Post by darkstar2 on Jul 24, 2008 19:13:35 GMT
Ten Questions for The Doors’ Ray Manzarek
By: Sylvie Simmons
Mojo Magazine
December 1997
Ever since Jim Morrison’s death there have been many Elvis-style, alive-and-well-and- pumping-gas ‘sightings’.
Sylvie Simmons: Has it ever crossed your mind they may be right?
Ray Manzarek: I’ve heard lots of stories – Jim’s in Israel, Jim’s living in Africa a la Arthur Rimbaud. Once I got a telegram saying, ‘I know where Jim Morrison is. He’s in the outback of Australia and he has a broken leg. Please send me $1500 so I can get his leg taken care of’. And I thought, that wasn’t an unreasonable amount to get Jim out of the outback. Had I been in Australia at the time, I might have looked in on him myself.
I don’t think these stories are right, but they are delightful And really you don’t know – Jim’s body was actually never seen by anybody that I know. Pamela saw it, I suppose, but I was never ever able to talk to her about it, she was always so broken up.
Bill Siddons, our manager went over to Paris to check out the rumours. He called me and said ‘We buried Jim’, and I asked how Jim looked. He said, ‘I don’t know, it was a sealed coffin’. I said, ‘ It could have been anything in there, you fool – 150 pound of bricks or sand.’
He said ‘No, Pam was distraught and everyone was crying so I knew he must be dead.’ So Jim, to the best of my knowledge, is lying in Pere Lachaise cememtery, but who knows?
If anyone could pull off a disappearance, Jim could.
SS: Are you surprised the rest of you survived?
RM: Yes actually. There were several times when I found myself decidedly drunk and disorderly. My wife told me stories of me driving down the train tracks here in LA; I made a left at the track and just kept driving on the train track. Fortunately no train came and I eventually made another left off the track.
We all could be dead, except none of us drank to the extent Jim did. Ultimately that’s what killed him.
SS: Why and how did you bring Jim back to life on the new Doors track 'Orange County Suite'?
RM: 'Orange County Suite' is like The Beatles’ 'Free as a Bird'. Just like. Jim was at the piano, just like Lennon was; we had Jim’s voice and a piano track, just like The Beatles had. We overdubbed the other parts and completed the song for him. He wrote the song in late 1970, early ‘71 and nothing was ever done with it.
It was one of the things we discovered sitting in the vaults. Then lo and behold there’s The Beatles doing the same with Lennon – though I think they did an awful job; I couldn’t hear John Lennon. John wrote the song and his mates completed it for him; that’s exactly what we did with Jim.
Yeah, Jim wanted the song used. but unfortunately he decided to join Elvis up there – or out there – and the completion of it is something we thought he’d would have loved.
SS: Did it feel strange, recording a new song with Morrison?
RM: It felt strange – but everything the Doors do is always strange. Being there in the studio with Jim, the disembodied Jim, was like recording with a phantom; but that phantom was your friend.
SS: You’ve described Jim Morrison as a split personality: Jim the poet genius, and Jimbo the evil genie. Did you never contemplate kicking him out and getting a sane frontman?
RM: We couldn’t kick Jim out! He was my friend, we were college buddies, we put a band together and the band became famous, and we realised our artistic vision. Who’s going to write better poetry than Jim Morrison? I wasn’t going to kick him out of the band for the sake of normalcy. Jim was great; Jimbo was a fool, but Jimbo wasn’t always around. Sometimes a mad man creates; sometimes a mad man destroys himself.
SS: What was the biggest untruth in the Oliver Stone movie The Doors?
RM: It was not close to the truth. It was a gross exaggeration of the persona of Jim Morrison.
Jim Morrison was much more artistic and spiritual – not a drunken jerk like Stone portrayed him. There are many untruths: Ray and Dorothy get married in the film, and there’s a big fight with the other guys that never happened.
Our wedding was delightful: Jim and Pam were the best man and best bridesmaid, the four of us went to City Hall then had a wonderful afternoon together at Olvera St. where we had enchiladas and margaritas, and the next night we played with The Grateful Dead at the Shrine Auditorium and the Psychedelic Ballroom here in LA.
And at the end of the movie there’s a party going on for my daughter. I have no daughter.
SS: The box set opens with '5 to 1', recorded at the infamous Miami concert where Jim got his dick out for the audience. What are your memories of that moment?
RM: We don’t know for sure whether or not Jim actually exposed himself.
In the trial there were 200 photos offered in evidence – of everything: the stage collapsing, rioting, Jim holding this lamb, Jim in somebody else’s strange hat with a skull and crossbones on it, Jim kneeling down in front of Robbie, photos of Jim with his hand inside his pants – whether he was scratching himself or playing with himself who knows.
But out of 200 photos there was not one with Jim’s magnificent penis. Why there were no photos, I can only surmise that people were shocked at the sheer heft of it – or it never happened.
SS: What went through your mind while it was going on?
RM: Sheer panic, madness, craziness, some laughter – I thought it was absolutely hysterical, what he was up to, but I knew if he went any further they’d haul his ass off to jail. So I was afraid for Jim but also having a grand time, because it was so ridiculous and the audience was so worked up. It was more fun than the vision of Lourdes, for god’s sake!
SS: What musically was The Doors’ high point for you?
RM: L.A Woman. It represents to me a drive across the great American South West. Driving on the freeways and highways through the desert – Arizona or New Mexico – or driving up the coast of California on Highway 1, from L.A to San Francisco. It’s alive, it’s free, it’s young and it’s wild.
SS: Will this be the last Doors album?
RM: There’s never an end. One only thinks about the eternal present and I’ve no idea what’s coming in the future. We do have plans for some interpretations of Doors’ songs some time, but that’s all I can actually say at the moment.
By: Sylvie Simmons
Mojo Magazine
December 1997
Ever since Jim Morrison’s death there have been many Elvis-style, alive-and-well-and- pumping-gas ‘sightings’.
Sylvie Simmons: Has it ever crossed your mind they may be right?
Ray Manzarek: I’ve heard lots of stories – Jim’s in Israel, Jim’s living in Africa a la Arthur Rimbaud. Once I got a telegram saying, ‘I know where Jim Morrison is. He’s in the outback of Australia and he has a broken leg. Please send me $1500 so I can get his leg taken care of’. And I thought, that wasn’t an unreasonable amount to get Jim out of the outback. Had I been in Australia at the time, I might have looked in on him myself.
I don’t think these stories are right, but they are delightful And really you don’t know – Jim’s body was actually never seen by anybody that I know. Pamela saw it, I suppose, but I was never ever able to talk to her about it, she was always so broken up.
Bill Siddons, our manager went over to Paris to check out the rumours. He called me and said ‘We buried Jim’, and I asked how Jim looked. He said, ‘I don’t know, it was a sealed coffin’. I said, ‘ It could have been anything in there, you fool – 150 pound of bricks or sand.’
He said ‘No, Pam was distraught and everyone was crying so I knew he must be dead.’ So Jim, to the best of my knowledge, is lying in Pere Lachaise cememtery, but who knows?
If anyone could pull off a disappearance, Jim could.
SS: Are you surprised the rest of you survived?
RM: Yes actually. There were several times when I found myself decidedly drunk and disorderly. My wife told me stories of me driving down the train tracks here in LA; I made a left at the track and just kept driving on the train track. Fortunately no train came and I eventually made another left off the track.
We all could be dead, except none of us drank to the extent Jim did. Ultimately that’s what killed him.
SS: Why and how did you bring Jim back to life on the new Doors track 'Orange County Suite'?
RM: 'Orange County Suite' is like The Beatles’ 'Free as a Bird'. Just like. Jim was at the piano, just like Lennon was; we had Jim’s voice and a piano track, just like The Beatles had. We overdubbed the other parts and completed the song for him. He wrote the song in late 1970, early ‘71 and nothing was ever done with it.
It was one of the things we discovered sitting in the vaults. Then lo and behold there’s The Beatles doing the same with Lennon – though I think they did an awful job; I couldn’t hear John Lennon. John wrote the song and his mates completed it for him; that’s exactly what we did with Jim.
Yeah, Jim wanted the song used. but unfortunately he decided to join Elvis up there – or out there – and the completion of it is something we thought he’d would have loved.
SS: Did it feel strange, recording a new song with Morrison?
RM: It felt strange – but everything the Doors do is always strange. Being there in the studio with Jim, the disembodied Jim, was like recording with a phantom; but that phantom was your friend.
SS: You’ve described Jim Morrison as a split personality: Jim the poet genius, and Jimbo the evil genie. Did you never contemplate kicking him out and getting a sane frontman?
RM: We couldn’t kick Jim out! He was my friend, we were college buddies, we put a band together and the band became famous, and we realised our artistic vision. Who’s going to write better poetry than Jim Morrison? I wasn’t going to kick him out of the band for the sake of normalcy. Jim was great; Jimbo was a fool, but Jimbo wasn’t always around. Sometimes a mad man creates; sometimes a mad man destroys himself.
SS: What was the biggest untruth in the Oliver Stone movie The Doors?
RM: It was not close to the truth. It was a gross exaggeration of the persona of Jim Morrison.
Jim Morrison was much more artistic and spiritual – not a drunken jerk like Stone portrayed him. There are many untruths: Ray and Dorothy get married in the film, and there’s a big fight with the other guys that never happened.
Our wedding was delightful: Jim and Pam were the best man and best bridesmaid, the four of us went to City Hall then had a wonderful afternoon together at Olvera St. where we had enchiladas and margaritas, and the next night we played with The Grateful Dead at the Shrine Auditorium and the Psychedelic Ballroom here in LA.
And at the end of the movie there’s a party going on for my daughter. I have no daughter.
SS: The box set opens with '5 to 1', recorded at the infamous Miami concert where Jim got his dick out for the audience. What are your memories of that moment?
RM: We don’t know for sure whether or not Jim actually exposed himself.
In the trial there were 200 photos offered in evidence – of everything: the stage collapsing, rioting, Jim holding this lamb, Jim in somebody else’s strange hat with a skull and crossbones on it, Jim kneeling down in front of Robbie, photos of Jim with his hand inside his pants – whether he was scratching himself or playing with himself who knows.
But out of 200 photos there was not one with Jim’s magnificent penis. Why there were no photos, I can only surmise that people were shocked at the sheer heft of it – or it never happened.
SS: What went through your mind while it was going on?
RM: Sheer panic, madness, craziness, some laughter – I thought it was absolutely hysterical, what he was up to, but I knew if he went any further they’d haul his ass off to jail. So I was afraid for Jim but also having a grand time, because it was so ridiculous and the audience was so worked up. It was more fun than the vision of Lourdes, for god’s sake!
SS: What musically was The Doors’ high point for you?
RM: L.A Woman. It represents to me a drive across the great American South West. Driving on the freeways and highways through the desert – Arizona or New Mexico – or driving up the coast of California on Highway 1, from L.A to San Francisco. It’s alive, it’s free, it’s young and it’s wild.
SS: Will this be the last Doors album?
RM: There’s never an end. One only thinks about the eternal present and I’ve no idea what’s coming in the future. We do have plans for some interpretations of Doors’ songs some time, but that’s all I can actually say at the moment.