Post by darkstar on Dec 31, 2004 1:29:30 GMT
BLUES FOR A SHAMAN – DOORS PRODUCER PAUL ROTHCHILD
By: Vic Garbarini
Musician Magazine No. 35 August 1981
As a friend, mentor, confidant, and producer of all The Doors albums except L.A. Woman, which he refused to do because he felt the band was in it’s death throes and totally without direction, Paul Rothchild knew and understood Jim Morrison as well as anyone on earth. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.) As the band’s producer he enjoyed a unique perspective, one which combined the access and intimacy of an insider with the objectivity and detachment of an outsider. Besides the Doors, Rothchild has chalked up notable successes with at least two generations of artists, ranging from Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt to his most recent project, L.A.’s Fast Fontaine. Today he speaks of Jim Morrison with an informative blend of passion and detachment, and makes no attempt to disguise the fact that he was – and still very much is – a believer in the Doors and what they were trying to do.
MUSICIAN: Looking back, what would you say was your most significant contribution to the Doors and their sound?
ROTHCHILD: Well, I personally always tried to focus on longevity and honesty. We stayed away from trendy clichés, including the use of popular devices of the time like wah-wah pedals. I asked them if they wanted to be remembered in 20 years, and they said yes. Well, I said, we can’t use any tricks. We have to stay honest, and it’s got to be pure. We would do advanced and avant-garde things, but they couldn’t be trendy.
MUSICIAN: And you feel that enough of that purity and depth was translated onto vinyl so that it still carries force today?
ROTHCHILD: Absolutely. After the first record, when we got past the material that had been thoroughly rehearsed and started getting into newer material, my input became greater. I never forced my opinions on the band; I presented them with choices and options to pursue, which they were free to accept or reject.
MUSICIAN: I imagine you must have had a lot to do with broadening the instrumental base on Soft Parade.
ROTHCHILD: Right, I was always encouraging them to expand musically, and Ray and Robby were always interested in expanding the band’s instrumental concept. And the two of them plus Jim were also expanding the direction of the music itself, as well, Jim came up with a programmatic concept that became “Unknown Soldier,” which took an enormous amount of time to record because it had so many different sections.
MUSICIAN: It must have been hell to splice together.
ROTHCHILD: It was. It was quite orchestral in its design, and we had to do it a bit at a time, section by section. There are different timbres and orchestral voices that change form section to section. We wound up putting it together much the same way the Beach Boys did “Good Vibrations.” Piece by piece.
MUSICIAN: How many tracks were you working with at the time?
ROTHCHILD: I believe we finally made it up to 16 tracks on that one, “Light My Fire” and the whole first album were done on a 4 track recorder. And we only used three of those!
MUSICIAN: Getting back to Jim and his message: exactly what was it you felt he was trying to get across to people?
ROTHCHILD: I think, “Open your eyes to your inner self,” was this greatest message. “Don’t believe the lies you’ve been raised with; there’s a greater truth out there and it’s up to all of us to seek it in whatever way seems right and appropriate for us.”<br>MUSICIAN: From where did he draw his main inspiration?
ROTHCHILD: The pivotal event in his life was when the medicine man leaped into his body at the age of five. You know that story?
MUSICIAN: He was driving with his parents in the Southwest and they came upon a car wreck, and a medicine man was dying in the road?
ROTHCHILD: That’s a fact. In “An American Prayer” there’s a section that goes “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding….something, something…the young child’s fragile egg shell mind.” As a child he was driving with his parents, and there was a truck full of Indians that had crashed and overturned. There was a medicine man dying at the side of the road, and Jim was this five year old child, vividly remembered a mystical experience when, as the shaman died, his spirit entered Jim’s body. That was the pivotal event of his entire life. He always viewed himself as the shaman, having mystical powers and the ability to see through many facades to the truth. It was this power that drove him. This was the force that pushed his life and took him out of the rigid, military environment of his youth and turned him into seer in his right.
MUSICAN: I’m intrigued that he seemed to have at least some idea of what he was looking for. He even wrote a college thesis on the sexual neuroses of crowds, which links up with what many traditions say about music’s ability to help transform the higher, sometimes sexual, energies or a group, creating a true communal consciousness….assuming it’s done the right way. Jim seemed to be trying to key into some aspects of this, but without understanding the entire process. Did he ever talk about all this as it was happening? How much of what he was doing was consciously directed, and how much was pure instinct?
ROTHCHILD: It would be hard to separate that in Jim. He was constantly exploring all areas of personal experience and metaphysics. He was totally fascinated with the Indians in the desert, eating mushrooms. He also worked a great deal in Chicago with the Living Theatre, learning how to get the audience involved in the artistic moment. You know, where the audience becomes a participant rather than just…..
MUSICIAN:….passive.
ROTHCHILD: Exactly, the man was always reading. Always carrying a book. And a notebook to write in. So that was one part of him, the intentional seekers. Then there was this other part of him, that came out especially when he was drunk – which was a good part of the time – which was – involuntarily metaphysical.
MUSICAN: Meaning that alcohol would open something in him?
ROTHCHILD: Yeah, it was alcohol 90$ of the time, and the rest was psychedelics. Those were his only drugs, really. Contrary to popular belief he was not a junkie, he was not into coke, he wasn’t into pills, he didn’t even smoke grass. But as for the involuntary metaphysics: he’d come into the studio drunk and out of control. I’d turn on the machine and he would just go into these head raps of his. At times he would start talking in tongues. We got some of it on the records. Some of the rants you hear at the middle or end of tunes were put together from that kind of material. We’d take the most significant moments and put them together to create a piece of subconscious poetry.
MUSICIAN: Okay, but I still think that he didn’t entirely understand the processes he was exploring, and I’d venture that, like a 20-watt bulb that’s fed 80 watts of current, he wasn’t prepared to handle what he encountered. This led him to various psychological distortions, drugs, alcohol, and other forms of self-abuse. Was he something of a Jekyll and Hyde character? Was he overwhelmed in some way by the forces he invoked?
ROTHCHILD: I think his quest overwhelmed him. It’s interesting that you mention the Jekyll and Hyde concept, because Jim was really two very distinct and different people. When he was sober, he was the most erudite, balanced, friendly kind of guy you could take home to mom. He was Mr. America. When he would start to drink, he’d be okay at first. Then suddenly, he would turn into a maniac, turn into Hyde. And it confused and frustrated all of us who were involved with him, It was both impossible to deal with and a source of his brilliance.
By: Vic Garbarini
Musician Magazine No. 35 August 1981
As a friend, mentor, confidant, and producer of all The Doors albums except L.A. Woman, which he refused to do because he felt the band was in it’s death throes and totally without direction, Paul Rothchild knew and understood Jim Morrison as well as anyone on earth. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.) As the band’s producer he enjoyed a unique perspective, one which combined the access and intimacy of an insider with the objectivity and detachment of an outsider. Besides the Doors, Rothchild has chalked up notable successes with at least two generations of artists, ranging from Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt to his most recent project, L.A.’s Fast Fontaine. Today he speaks of Jim Morrison with an informative blend of passion and detachment, and makes no attempt to disguise the fact that he was – and still very much is – a believer in the Doors and what they were trying to do.
MUSICIAN: Looking back, what would you say was your most significant contribution to the Doors and their sound?
ROTHCHILD: Well, I personally always tried to focus on longevity and honesty. We stayed away from trendy clichés, including the use of popular devices of the time like wah-wah pedals. I asked them if they wanted to be remembered in 20 years, and they said yes. Well, I said, we can’t use any tricks. We have to stay honest, and it’s got to be pure. We would do advanced and avant-garde things, but they couldn’t be trendy.
MUSICIAN: And you feel that enough of that purity and depth was translated onto vinyl so that it still carries force today?
ROTHCHILD: Absolutely. After the first record, when we got past the material that had been thoroughly rehearsed and started getting into newer material, my input became greater. I never forced my opinions on the band; I presented them with choices and options to pursue, which they were free to accept or reject.
MUSICIAN: I imagine you must have had a lot to do with broadening the instrumental base on Soft Parade.
ROTHCHILD: Right, I was always encouraging them to expand musically, and Ray and Robby were always interested in expanding the band’s instrumental concept. And the two of them plus Jim were also expanding the direction of the music itself, as well, Jim came up with a programmatic concept that became “Unknown Soldier,” which took an enormous amount of time to record because it had so many different sections.
MUSICIAN: It must have been hell to splice together.
ROTHCHILD: It was. It was quite orchestral in its design, and we had to do it a bit at a time, section by section. There are different timbres and orchestral voices that change form section to section. We wound up putting it together much the same way the Beach Boys did “Good Vibrations.” Piece by piece.
MUSICIAN: How many tracks were you working with at the time?
ROTHCHILD: I believe we finally made it up to 16 tracks on that one, “Light My Fire” and the whole first album were done on a 4 track recorder. And we only used three of those!
MUSICIAN: Getting back to Jim and his message: exactly what was it you felt he was trying to get across to people?
ROTHCHILD: I think, “Open your eyes to your inner self,” was this greatest message. “Don’t believe the lies you’ve been raised with; there’s a greater truth out there and it’s up to all of us to seek it in whatever way seems right and appropriate for us.”<br>MUSICIAN: From where did he draw his main inspiration?
ROTHCHILD: The pivotal event in his life was when the medicine man leaped into his body at the age of five. You know that story?
MUSICIAN: He was driving with his parents in the Southwest and they came upon a car wreck, and a medicine man was dying in the road?
ROTHCHILD: That’s a fact. In “An American Prayer” there’s a section that goes “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding….something, something…the young child’s fragile egg shell mind.” As a child he was driving with his parents, and there was a truck full of Indians that had crashed and overturned. There was a medicine man dying at the side of the road, and Jim was this five year old child, vividly remembered a mystical experience when, as the shaman died, his spirit entered Jim’s body. That was the pivotal event of his entire life. He always viewed himself as the shaman, having mystical powers and the ability to see through many facades to the truth. It was this power that drove him. This was the force that pushed his life and took him out of the rigid, military environment of his youth and turned him into seer in his right.
MUSICAN: I’m intrigued that he seemed to have at least some idea of what he was looking for. He even wrote a college thesis on the sexual neuroses of crowds, which links up with what many traditions say about music’s ability to help transform the higher, sometimes sexual, energies or a group, creating a true communal consciousness….assuming it’s done the right way. Jim seemed to be trying to key into some aspects of this, but without understanding the entire process. Did he ever talk about all this as it was happening? How much of what he was doing was consciously directed, and how much was pure instinct?
ROTHCHILD: It would be hard to separate that in Jim. He was constantly exploring all areas of personal experience and metaphysics. He was totally fascinated with the Indians in the desert, eating mushrooms. He also worked a great deal in Chicago with the Living Theatre, learning how to get the audience involved in the artistic moment. You know, where the audience becomes a participant rather than just…..
MUSICIAN:….passive.
ROTHCHILD: Exactly, the man was always reading. Always carrying a book. And a notebook to write in. So that was one part of him, the intentional seekers. Then there was this other part of him, that came out especially when he was drunk – which was a good part of the time – which was – involuntarily metaphysical.
MUSICAN: Meaning that alcohol would open something in him?
ROTHCHILD: Yeah, it was alcohol 90$ of the time, and the rest was psychedelics. Those were his only drugs, really. Contrary to popular belief he was not a junkie, he was not into coke, he wasn’t into pills, he didn’t even smoke grass. But as for the involuntary metaphysics: he’d come into the studio drunk and out of control. I’d turn on the machine and he would just go into these head raps of his. At times he would start talking in tongues. We got some of it on the records. Some of the rants you hear at the middle or end of tunes were put together from that kind of material. We’d take the most significant moments and put them together to create a piece of subconscious poetry.
MUSICIAN: Okay, but I still think that he didn’t entirely understand the processes he was exploring, and I’d venture that, like a 20-watt bulb that’s fed 80 watts of current, he wasn’t prepared to handle what he encountered. This led him to various psychological distortions, drugs, alcohol, and other forms of self-abuse. Was he something of a Jekyll and Hyde character? Was he overwhelmed in some way by the forces he invoked?
ROTHCHILD: I think his quest overwhelmed him. It’s interesting that you mention the Jekyll and Hyde concept, because Jim was really two very distinct and different people. When he was sober, he was the most erudite, balanced, friendly kind of guy you could take home to mom. He was Mr. America. When he would start to drink, he’d be okay at first. Then suddenly, he would turn into a maniac, turn into Hyde. And it confused and frustrated all of us who were involved with him, It was both impossible to deal with and a source of his brilliance.