Raj Bahadur Interview w/Manzarek March 1991

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INTERVIEW WITH RAY MANZAREK
By: Raj Bahadur
Master Of Rock – The Life and Times Of Jim Morrison
Vol. 1 No. 3
March 1991

In the years since his death, Jim Morrison has gone from rock enigma to certifiable legend, his charismatic appeal supported by the durability of the Doors’ music.

Not that Morrison ever ceased being an enigma. His death will always be a topic for conjecture, fueled by the facts that only his wife, and unidentifiable doctor, and possibly a mortuary attendant ever saw the body. Would Morrison have had it any other way?

Keyboardist Ray Manzarek brings the Doors’ life and times into perspective with a clarity devoid of hero worship. On stage, it may have appeared that Jim’s bandmates were only supporting musicians. In reality, as far as the creative process was concerned, a certain communality prevailed.

“Actually, we were more of an ensemble, though it may not have looked that way from the outside. Each person in the Doors had his chops up. Robby (Krieger-guitar) was a great musician. John (Densmore-drums) was a powerhouse. And of course, there was Jim contributing the words. Everybody put in what he had to offer. Out of it would come this music that was greater than the sum total of the four of us. In a way, that’s what the sixties were all about – giving yourself up to a common good, something better than you could ever conceive of.”<br>
The bespectacled Manzarek acted as an anchor of sorts- rational steady, even-tempered. It’s a description which he finds quite accurate. “Well, I had to be an anchor,” Manzarek says matter-of-factly. “Are you kidding? With Morrison – Dionysius personified – running wild, somebody had to keep it all together.”<br>
Despite Morrison’s wild antics, Manzarek reserves his undying respect for the self-named ‘Lizard King.’ I thought that Jim was one of the greatest guys America ever produced. I figured that by 1980, he’d be running for the highest office. Could you have pictured Morrison versus Reagan for the presidency? Come election time, Jim might have had some explaining to do about his past. Manzarek acknowledges this. When asked why the Doors never took their difficult lead singer aside for a discussion about his behavior, the former keyboard player replies unabashedly: “We never did that. That would have been a confrontational movie an era when we were saying our confrontational urges for a higher authority. If I had said, “You’re weak in this area,’ he could have responded, “Well your weak in that area,” which would have meant the end of the group.

“You must understand the power of the spoken word. ‘no’. A ‘no’ carries an extremely powerful vibration. It’s not just the meaning, but the power. When you say ‘no’ to someone, that’s a load of negative energy you’ve created. The Doors operated on affirmative energy in an attempt to harness creative impulses. We didn’t need any negativity. There was enough of that with Vietnam. The shit was on the wall and dripping down. We didn’t want anything to do with that way of life.”<br>
Time is a natural healer, and Manzarek enjoys easy access to a bank of positive memories. Among them, the creative process heads the list. “Someone would throw out an idea, and maybe it wouldn’t work. But at least that person would know it and suggest something else. We’d just continue trading ideas off of each other, back and forth, until we achieved some sense of completion. Composing was a thrill.”<br>
When the product of those sit downs hit the airwaves, the Doors were in business. “The best times were the private times,” remembers Manzarek. “Like driving with my wife down Sunset Boulevard on our way to the beach early one summer afternoon when ‘Light My Fire’ came on the radio for the first time. I spent the rest of the day screaming, ‘We made it!’ like a madman.”<br>
Ranking a close second is The Doors’ July 5 1968 concert, recorded for posterity on video “The Doors: Live At The Hollywood Bowl.” States Manzarek, “That gig meant we had finally scored in LA. We went from playing the beach in Venice, California to the skuzzy London Fog on Sunset Strip to the Whisky A-Go-Go as the house band. Then we got a recording contract which lead to Psychedelic Ballroom dates. And then, at long last, the Hollywood Bowl. The Doors were going to play the Hollywood Bowl! We said, ‘Let’s film it in style – four or five cameras, a super slo-mo camera, (let’s) bring in a remote truck and capture the whole thing first class.”<br>
The excitement produced by the artistry onstage was rivaled by the private moments that preceded it backstage. “The dressing room was filled with John and Robby’s realitives and our friends from the UCLA Film School. (It was) an absolute riot.

“The bill was a real Southern California psychedelic stew. The Chambers Brothers opened with “Time Has Come Today,” followed by Steppenwolf. Everybody had hits.

“We were pacing back and forth like caged lions in a zoo waiting for the gates to open so we could hit the stage. On top of it, we had dinner with the Rolling Stones before the show. Just as we were getting ready to leave, they came over to the office. ‘Hi mates! You wanna go have something to eat?’ So there we were, wining and dining with the Stones, our heroes. It was because of the Stones that the Doors got into rock ‘n’ roll. The first time we saw them, we said, “Let’s be like these guys,’ We were sitting on the beach in Venice in ’65 reading front page headlines: ‘Rolling Stones Come To Town.’ They went to art school, and played Chicago blues – (they were) not much different than us. It gave us something to shoot for. They’d made millions, saw the world, and got lots of girls. What could be better?”

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As a rule, pre-concert jitters turned into post-show analyses. According to Manzarek, “It wasn’t so much an analyses of the show, as it was an analysis of whether we’d been blessed by ‘the muse.’ The muses floated around the universe, and when you can seduce them out of the ether you are truly blessed and can attain a state of enlightenment beyond yourself. That’s what we always attempted to do. We tried to lower ourselves into the communal consciousness of the planet. That’s what ‘psychedelic’ was all about.”<br>
Though the Hollywood Bowl performance was a watershed for the Doors, by today’s standards it was somewhat tame. Manzarek agrees, “On the other hand, something is missing in contemporary music. You don’t need the lights or the smoke bombs. There’s an energy source at the heart of the music that people are forgetting to capture. Music lovers out there are starving for that relationship.”<br>
Manzarek’s wistfulness triggers recollections of Morrison’s demise. It was an event, given Jim’s condition, which may have seen slightly less shocking to the group that to the masses.

“He was not in the best of health – lots of hacking and coughing. When he left for Paris, we all said, “Great. Get the fuck out of here and get yourself together, for Christsakes. Get away from LA and the booze and the smoke and all your so-called friends who’ll go bar hopping with you ‘til all hours of the morning.’ Those fuckin’ hangers-on helped do him in. When you’re a star, you suddenly attract all these worms and leeches suckin’ off your energy. That’s what happened with Jim. There were just too many good drinking buddies. So I thought he’d stay in Paris for a least six months, to all of a sudden get a phone call saying Jim is dead, it was like, ‘Oh, my God, no.’”

Could it be that Morrison had a strong desire to escape the rock ‘n’ roll way of life? “Sure, that’s why he went to Paris. He wanted to be an American in Paris, a poet, to call the muse back, to get his inspiration back, to leave the responsibilities of the business, to get away from going on the road and making records.”<br>
Whether Morrison overdosed or died of natural causes is a question that will always be debated. However, there is a third scenario that should be addressed. Grim as it may sound, one can subconsciously, wish to commit suicide, and do so, though the act may not appear evident. When this possibility is posed, Manzarek does not hesitate. “Even though Jim supposedly died in a bathtub from a heart attack, it’s a definite possibility. I like to think that he passed away in an incredibly peaceful state. If his heart stopped the way they said it did, I think that his body just slowed down and his spirit very beautifully, very tenderly, very gently rose out of that body. I can imagine him dying with a lovely smile on his face. I wouldn’t be surprised if he found some peace for the first time in four years and just eased on out. We’d fulfilled our contractual obligations to Elektra Records. Jim had stuck around long enough to make sure that John, Robby and Ray were cool, that everything was taken care of on their end. With money coming in, he didn’t have to worry about the boys in the band. So he lifted out into the void, into the universe where we call come from, and where we’ll all go back to eventually. His death must have been very sweet.”<br>
Not at all like the lively gravesite atmosphere of his Parisian resting place in Pere-Lachaise. “It’s really something to behold. They’ve got graffiti markings all over the cemetery that read, ‘This way to Jim’s grave’ of ‘The Lizard King that way’ or ‘You’re going the wrong way! Jim’s back there.’ And once you get to his grave, there are scribblings everywhere – lines of poetry, flowers, people singing, playing music, listening to cassettes of Doors’ recordings.”<br>
Manzarek talks about the time the band paid their respects. “We went to Paris for the ‘Tenth Anniversary of Jim’s Death or Disappearance,’ as I like to call it. There were 250 of us packed into this tiny area and having a fuckin’ ball, getting stoned, getting drunk, singing. Jim would’ve loved it. The authorities were outraged, however, just because Choplin, Celine, Isadora Duncan and legends like that are buried there, everyone’s supposed to be solemn. Fuck’em! People want to come and dance on the man’s grave and sing to him. Let’em! The cemetery custodian cleans away the graffiti once a week anyway.”<br>
Since that fateful day in ’71, the Doors have been involved in various solo projects. They also continued, albeit briefly, as a group, but it just wasn’t the same.

“We considered all sorts of people to handle the vocals,” Manzarek recalls, “Iggy Pop, Van Morrison, Mick Jagger. But ultimately we said, ‘Forget it. Jim can’t be replaced.’”

Rock had gone through many changes over the last two decades. Those changes notwithstanding, the Doors catalogue retains a timeless quality. All of which begs the question: How would the Doors have fared were they just breaking in today?

Manzarek is guardedly optimistic. “Today, the Doors might have looked a little different. Jim might’ve had to be a bit more animated on stage. I’d have had a bank of keyboards and might have had to wear a cape like some Rick Wakeman type. But the music still would have come from jazz, poetry, blues, rock and classical roots. Jim’s poetry, would still be alluding to universal themes instead of, ‘Hey, let’s get laid tonight.”<br>
So what advice does Manzarek have for the contemporary performer bent on creating a magic similar to that of the Doors?

“Here’s what you do. Let go of your fears – the fear that you won’t be enough, without the paraphernalia, the electronics, the drugs. We’re living in a climate of fear. And we’re afraid to admit it. We’re terrified of bankruptcy, failure, the political situation, death. We don’t know that we’re the children of the universe. The music is your special friend. Dance on fire as it intends. Music is your only friend – until the end.”<br>
END.