Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Jun 21, 2011 14:23:55 GMT
The Doors: An Interview with Ray Manzarek
THE BREAKING up of the Doors was kind of a mysterious circumstance and I'm sure not many people know really what happened.
Probably not. Well we went to England in January of '73 to get some new...to get some new period. Just anything, some inspiration, maybe to work with some other guys, maybe do God knows what...anything. Any newness would have been nice because we were kind of stagnating and I just wasn't getting off any more and that's the only reason I'm in this (current band). Is to get off and if I don't get off then what's the sense of playing music? Music is one of the only avenues that's open to anybody to really get something going inside themselves and to get that kind of feeling that's almost a kind of mystical feeling. It's a classical religious feeling and music for us is like the only avenue we have; there's nothing else you can really do because it's a pretty restrictive society we live in. So I've gotta get off on my music man and if I don't get off then I'm in trouble.
So we went to England hopefully to get some sense of getting off on the music. But it weren't happenin', just didn't happen. It wasn't right and I just felt it was time to put the whole thing to bed...the Doors without Jim Morrison just wasn't the same, it just wasn't the same for me. We needed that extra member to make the whole thing complete: without Jim there was a portion lacking, there was a sense of mystery lacking without Jim. And rather than whip a dead horse I just felt it was time to send the horse to the glue factory and look for another horse to ride. And here I am out on my own.
Did you have any thoughts of leaving the band before Jim died?
No, not really. We'd been together for seven years so naturally there were all the little tensions and things but I suppose it's like anything else where a bunch of people are together past five years. God, how many marriages last seven years and it's just two people of opposite sex. So you get four guys working together...there are tensions but there was nothing that couldn't have been overcome easily. Basically the Doors were a solid unit because we believed in our music so any little things that came up would just be day-to-day shit.
And then the damn fool goes and dies; I don't know how he pulled that one off. You know I don't know to this day how the man died and in fact I don't even know if he's dead. I never saw the body and nobody ever saw Jim Morrison's body and there are maybe two or three people who did see the body and they're not talking. And Bill Siddons, our manager, went over there and he didn't see the body; it was a sealed coffin. So who knows, who knows how Jim died? And if he did die who knows how he died? And you know what I've always wondered man, who knows if the dude wasn't murdered? Who knows that somebody didn't slip him something on the streets of Paris? If somebody said 'Hey man, try this' Jim would try it once or twice.
So you stayed with the other two Doors (Robbie Krieger and John Densmore) for two albums? How'd you manage to cope with it for that long?
Well since we hadn't thought of breaking up or anything, when Jim died it was an absolute shock so when something like that happens it's like somebody in a family dying, a mother or father, the rest of the members are pulled even closer together to sort of support each other in that hour of crisis. We were just tossed up in the air – foomp – all of a sudden we were without one of the guys. So we stayed together out of sheer necessity, out of shock. So then we turned to each other and started making music and it just didn't happen for me.
Did you ever think of trying to replace Jim?
Well...not replace Jim as such because we never could have done that, that would have been impossible to find another lead singer. The only guy I might have really enjoyed working with might have been Van Morrison; I really loved the man as a singer. Or maybe Jagger or somebody like that but I mean he had his own band; but Van Morrison could have been interesting, and another Morrison on top of it. Weird. But that's actually in a way what we went to England to look for; to find some new guys. Not to replace Jim but to expand the band, to add a bass player, or to add a guitar player, or a singer, or another voice or something. But it didn't matter, we could have added 50 guys, the root, the core, the kernel, wasn't there.
Whose concept was the Doors? I mean was Jim Morrison the Doors?
Well Jim was certainly the central figure, he was the focal point, he was the lead singer. As far as whose concept was the Doors, Jim was the original writer...Jim was the guy who came up to me on the beach and said, 'Hey, I've been writing songs' and I saw Jim on the beach one day and he had been writing a lot of songs and I said 'Let's get a rock and roll band together' and he said 'That's exactly what I had in mind' so there we were, a singer and a keyboard man and we needed a drummer and a guitar player and we thought about a bass player too but we never found a bass player.
So when did you first start to think of putting your own band together? Was the idea brewing while you were still with the other two?
Yeah because things weren't going right; the last album we did Full Circle...Full Circle was really the full circle. It had come full circle at that time and there was nowhere to go with it. I really didn't enjoy making the album and that was the thing that really did it for me; because every album we'd done up to that point had been really fun. It's like being mad scientists in a laboratory and creating...like Dr. Frankenstein. You know how intense he was when he was making that monster. And the same way with making a record you're creating a monster and it's really incredible to do it.
How did you meet up with the various people that are now in the band?
Well, Jerry Scheff the bass player we'd worked with on L.A Woman and he was an excellent bass player and since the time of L.A. Women till the present he'd been working with Elvis Presley, so Jerry is a good, solid bass player. And Tony Williams the drummer, I didn't really know him personally, I knew of his work with Miles Davis and Tony Williams Lifetime and he's just a fabulous drummer. And fortunately Bruce Botnick, the producer, happened to know Tony, happend to work with Tony on a couple of other albums and when we were talking about getting a drummer he said, 'Hey I know Tony Williams and I said, 'Wow, dynamite, perfect, Tonee Williams, exactly, right on the money.' So he called Tony and Tony said 'Yeah, I'd love to do it.' And the guitar player is Larry Carlton and he plays with the Crusaders and is just a new young heavy about town. And I happened to hear his album and it knocked me out. Once we got it all straightened out we went into rehearsal and rehearsed three days and that's all it took. And after that I said 'OK, that's it everybody knows the songs and that's the way I want it to sound.' And we went into the work and worked for about a week and-a-half and got all the basic tracks and every thing down and that was it. Just really fast, almost too fast; I wanted it to stretch out a little I was having such a good time.
Did the Doors work fast like that?
Yes and no; sometimes the Doors worked very fast and other times it just took a really long time. Like the Doors 'Unknown Soldier' took a week to record that one song. Like on the first album 'Light My Fire' was two takes: 'The End' was two takes for sure. Actually there was three takes of 'The End'. there was one we did the next day; there was one obscene take and Jim was great but we just couldn't use it, too many dirty words. A lot of songs were that way; near the end 'L.A. Woman' was very quick and 'Riders On The Storm' was just a couple of takes.
You have a percussion player.
Yeah, outside of the back quartet of bass, drums, keyboard, and guitar...in fact I used three percussionists. One guy's a Brazilian guy, Myutu's his name; he played congas and things and is just an incredible drummer. And then I used two real percussionists like in a symphony orchestra who play everything like all the little clicky-clackys, and bangers and boingers and smacks and scrapes. So there were seven guys in all who recorded, Milt Holland was one of the percussionists.
Most of the songs on the album are live takes, there's very little overdubbing. If anything is overdubbed the voice is of course, he (Larry Carlton) double-tracked the harmony line to a guitar; all of the percussion is live recording. There were seven guys out there burning all at once and that was what was great about it.
Where did the idea for the album (called The Golden Scarab) come from?
The idea came about through what's great about being a musician, the muse came, the divine spark of inspiration came. Like I had some songs, I had been working on some individual songs and at one point I said 'Hey wait a minute, this is all starting to work together and it's all becoming one thing' and after I got the idea to see what the story was, the pilgrim's progress, one man's quest for enlightenment, I wrote two more songs to fit into the framework, and it was just an accident, a divine accident. That's what's great about music man, that's what music is and you just get those sparks all of a sudden, you'll be somewhere and boom...something will click. Your subconscious mind all of a sudden vomits up a bunch of stuff into your conscious mind and you go 'Wow.'
Did you write the entire album?
Not all of it, no; 'Down-bound Train' third song on Side One is an old Chuck Berry song, one of my old early favourites. And the other song that I didn't write is just the beginning of Side Two, it's a classical piece from the 17th century, an Italian composer, Albiononez' dagio in G Minor but it's a nice little thing that sets it all up.
How much of the music do you think was Doors-influenced? Being a Door for seven years...
All of it man, sure. The Doors is my musical background, my musical past; yeah the Doors was one of the biggest influences on my life. Everything that I do will have a lot of Doors influence in it because that's the way I play. That's what was great about the Doors, everybody played the way they played and Jim wrote the way he wrote and sang the way he sang. Nobody tried to do anything that was not them and that's what was not happening with the post-Morrison Doors; I was not being myself and wasn't expressing everything and doing everything I knew I could do and that I had to do.
Where did all the newfound confidence come from in your singing?
I don't know, probably just being myself, just absolutely doing what you want to do. Finally cutting that tie, that umbilical cord that attached me to the Doors, and being free, white, and twenty-one again. It was down there all the time but I just couldn't seem to get it out; when I was singing on the other two albums (Other Voices, Full Circle) I was choked. And then all of a sudden on this album I felt my larynx open up all the way down and I could feel tones rumble around down inside of me which is where you have to sing from way down. I was a little worried about the singing part of it, I knew I could sing but the other two albums was not me.
You're playing moog for the first time.
Yeah, that's a lot of fun. That's a weird instrument because there's a lot of goofy stuff going on. I don't look upon it as a major instrument; for me it's a thing of effects and a thing to add depth and body to what I start out to do in the first place. Like the most important thing is the song itself: what is the song? First you have to get the song absolutely right and then you can begin to enhance the song. On the album I used everything there was to use; regular piano, grand piano, tack piano, organ, electric Fender piano, clavinet, the Wurlitzer piano and each one has a little different sound. I didn't use an acoustic harpsichord.
Some of the members of the band still have committments to other people; Larry has commitments to the Crusaders and Jerry still does studio work. Can you work in that kind of an atmosphere where nothing is really permanent?
Well then it becomes the managers' and agents' problems of making sure that the bookings are set far enough in advance so that everybody's time is committed. It's just a matter of getting things done far enough in advance so that people have free time. In a way that's really good too because I like the idea of people working with other people and getting ideas from other sources and bringing all that into this group. So I think it's going to be a very vital group that way; there won't be any stagnation. Because in the Doors you tended to get a little stagnated; it was a great experience but it was the same guys over and over. We won't work that much, we won't be on the road that much. We'll be on the road but we probably won't be able to work like Chicago works, for instance, 300 days a year or something like that. I couldn't do that. I really love going out on the road but three weeks at a time is all I can take.
Are there any immediate plans to take this band on the road?
Yeah, hopefully the beginning of next year, as early as possible. I don't really know for sure, it depends on when the record gets released and all that kind of stuff. The record depends on how some record company gets off their ass and realizes what this thing is. It's weird, I've been to a couple of record companies and they're afraid of it, which is depressing but it's a great sign. It's exactly what happened to the Doors; I took the Doors demo around and they were afraid of it. I played it for a couple of people and they nearly threw me out of the office, they got mad. Said 'You can't do that! You can't do that kind of stuff!' and it's the same way with this album, people are afraid of it and don't know how to take it.
One record company said 'It's not poetic, it's too straightforward'; for them it didn't have that wishy-washy kind of peotry thing. I'm not a wishy-washy poet. They were looking for something other than what it was. Now another record company said 'It's too poetic, it's not direct enough; I don't know what you're saying' and at that point I really wanted to start banging my head on the wall. But I know there's really something there because if you get that kind of response, I mean that covers the whole thing: too poetic, not poetic enough. So it must mean the whole thing is floating on a level above where these idiots are looking. So it's just a matter of finding somebody who's hip to it.
I know it's still kind of early but do you have any kind of stage show worked out? The Doors certainly built a large portion of their music on a stage act.
Yeah, I have a few things worked out; I'm not exactly sure how to do it yet. That's the next part of it after getting the thing recorded; I'm hoping once again that spark of inspiration is going to come but it hasn't come yet. I see a whole thing being done but I'm not sure how to do it, which way to go with it. What it really does is lends itself to a movie; it's eight scenes (based on the eight songs), the first scene, the second scene, the trip through space, through hell, Egypt and the whole number but how to do that on stage without being too obvious, without doing took much of a musical production. I want the music to be the main thing and the musicians to be the central focus of your attention and then something else happening.
Will all seven musicians be going on the road?
Uhh...there'll probably be seven, six for sure. I'll have the four guys plus two percussionists and if it all goes right I'd like to take all seven guys out and do it as near to the album as we can possibly do it.
What's happening with Robbie (Krieger) and John (Densmore)?
They've got a new band and have recorded new album and the album will be coming out soon and the name of the band is The Butts Band. Don't laugh, I don't know what it means either; evidently it's an English term that means something. Yeah, but they've got a band together and they'll be going out on the road probably pretty soon. And I really hope it happens for them, they're great guys.
Do you feel more fulfilled now that you have a band of your own rather than when you were more-or-less playing under the shadow of Morrison?
Well when I was with Jim I didn't have that much of an urge to write because I was always so much in love with what Jim did, that Jim was more...he fulfilled all that need for creativity on the individual's members' part by the songs he would write. They were so great and you were just really looking forward to what he'd come up with next. I was completely fulfilled with the Doors but after Jim died was when everybody started to write; then all of a sudden it was like six years of Doors and just music and everything and I didn't realize it but I had this incredible thing of music inside of me that started coming out. And the more I wrote the more it started coming out. It's just beginning now, I can go home and write songs like crazy so before Jim died I really didn't feel that much of an urge to write. It was just enough to arrange the songs and get the finished product out.
The music was a pretty communal thing; the thing I think I did most in the Doors was to lend atmosphere to each song. The basic vibration that came off a song like 'Riders On The Storm'. When we first started doing that it wasn't anything like the finished product; the first way we did it just didn't happen and I said 'Hey wait a minute guys, let's try it a completely different way' and that's mostly what I did in the Doors.
So there's still a lot more to come?
Oh man, just the fuckin' beginning, there's so much stuff going on. I almost have the second album already finished. I'm just really coming along. I'm going to be with the second album at the same place I was with the first album...too much stuff which is good because then you can take the best and anything that's at all doubtful, throw it out. Yeah, so I can't wait to get going on the next one.
Would you like to do anything on your own out of context of a band?
Uh, no I really don't work in that context, I really don't feel good that way. When you're playing music with a bunch of other guys it's a really great feeling, it's like the only time you can get a really good communal feeling going down. The country could go that way, we could live that way, that's what the world's supposed to be. A community of people working and living together, sharing an idea, sharing a goal, sharing a philosophy, sharing a religious outlook, but there's some common thing that binds us together; and in our case it's our humanity. That's what happens in music; in music your religion, your philosophy is the song and the beat and the chord changes of the song. So you take seven guys and take all their conscious mind and glue it on to a beat, a chord structure and you get seven guys who are all working together off that central core. And man it's...whew, it's incredible. Because you have seven minds that become one mind, that's really great. So that's why I like to work with other musicians because it's that feeling of oneness, that feeling of community.
Steven Rosen, Sounds, 22 December 1973
THE BREAKING up of the Doors was kind of a mysterious circumstance and I'm sure not many people know really what happened.
Probably not. Well we went to England in January of '73 to get some new...to get some new period. Just anything, some inspiration, maybe to work with some other guys, maybe do God knows what...anything. Any newness would have been nice because we were kind of stagnating and I just wasn't getting off any more and that's the only reason I'm in this (current band). Is to get off and if I don't get off then what's the sense of playing music? Music is one of the only avenues that's open to anybody to really get something going inside themselves and to get that kind of feeling that's almost a kind of mystical feeling. It's a classical religious feeling and music for us is like the only avenue we have; there's nothing else you can really do because it's a pretty restrictive society we live in. So I've gotta get off on my music man and if I don't get off then I'm in trouble.
So we went to England hopefully to get some sense of getting off on the music. But it weren't happenin', just didn't happen. It wasn't right and I just felt it was time to put the whole thing to bed...the Doors without Jim Morrison just wasn't the same, it just wasn't the same for me. We needed that extra member to make the whole thing complete: without Jim there was a portion lacking, there was a sense of mystery lacking without Jim. And rather than whip a dead horse I just felt it was time to send the horse to the glue factory and look for another horse to ride. And here I am out on my own.
Did you have any thoughts of leaving the band before Jim died?
No, not really. We'd been together for seven years so naturally there were all the little tensions and things but I suppose it's like anything else where a bunch of people are together past five years. God, how many marriages last seven years and it's just two people of opposite sex. So you get four guys working together...there are tensions but there was nothing that couldn't have been overcome easily. Basically the Doors were a solid unit because we believed in our music so any little things that came up would just be day-to-day shit.
And then the damn fool goes and dies; I don't know how he pulled that one off. You know I don't know to this day how the man died and in fact I don't even know if he's dead. I never saw the body and nobody ever saw Jim Morrison's body and there are maybe two or three people who did see the body and they're not talking. And Bill Siddons, our manager, went over there and he didn't see the body; it was a sealed coffin. So who knows, who knows how Jim died? And if he did die who knows how he died? And you know what I've always wondered man, who knows if the dude wasn't murdered? Who knows that somebody didn't slip him something on the streets of Paris? If somebody said 'Hey man, try this' Jim would try it once or twice.
So you stayed with the other two Doors (Robbie Krieger and John Densmore) for two albums? How'd you manage to cope with it for that long?
Well since we hadn't thought of breaking up or anything, when Jim died it was an absolute shock so when something like that happens it's like somebody in a family dying, a mother or father, the rest of the members are pulled even closer together to sort of support each other in that hour of crisis. We were just tossed up in the air – foomp – all of a sudden we were without one of the guys. So we stayed together out of sheer necessity, out of shock. So then we turned to each other and started making music and it just didn't happen for me.
Did you ever think of trying to replace Jim?
Well...not replace Jim as such because we never could have done that, that would have been impossible to find another lead singer. The only guy I might have really enjoyed working with might have been Van Morrison; I really loved the man as a singer. Or maybe Jagger or somebody like that but I mean he had his own band; but Van Morrison could have been interesting, and another Morrison on top of it. Weird. But that's actually in a way what we went to England to look for; to find some new guys. Not to replace Jim but to expand the band, to add a bass player, or to add a guitar player, or a singer, or another voice or something. But it didn't matter, we could have added 50 guys, the root, the core, the kernel, wasn't there.
Whose concept was the Doors? I mean was Jim Morrison the Doors?
Well Jim was certainly the central figure, he was the focal point, he was the lead singer. As far as whose concept was the Doors, Jim was the original writer...Jim was the guy who came up to me on the beach and said, 'Hey, I've been writing songs' and I saw Jim on the beach one day and he had been writing a lot of songs and I said 'Let's get a rock and roll band together' and he said 'That's exactly what I had in mind' so there we were, a singer and a keyboard man and we needed a drummer and a guitar player and we thought about a bass player too but we never found a bass player.
So when did you first start to think of putting your own band together? Was the idea brewing while you were still with the other two?
Yeah because things weren't going right; the last album we did Full Circle...Full Circle was really the full circle. It had come full circle at that time and there was nowhere to go with it. I really didn't enjoy making the album and that was the thing that really did it for me; because every album we'd done up to that point had been really fun. It's like being mad scientists in a laboratory and creating...like Dr. Frankenstein. You know how intense he was when he was making that monster. And the same way with making a record you're creating a monster and it's really incredible to do it.
How did you meet up with the various people that are now in the band?
Well, Jerry Scheff the bass player we'd worked with on L.A Woman and he was an excellent bass player and since the time of L.A. Women till the present he'd been working with Elvis Presley, so Jerry is a good, solid bass player. And Tony Williams the drummer, I didn't really know him personally, I knew of his work with Miles Davis and Tony Williams Lifetime and he's just a fabulous drummer. And fortunately Bruce Botnick, the producer, happened to know Tony, happend to work with Tony on a couple of other albums and when we were talking about getting a drummer he said, 'Hey I know Tony Williams and I said, 'Wow, dynamite, perfect, Tonee Williams, exactly, right on the money.' So he called Tony and Tony said 'Yeah, I'd love to do it.' And the guitar player is Larry Carlton and he plays with the Crusaders and is just a new young heavy about town. And I happened to hear his album and it knocked me out. Once we got it all straightened out we went into rehearsal and rehearsed three days and that's all it took. And after that I said 'OK, that's it everybody knows the songs and that's the way I want it to sound.' And we went into the work and worked for about a week and-a-half and got all the basic tracks and every thing down and that was it. Just really fast, almost too fast; I wanted it to stretch out a little I was having such a good time.
Did the Doors work fast like that?
Yes and no; sometimes the Doors worked very fast and other times it just took a really long time. Like the Doors 'Unknown Soldier' took a week to record that one song. Like on the first album 'Light My Fire' was two takes: 'The End' was two takes for sure. Actually there was three takes of 'The End'. there was one we did the next day; there was one obscene take and Jim was great but we just couldn't use it, too many dirty words. A lot of songs were that way; near the end 'L.A. Woman' was very quick and 'Riders On The Storm' was just a couple of takes.
You have a percussion player.
Yeah, outside of the back quartet of bass, drums, keyboard, and guitar...in fact I used three percussionists. One guy's a Brazilian guy, Myutu's his name; he played congas and things and is just an incredible drummer. And then I used two real percussionists like in a symphony orchestra who play everything like all the little clicky-clackys, and bangers and boingers and smacks and scrapes. So there were seven guys in all who recorded, Milt Holland was one of the percussionists.
Most of the songs on the album are live takes, there's very little overdubbing. If anything is overdubbed the voice is of course, he (Larry Carlton) double-tracked the harmony line to a guitar; all of the percussion is live recording. There were seven guys out there burning all at once and that was what was great about it.
Where did the idea for the album (called The Golden Scarab) come from?
The idea came about through what's great about being a musician, the muse came, the divine spark of inspiration came. Like I had some songs, I had been working on some individual songs and at one point I said 'Hey wait a minute, this is all starting to work together and it's all becoming one thing' and after I got the idea to see what the story was, the pilgrim's progress, one man's quest for enlightenment, I wrote two more songs to fit into the framework, and it was just an accident, a divine accident. That's what's great about music man, that's what music is and you just get those sparks all of a sudden, you'll be somewhere and boom...something will click. Your subconscious mind all of a sudden vomits up a bunch of stuff into your conscious mind and you go 'Wow.'
Did you write the entire album?
Not all of it, no; 'Down-bound Train' third song on Side One is an old Chuck Berry song, one of my old early favourites. And the other song that I didn't write is just the beginning of Side Two, it's a classical piece from the 17th century, an Italian composer, Albiononez' dagio in G Minor but it's a nice little thing that sets it all up.
How much of the music do you think was Doors-influenced? Being a Door for seven years...
All of it man, sure. The Doors is my musical background, my musical past; yeah the Doors was one of the biggest influences on my life. Everything that I do will have a lot of Doors influence in it because that's the way I play. That's what was great about the Doors, everybody played the way they played and Jim wrote the way he wrote and sang the way he sang. Nobody tried to do anything that was not them and that's what was not happening with the post-Morrison Doors; I was not being myself and wasn't expressing everything and doing everything I knew I could do and that I had to do.
Where did all the newfound confidence come from in your singing?
I don't know, probably just being myself, just absolutely doing what you want to do. Finally cutting that tie, that umbilical cord that attached me to the Doors, and being free, white, and twenty-one again. It was down there all the time but I just couldn't seem to get it out; when I was singing on the other two albums (Other Voices, Full Circle) I was choked. And then all of a sudden on this album I felt my larynx open up all the way down and I could feel tones rumble around down inside of me which is where you have to sing from way down. I was a little worried about the singing part of it, I knew I could sing but the other two albums was not me.
You're playing moog for the first time.
Yeah, that's a lot of fun. That's a weird instrument because there's a lot of goofy stuff going on. I don't look upon it as a major instrument; for me it's a thing of effects and a thing to add depth and body to what I start out to do in the first place. Like the most important thing is the song itself: what is the song? First you have to get the song absolutely right and then you can begin to enhance the song. On the album I used everything there was to use; regular piano, grand piano, tack piano, organ, electric Fender piano, clavinet, the Wurlitzer piano and each one has a little different sound. I didn't use an acoustic harpsichord.
Some of the members of the band still have committments to other people; Larry has commitments to the Crusaders and Jerry still does studio work. Can you work in that kind of an atmosphere where nothing is really permanent?
Well then it becomes the managers' and agents' problems of making sure that the bookings are set far enough in advance so that everybody's time is committed. It's just a matter of getting things done far enough in advance so that people have free time. In a way that's really good too because I like the idea of people working with other people and getting ideas from other sources and bringing all that into this group. So I think it's going to be a very vital group that way; there won't be any stagnation. Because in the Doors you tended to get a little stagnated; it was a great experience but it was the same guys over and over. We won't work that much, we won't be on the road that much. We'll be on the road but we probably won't be able to work like Chicago works, for instance, 300 days a year or something like that. I couldn't do that. I really love going out on the road but three weeks at a time is all I can take.
Are there any immediate plans to take this band on the road?
Yeah, hopefully the beginning of next year, as early as possible. I don't really know for sure, it depends on when the record gets released and all that kind of stuff. The record depends on how some record company gets off their ass and realizes what this thing is. It's weird, I've been to a couple of record companies and they're afraid of it, which is depressing but it's a great sign. It's exactly what happened to the Doors; I took the Doors demo around and they were afraid of it. I played it for a couple of people and they nearly threw me out of the office, they got mad. Said 'You can't do that! You can't do that kind of stuff!' and it's the same way with this album, people are afraid of it and don't know how to take it.
One record company said 'It's not poetic, it's too straightforward'; for them it didn't have that wishy-washy kind of peotry thing. I'm not a wishy-washy poet. They were looking for something other than what it was. Now another record company said 'It's too poetic, it's not direct enough; I don't know what you're saying' and at that point I really wanted to start banging my head on the wall. But I know there's really something there because if you get that kind of response, I mean that covers the whole thing: too poetic, not poetic enough. So it must mean the whole thing is floating on a level above where these idiots are looking. So it's just a matter of finding somebody who's hip to it.
I know it's still kind of early but do you have any kind of stage show worked out? The Doors certainly built a large portion of their music on a stage act.
Yeah, I have a few things worked out; I'm not exactly sure how to do it yet. That's the next part of it after getting the thing recorded; I'm hoping once again that spark of inspiration is going to come but it hasn't come yet. I see a whole thing being done but I'm not sure how to do it, which way to go with it. What it really does is lends itself to a movie; it's eight scenes (based on the eight songs), the first scene, the second scene, the trip through space, through hell, Egypt and the whole number but how to do that on stage without being too obvious, without doing took much of a musical production. I want the music to be the main thing and the musicians to be the central focus of your attention and then something else happening.
Will all seven musicians be going on the road?
Uhh...there'll probably be seven, six for sure. I'll have the four guys plus two percussionists and if it all goes right I'd like to take all seven guys out and do it as near to the album as we can possibly do it.
What's happening with Robbie (Krieger) and John (Densmore)?
They've got a new band and have recorded new album and the album will be coming out soon and the name of the band is The Butts Band. Don't laugh, I don't know what it means either; evidently it's an English term that means something. Yeah, but they've got a band together and they'll be going out on the road probably pretty soon. And I really hope it happens for them, they're great guys.
Do you feel more fulfilled now that you have a band of your own rather than when you were more-or-less playing under the shadow of Morrison?
Well when I was with Jim I didn't have that much of an urge to write because I was always so much in love with what Jim did, that Jim was more...he fulfilled all that need for creativity on the individual's members' part by the songs he would write. They were so great and you were just really looking forward to what he'd come up with next. I was completely fulfilled with the Doors but after Jim died was when everybody started to write; then all of a sudden it was like six years of Doors and just music and everything and I didn't realize it but I had this incredible thing of music inside of me that started coming out. And the more I wrote the more it started coming out. It's just beginning now, I can go home and write songs like crazy so before Jim died I really didn't feel that much of an urge to write. It was just enough to arrange the songs and get the finished product out.
The music was a pretty communal thing; the thing I think I did most in the Doors was to lend atmosphere to each song. The basic vibration that came off a song like 'Riders On The Storm'. When we first started doing that it wasn't anything like the finished product; the first way we did it just didn't happen and I said 'Hey wait a minute guys, let's try it a completely different way' and that's mostly what I did in the Doors.
So there's still a lot more to come?
Oh man, just the fuckin' beginning, there's so much stuff going on. I almost have the second album already finished. I'm just really coming along. I'm going to be with the second album at the same place I was with the first album...too much stuff which is good because then you can take the best and anything that's at all doubtful, throw it out. Yeah, so I can't wait to get going on the next one.
Would you like to do anything on your own out of context of a band?
Uh, no I really don't work in that context, I really don't feel good that way. When you're playing music with a bunch of other guys it's a really great feeling, it's like the only time you can get a really good communal feeling going down. The country could go that way, we could live that way, that's what the world's supposed to be. A community of people working and living together, sharing an idea, sharing a goal, sharing a philosophy, sharing a religious outlook, but there's some common thing that binds us together; and in our case it's our humanity. That's what happens in music; in music your religion, your philosophy is the song and the beat and the chord changes of the song. So you take seven guys and take all their conscious mind and glue it on to a beat, a chord structure and you get seven guys who are all working together off that central core. And man it's...whew, it's incredible. Because you have seven minds that become one mind, that's really great. So that's why I like to work with other musicians because it's that feeling of oneness, that feeling of community.
Steven Rosen, Sounds, 22 December 1973