dinner one night, got really drunk,
came back, and just started jamming. There
was a Mellotron in the studio, which we
wanted to use and had been trying to figure
out what to do with. We were all drunk, and
Ray started playing it, just for fun. And it
became that jam, through much of which he
plays that thing. That weird organ sound that
goes in and out of tune is the Mellotron.
guitar: Where did Jim fit in in that kind of spon-
taneous improvisation?
KRIEGER: We would start playing something
first; he wouldn't just start singing. He would
react to us, and then we would try to follow
him wherever he was going. So that's usually
how it went; first he followed us, then
we followed him.
guitar: As far as his vocal there goes, it could
be argued he was right about rock being
dead, because so many rock giants did start
dyi ng not too long after that.
KRIEGER: Yeah, for sure. First Jimi and
Janis, then Jim himself. And then rock r$al-
Iy was sort of dead. It really seemed that way
to me, though I didn't know for sure that
rock was dead until disco started up a few
years later. [laughs] ,
guitar: while you were still planning the box, you
said that you guys were having some trouble
deciding how to edit "Rock Is Dead." How
did you resolve that? "
KRIEGER: Well, we pretty much leff it
alone. Before he died, Paul Rothchild edited
it very lightly, sort of giving it an outline,
and we decided that he had done a good
job and just left it. [The producer of the
Doors' first five studio albums, Rothchild
prepared and edited the band's tape
archives prior to his death in 1995.-guitar
, Ed.] Though it tends to sort of ramble in a
few places, it really moves along. At one
point we thought, "Well, maybe we'll just
take all the music off and redo it." We
could have done that because we did have
Jim's vocal on a separate track, which is
not always the case. But that would have
been a major undertaking, and what would
it prove? That we can play sober, and in
tune, 30 years later? I think it's more interesting
as the drunken document that it is.
guitar: Another interesting piece of music is
the last track of the first album,
"Albinoni," a symphonic piece tacked onto
the end of "Rock Is Dead." Where did that
come from?
KRIEGER: That was a piece of music that
we all liked a lot. We were gonna use it for
The Soft Parade, at the end of the song
"The Soft Parade"; I honestly forget why
we didn't. I think we all decided that it was
just too heavy or something, but we had
gotten a full string section in, and they
nailed a really great rendition. Actually,
what happened was someone had the idea
to do that, and Bruce Botnick's father was
a stri ng contractor, the guy who puts stri ng
sections together, so he called all these
guys, they came down, and made this
beautiful piece of music, which we stupidly
never used, until now. I added some guitar
to it a couple weeks ago, which I think
came out real nice, and John added some
THE DOORS
... very cool percussion. I believe Ray put
something on it too, so it took a bit of a
new shape and just seemed to add a nice
conclusion to "Rock Is Dead."
guitar: Did you do much overdubbing on the
rest of the songs?
KRIEGER: Oh, a couple of things, but they
are almost all overdubs on the live album.
I touched up "Blue Sunday," "Roadhouse
Blues" and "The End" just a little bit. It's
basically stuff that was out of tune and easily
fixed. These weren't like major multitrack
recordings, so everything is leaked all
over each other, and there's no way to fix
that, which is fine. I mean, a live album is
a live album. I just couldn't resist tweaking
a few things that were easily accessible.
I love the version of "The End" because
it just really hits a mood, but unfortunately
the guitar was out of tune for quite a bit of
the song. Which happened pretty frequently
by the end of the night. We didn't have
tuners, and I didn't have a guy on the side
of the stage getting my guitars ready. And,
in any case, I played just one guitar, an SG,
for straight playing and another one, a
black beauty Les Paul, for slide. I detuned
both E strings to 0 for "The End," and it
would be pretty tough to keep it in tune. I
managed to edit out most of the really bad
stuff while retaining the great feel.
guitar: Do you still have your Doors' SG's?
KRIEGER: No. The first one was actually a
Melody Maker, and after that I had several
red SG's. They're all gone now, mostly
stolen and a few lost. To be honest, at the
time, I didn't really care. I just got new
ones. They were more or less just tools to
me. In the studio I used Fender Twin
Reverb amps, and I don't think I have any
of them, either. I do still have my Black
Beauty, though.
guitar: Once you decided that you wanted to
do a live disc, how did you come to select
this particular New York performance?
KRIEGER: We thought it would be nice if we
cou Id present one show rather than throw
together stuff from a whole bunch of different,
unrelated shows. We started going
through all our Iive tapes, and it turned out
that we had pretty good tapes of the shows
from New York which we didn't use at all
on Absolutely Live, or anywhere else. We
used stuff from a couple of shows during
the same stand at the Felt Forum and
structured them to run like one live set.
guitar: You've always said that Absolutely
Live [1970J, while good, was not representative
of the Doors at their best.
KRIEGER: Yeah, and, to tell you the truth, I
don't think we ever recorded anything that
was, including this live set on the box. But
this version of "The End" does come close
for me. There's just some excitement, some
of the feeling that caused the hair on the
back of your neck to stand up. That's the
kind of thing that's so hard to capture on a
studio record, but possible at a live show.
That's what we looked for here, and we got
it on "The End." I definitely like that version
better than the one on the original
album, which I always thought was really
just a skeleton of how we played it live. I
feel that way about almost everything on
the first album [The Doors]. We had no studio
experience and had to do everything so
fast. I also think studios are, by nature,
limiting. So I'm happy about having more
good live stuff come out.
I believe that the performances of "Ship
of Fools" are really good, also "Celebration
of the Lizard." I like that a lot. The audience
was pretty cool, and Jim was in an
especially good mood. You can tell because
of the way he talks to the audience beforehand
and gets them into the right mood.
There's also a nice version of "Gloria" and
an excellent take of "Crawl ing Ki ng
Snake," which could be our definitive version.
I definitely like it better than the L.A.
Woman version. The guitar solo is very
weird. [laughsJ In those days, I probably
would not have wanted that heard because
THE DOORS
it's very off-the-wall. But now I like it.
guitar: Playing "off-the-wall" solos in traditional
blues formats was one of your trademarks
with the Doors. The slide solo on
"I've Been Down So Long" comes to mind.
Was that the result of spontaneous improvisation?
Or did you think, "Okay, I'm going
to play something weird tonight"?
KRIEGER: It was spontaneous. I would
never play weird just to play weird. I did,
however, try to approach things a little differently
because, at the time, everyone was
imitating Chuck Berry, B.B. King or
Michael. Bloomfield. Of course, I loved
those guys; I listened to Bloomfield's first
Butterfield album [The Paul Butterfield
Blues Band, Elektra, 1965] for hours on
end, but I wanted to do something different,
to establish my own sound.
guitar: Why do you think you weren't able to
capture more performances of the band at
its best?
KRIEGER: In those days, unfortunately, they
didn't really have good microphones and
great live recording trucks sitting at the
backstage door like they do nowadays. And
you didn't have a soundman running a OAT
tape of every performance, giving you a
great catalogue to choose from. When you
decided to record, it was really a big undertaking.
The reason so much stuff from the
Matrix gig [San Francisco, March 10,
1967J has been bootlegged is that they
just happened to record everything there.
There is some nice music from there, and
we used the best on this set ["Crystal Ship"
and "I Can't See Your Face In My Mind"J,
but these weren't necessarily the best performances
ever. They just happened to
have a tape recorder down there. And thank
God for that, I guess.
guitar: The version of "The Crystal Ship"
recorded there is particu larly good.
KRIEGER: Thanks. I do like that Matrix
material, which was recorded shortly after
we had done the first album and were playing
really well. And we played some of
those songs every night, too, and really just
kept polishing them.
guitar: You guys were known for playing very
loud in clubs-and John and Ray always
blame you.
KRIEGER: [laughsJ Yeah, I'll admit that I
always thought, "the louder the better,"
especially on heavy guitar songs like
"When the Music's Over." You have to play
at a certain level to get a certain sound,
especially in those days; before they had
overdrives you had to be at 10 in order to
get the speakers vibrating right, to get that
breakup happening. John would get so
pissed 'cause he would get these big blis-
ters on his hands from playing so loud.
[laughsJ He was always bugging me to turn
down, but I really felt I had to go to that
volume to get the sound I wanted, and felt
we needed, and also to fill up the room
with sound as just a three-piece. But we
didn't just play loud; there was a lot of
attention paid to the music fitting together
like a puzzle. In large part, that goes back
to the jazz influence. There was a lot of listening
to the other guys and having that
determine what you'd play.
guitar: Albert King appears on two songs,
"Money" and "Rock Me," recorded at a
show in Vancouver, Canada, June 6, 1970.
How did that come about?
KRIEGER: Well, he was on the gig, opening
for us, and we asked him if he wanted to sit
in. He was real cool about it, and we had a
good time. I really enjoyed playing with him
because he was one of my guys. I always
loved listening to him, and Jim and everybody
else really dug him, too. Everyone was
excited to have him out there. I played
slide and he played lead. He played, you
know, Albert King licks.
guitar: The third disc of the box set, The Future
Ain't What It Used to Be, opens with "Hello
to the Cities," which actually is a clever
splicing of two tracks-one of Ed Sullivan
introducing the Doors "doing their latest hit
THE DOORS
record," and one of Jim saying hello to what
seems like every city in America.
KRIEGER: Using the Ed Sullivan intro was
Bruce Botnick's idea, I think. We put that
on there as kind of a joke. "Hello to the
Cities" was kind of a silly thing that Jim did
to put audiences off guard, to keep them
from becoming too comfortable. He'd go,
"Hello, Detroit," which was where we actually
were. And they'd scream back. Then
he'd go, "Hello, Chicago." [laughs] And
they'd start thinking, "What is he talkin'
about?" Then he'd go, "Hello, Pittsburgh,"
and just keep going. They'd all think he
was nuts by the time he'd done a few of
those. And so would I. [laughs]
guitar: "Break on Through" is from the Isle of
Wight Festival, August, 1970, which was
one of your last Iive performances, and
which took place while Jim was going
through his legal proceedings.
KRIEGER: That was the last taped performance
of the Doors, I believe, and certainly
the last filmed performance. The movie
of that festival was recently re-released,
and anyone who's seen it knows that our
performance was kind of a mess. Not just
our performance, really, but the whole
thing, which was really captured in the
movie: people breaking down the walls and
running in, everyone arguing about money,
and just lots of bad vibes. Now, that was
the death of rock and roll. [laughs] It really
was the end of everything, the source of all
bad things about the whole scene, all rolled
into one show.
Jim was just in terrible shape. He had
just come from court in Miami and had lost
another legal battle, and he had to go back
right afterwards. In fact, three weeks later,
he was convicted. We were supposed to go
on tour right after the festival but couldn't
do it because he had to go back to Miami.
All of that was taking its toll, and he was
just fucking zonked. He just stood there
and sang, didn't move a muscle or do anything.
Actually, though, all things considered,
it's surprising how good he sounds.
guitar: "Mental Floss," recorded at the
Aquarius show, is another Jim monologue.
KRIEGER: Right. It's him talking to the
audience. I wanted to have that on there to
show a little bit of Jim's humorous side,
along with the crazy asshole side that the
movie [The Doors] showed, and which
everyone seems to know.
guitar: Do you think awareness of Jim's sense
of humor has been lost over the years?
KRIEGER: Oh, yeah. It's something that's
never even been talked about. It certainly
was not even hinted at in the movie, and
most of the books don't allude to it either.
But he could be a real funny guy. He definitely
was not a mopey kind of a guy with
no sense of humor.
guitar: And then there's "Adolph Hitler,"
another spoken word piece.
KRIEGER: There you go. There's Jim at his
funniest.
guitar: You recently held an online chat where
someone asked if Jim had multiple personalities,
and .
KRIEGER: 1 responded, "No, only two.
Biggest asshole in the world and greatest
guy in the world." [laughs] That was really
true. He could be either, and you never
knew which one it was gonna be.
guitar: "The Soft Parade," taken from a 1970
performance on PBS, is your only recorded
live version of that song, I believe.
KRIEGER: That could very well be. For what
it was, it was really good. It's kind of hard
to get into playi ng rock and roll to just a
camera, with no audience. Plus, it was like
eight in the morning, and we were asleep.
But I think it's good; we played real well.
guitar: The three of you composed and recorded
some new tracks for the song "Orange
County Suite." How did it feel to make
music with John and Ray again?
KRIEGER: Well, we've gotten together
before this a few times, like for An
American Prayer, and then "Ghost Song"
THE DOORS
[a new track recorded for the 1995 CD
release of An American Prayer]. Playing
with those guys feels the same as it always
did: it feels good. But, you know, this is not
1968. It's just that... well, in those days,
that was all there was. I didn't know anything
else, and now I do. So that makes it
different. But it's the same as ever in the
sense that we definitely haven't lost any of
our abi Iity to play together.
guitar: Your playing is more sophisticated
than it was 30 years ago, more eclectic.
When you play with John and Ray, do you
have to stop and remember to play like the
old Robby, because that was your role within
the Doors?
KRIEGER: [laughs] I try not to think about
it, but that's true to a certain extent. For
instance, I play with a pick now, but I usually
won't when I play with them because I
didn't in those days, and because I'm
afraid that my playing might get too busy or
something if I do. I basically try to ask
myself, "What would I have played here in
the old days?" Remember, those guys are
also capable of playing something different.
But when we get together, it's usually
to do something from the Doors days, not
create new music. So, yeah, I find myself
trying to play like the old Robby would.
Which is not easy. [laughs]
But I don't worry about it too much, really.
Like on the "Albinoni" thing, I did some
stuff with a pick that I wouId never havedone
in those days. But what the hell? If it sounds
good, do it. I'm not trying to pull a scam over
people and claim, "I did it then." I did it
now, and I'm more than happy to say so.
guitar: The only previously released songs on
the set are on the fourth CD, which is comprised
of the three survivi ng Doors' favorite
band tracks. That's an interesting concept.
KRIEGER: Yeah, it is. The thing is, everyone
had different ideas of what to put on the
fourth CD, so we arrived at the idea that we
could each pick five. At first my idea for
this CD was to do The Doors' Wildest
Songs, featuring all of the epics: "The
End," "When the Music's Over," "The Soft
Parade" and a few others. So when it came
time to choose my five favorites, I figured,
"Well, I'll just choose those five wild
songs." But they toned me down a Iittle bit.
[laughs] I had too many long ones, so John
said, "Well, I'd like to pick 'When the
Music's Over,' " which was fine with me. As
long it's on there, I don't care who picked
it. That's my favorite guitar solo.
It was really a challenge because the
harmony is static. I had to play 56 bars
over the same riff, which isn't easy. It's a
lot easier to play something over an interesting
chord progression. But we did that a
THE DOORS
us. [Rothchild quit early in the L.A. Woman
sessions and 8otnick, his engineer,
stepped up to co-produce with the band.-
guitar Ed.] So, all things considered, I
thought it was really cool that the album
came out so well and did so well. I think we
produced something so loose because
there was no pressure. We figured we were
screwed, so we started having fun again.
We were so far gone that it was like a
weight was lifted.
guitar: Your next selection, "Light My Fire,"
was, remarkably, the first song you ever
wrote. Ray told me that your songwriting
ability was completely unknown to your
bandmates, and a wonderful surprise.
KRIEGER: I know. [laughs] But look, I didn'
t know I could write like that, so how
could they? And I don't know that I ever
would have written any songs, much less
something like "Light My Fire," had I never
been in the Doors.
When I first started writing songs, I figured
I'd write about earth, air, fire or water
in order to keep with a concept Jim had of
writing about universal subjects, things that
wouldn't go out of style in a week. How
much more solid can you get, I figured, than
the four elements? Musically, I was trying to
get a "Hey, Joe" kind of feel for the chord
structure. I didn't want it to be a blues. I
wanted it to be folk rock, more or less.
guitar: A lot of your writing seems influenced
by folk music.
KRIEGER: Yeah, I think that is correct.
Ironically, I became exposed to a lot of my
influences via some albums that Paul
Rothchi Id had produced for Elektra. They
were New York urban blues albums by guys
like Geoff Muldaur, Danny Kalb, and
Koerner, Ray and Glover, all guys who had
drifted into New York's Greenwich Village in
the early Sixties and put out these white
urban folk blues albums on Elektra. I loved
that stuff. In fact, the musical idea for "Love
Me Two Times" came from a Danny Kalb lick.
guitar: Well, you put both your folky and jazz
influences to spectacular use on "Light My
Fire." Without that song the Doors' entire
career would have been vastly different. I
think you might have been like The Velvet
Underground, a great band that became popular
only years after their recording heyday.
KRIEGER: It's impossible to say for sure,
but having that Top-40 hit definitely puts
you in a whole different ball game.
Somehow though, despite having Top-10
hits, the Doors still tended to be thought of
as an underground band.
You know, I don't even know if we would
have ever recorded all our albums if "Light
My Fire" hadn't hit, because our first single,
"Break On Through," didn't really do
EMGINC,
he created that whole concept on the spot
like that, but he did. You would think that
would have been a poem or something that
he had written before, but it's not. That was
just written on the spot. I remember Jim
sitting in the bathroom singing, and all of
us playing together and just having a great
time. That song is magical to me.
The whole album was, really. We were
pretty far down. We couldn't play anywhere
because of the fallout from the indecent
exposure; Morrison Hote/ [1970] hadn't
done that well, and people were saying we
were over; Jim looked bad and was getting
fat; our longtime producer walked out on
lot, and that's the Miles Davis/John
Coltrane influence again. I mean, Coltrane
soloed brilliantly over minimal chord progressions,
and I was always trying to play
something that sounded like him-just
totally out there in terms of tonality. I'd say
"When the Music's Over" is the closest I
ever came to nailing it.
guitar: Let's talk about the songs you did pick,
starting with "L.A. Woman."
KRIEGER: To me, that's perhaps the quintessential
Doors song. The way it came
about was fantastic. We started playing,
Jim began coming up with those words,
and it just poured forth. I don't know how
much and several months went by before
they edited "Light My Fire" [the single version,
from which much of Krieger's memorable
guitar solo was edited-guitar Ed.] and
put it out. The album was starting to look
like a failure, and who knows whether
Elektra would've even picked up our option
after two albums if we haven't had some
sales success.
guitar: Getting back to your five selections for
the fourth CD, what about "Peace Frog?"
KRIEGER: Well, I had written the music to
that without any lyrics. I was trying to cop a
James Brown kind of a feel. I kind of messed
up on it, but it came out sounding really
cool. Jim couldn't figure out words for it,
and I didn't have any, so we just cut it as an
instrumental track. Later, he got out his
notebook, and he and Rothchild found this
poem that seemed to work with it. And that's
how that came about. That was extremely
unusual, because usually we wouldn't
record something until he knew what he was
going to sing on it. And the lyrics usually
came with the music, not in two separate
packages. I actually have always thought the
fit here was a little uncomfortable, but it's
still one my favorites.
guitar: "Take It As It Comes" is next.
KRIEGER: That was my favorite saying of the
Maharishi [Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, teacher
of transcendental meditation-guitar Ed.], so
most people I know think I wrote that song,
but I didn't. I wrote the music, but Jim
wrote the words. And he knew nothing
about meditation, either. Kind of weird.
But, actually, what makes it one of my
favorites is the music. I was trying to stay
away from a Chuck Berry sound and come
up with something that was not blues, not
folk rock, but just the Doors, identifiably
ours. And, looking back, I think we succeeded
at this tremendously on this song.
guitar: The last one is "Wishful Sinful."
KRIEGER: Again, that's one of the only
songs from The Soft Paradewhere I really
think the orchestra actually added something
to the song that wasn't there to begin
with. Getting back to the elements idea,
this was a water song.
guitar: Did you ever find writing songs for Jim
intimidating?
KRIEGER: Well, no, and that's the funny part
about it. That's why the Doors worked,
because none of that shit went on. There
were no egos or that type of bullshit. It
never entered my mind to think, "Hey, isn't
it a bit presumptuous to ask Jim Morrison to
si ng my song?" I never thought of it that
way. And he didn't either, which is amazing.
Imagine going up to Bob Dylan and saying,
"Hey, Bob, want to sing my song?" Jim was
adamant about it being "The Doors," not
"Jim Morrison and the Doors." And I think
that was a big reason for our success.
guitar: Well, something worked. Obviously, you
guys still have a tremendous grip on popular
culture-just look at how many books have
been written about the band. And the Doors
still resonate with kids-14-year-olds wear
Doors T-shirts. How do you account for that?
KRIEGER: I get asked that a lot, and I wish
I had some snappy answer, but I don't. I
think it's that they hear a certain honesty in
the music, and in Jim's voice, which is just
not there in today's music, because it's gotten
to be such a business that money rules
the music industry now. It may have always
ruled the executives, but not the musicians.
And that's changed, I'm afraid; it's just gotten
so commercialized. I think people realize
that the Doors were not about that. They
hear it in the music, and they like it.
But it is amazing how many young kids,
even lO-year-olds, are into the Doors. And
it's not always because of their parents
either. They hear us on the radio, or their
friends have our CD's, or they read one of
those books about the band. Then they get
obsessed. It's really amazing, and it just
doesn't seem to slow down, which is great.
guitar: Great for you.
KRIEGER: Yeah. [laughs] Great for me.
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