Interview with Jim Morrison and The Doors
Hullabaloo Magazine - October and November, 1968
The Doors' office is in a brightly painted yellow stucco building
set back off Santa Monica Boulevard. Located over an antique shop,
it boasts a large front window which continues to bear traces of
former inhabitants: signs of Diners Club and the Bank Of America
are in the process of being removed.
Just inside the office a secretary sits in solitary splendor; she
is surrounded by little more than a stereo set and an electric
typewriter. Bill Siddons, the Doors' youthful manager had a small
office in the back. From all appearances, everybody has just moved
in. On the walls are three Gold Records: one for The Doors, one for
Strange Days and one for Light My Fire.
Two of the Doors have already arrived: Jim Morrison wearing,
despite the 80 degree Los Angeles heat, a burgundy cossack shirt
and the infamous 'vinyl' pants; and Ray Manzarek, looking a good
deal blonder, thinner, and altogether more remarkable than he
appears to in the stills which show him hunched over his keyboard
in introverted madness. Robby Krieger, burnished from days at the
beach, and John Densmore, wearing even larger mutton-chop
sideburns, come in sometime later.
At the time of this interview, the new Doors single, Hello, I Love
You has just been released, and their third album Waiting For The
Sun, is in the final stages of completion.
Jim and Ray are talking.
Jim: Let's talk to Paul (Rothchild, Doors Producer) about Texas
Radio with a little blues accompaniment-
Ray: Yeah, but that's going to entail going in and setting up for a
whole recording. I mean, it would be quick, but it wouldn't be that
quick.
Jim: It would sound good just spoken, you know.
Ray: (flipping through a manila folder containing some of Jim's
poems): Maybe we should do something else. A lot these things are
good, too.
Jim: These are just the ones I was going to show Paul. These are
songs that we could use for the next album. I think that if I do
Texas Radio, it should all be read.
Q: What is your third album like?
Jim: It's.....just songs. There are no real long ones.
Q: Is it true that, at one point, you were going to use an entire
side for a single song?
Jim: No we tried that, but it didn't work out. But we did use part
of it. I think we're going to wait and do that later, maybe as part
of a live album. Our new album is called Waiting For The Sun. We're
thinking of adding something else to it.
Q: Are you planning to read some more poetry on your LP's?
Jim: Yeah
Q: Were you happy with the poem on Strange Days?
Jim: Yeah. I liked it a lot. Horse Latitudes. It was good.
Q: In Hello I Love You, you seem to be going back to a more simple
sound. Although The Unknown Soldier was a great song, it didn't
seem to do well on the charts.
Jim: Well, I liked Soldier and I'm not sure what the trouble was.
Most of the stuff at that time was real soft music, you know.
Q: Do you feel that the content of the record hurt it on the
charts?
Jim: I doubt it, but it might have had something to do with it. I
don't know. There have been war songs before. It wasn't really a
war song anyway.
Ray: It came out at a bad time. If it had come out maybe six months
earlier or four months later or right now, it probably would have
done all right. It was the war thing, you know. When it came out,
the war was just sort of really coming to a head. I think it came
out just when we started negotiations and that everybody was really
into a funny thing about the war. But now, I don't know, I guess
the war is over. Everybody assumes it's over. It's not, of course.
They're still fighting.
Q: Will your next album be a live album?
Ray: I don't know when we're going to do a 'live' album. We have a
lot of ideas, but what happens when it actually comes time to
record is another story.
Q: How do you interpret the difference between the sound of the
Doors in person and the sound that you create in the studio?
Ray: Well, we're different but we're not really that different.
There aren't different vibrations from the group but from the
audience, that's the only thing. In a studio, we have pretty much
the same feeling.
Q: The Doors are so popular now. Do you feel any pressure to give
the audience the performance they expect from such a famous
group?
Jim: We do feel a little compelled to play the same songs over and
over, the songs that people come to hear on the radio and on
records. We used to invent things right on the stage, you know, but
now we have huge crowds and only 40 to 50 minutes to play and that
doesn't give us the time or the right atmosphere for that kind of
improvisation.
Ray: Yeah, I really enjoyed that when we used to do it.
Q: Why can't you improvise now?
Jim: Well, we could-and I think that some people would like it-but
it would disappoint a lot of people who come to hear the songs they
know. Whenever we start a song that they know, they really start
cheering.
Ray: And improvisation can't happen every night. I mean, when we
used to do it, we were playing every night, three and four sets a
night, and so there was a lot of time and a lot of playing in which
to do it. Now, we're only on stage for an hour. And we don't do
concerts every night.
Jim: You can't afford to make mistakes. We used to be able to
afford mistakes because no one was watching that closely.
Ray: Most of the time, there was no one in the club anyway. We
could do anything.
Q: Someone told me that your recent performance at Santa Clara
didn't go too well. If an audience isn't responding to what you're
doing, do you try to make a change?
Jim: We played outdoors at Santa Clara. We've never done too well
in those outdoor daytime concerts. I think that we need the night
and sort of theatre-type atmosphere and mood in which to work.
There's something about the daylight and the open spaces that just
sort of dissipates the whole magic.
Q: Do you think that you'll be able to overcome the outdoors in
your upcoming Hollywood Bowl concert?
Jim: Well, it will be at night, and the atmosphere will be very
theatrical. Santa Clara was just a big open field with a stage in
the middle of it. Most of the people couldn't even see or hear what
we were doing. As far as I can tell, I don't think that anyone does
well in these outdoor daytime things.
Q: At one time, you spoke a great deal about 'total theatre'. Have
you achieved 'total theatre' in your performances?
Jim: In a way, we have; in a way, we haven't. I mean, each time
that somebody gets up on stage, it's theatre. We might do an actual
play, one with a plot or story, and it wouldn't be just a lot of
songs, you know. I think that we'll do that. That's definitely
where it's going. I think that what's going to happen now will be a
crisis of music. It's no longer primitive rock music, as it was.
There's been a split. A lot of people will go into theatre and
musicals and opera and that kind of thing, and get further away
from pure music, but rock, the primitive rock music, will reassert
itself eventually. Eventually, there'll come a need for that basic
blues beat again.
Q: Is this one of the reasons for the blues revival of today?
Jim: Well, that's what's happening. Half of the people are getting
very classical, sophisticated, and theatrical, and then there's the
need for blues. There's a split. I'd like to do both. I enjoy both.
I think that the Doors have a combination of both now. I think that
it's a successful combination. But we're going to have to go in
that other direction, into theatre and electronics and that kind of
thing, or we're going to have to get more basic again. I think that
we'll probably go in the other direction and let someone else do
the basics.
Q: As a musician, Ray, do you feel that playing with the same
people over and over again stagnates you in any way?
Ray: No, not at all. Because they're always doing something new.
John and Robby are really great musicians. We vary. We always vary
from performance to performance. We never know exactly what's going
to be played. We never play any song the same way twice. The basic
chord structure is there, and the song is there, but we all play
around with it. Like, I'll know at one point that I'll have to put
in a rhythm structure. I feel that the musical exploration has just
begun.
Q: Do you ever disagree musically? What happens if someone wants to
go in one direction, but the others don't?
Ray: No, I think that we all pretty much agree. Everybody suggests
their ideas, and we weigh them. If something appeals to everyone,
then we do it. If it doesn't, we drop it.
Q: How many of the ideas for the film of The Unknown Soldier came
directly from the group?
Jim: We conceived and directed the large sequence, the execution on
the beach, but the rest of the film was stock footage that was done
in New York. We had nothing to do with the final editing. But I
think that it was a very effective film. I enjoyed it. A couple of
times, we've run the film at a concert. As the film ends, we join
in 'live' and continue to play after it's over.
Q: Both of you studied film at UCLA. Why did you switch from film
to rock?
Ray: Well, it was really a utilization of other talents. Jim was a
writer, and I had always been playing music. We had these other
things as well as music. Jim put his lyrics to songs, and I was
able to work the songs out and to play the music. It was something
that we had always done. It was perhaps an interim step between
here and film.
Q: Are you doing anything with films at the moment?
Ray: We're making a film now and we'll probably continue to make
movies. But we'll also do other things such as stage and theatrical
presentations.
Q: What's the film about?
Ray: It's kind of a documentary thing about the Doors.
Jim: It's about us but in a way that just uses us as an excuse to
get from one town to another and to show America the way it is
today. It shows the things that are happening today. Paul Ferrara
is shooting it.
Ray: I think it's really going to be a television show. That's what
we're making it for. We want to do an hour long show.
John: Did you see the James Brown thing on TV last night?
Jim: Last night?
John: Yeah. I mean, I don't know anything about camera angles, but
there was no light, just two strobe lights on each side, and the
main angle was right about here (gesturing), you know, getting his
jaw and the sound was awful. We really have to be careful of the
sound.
Jim: We're shooting the film partly on tour at concerts. Whenever
something's happening, we shoot. For example, if something started
happening right there, right out on the street, we'd run out and
film it. We're producing the film ourselves. For television,
hopefully.
Q: The Doors really haven't done too much television. Is that your
idea or the networks?
Jim: I know. Actually, after New Haven, no one will hire us. We had
a show scheduled, and they cancelled it. I got dragged off of the
stage on an array of charges that were later dropped, but the
publicity scared the television people off. I like TV. It's great.
We did a few shows and were getting better each time.
Q: When an audience is becoming difficult, what do you do to get
involvement?
Jim: You can't predict what's going to happen. You just have to go
with it. We're trying to project our music, us, our ideas. Our
ideas are in the songs, in the music. We can't verbalize them. If
we could we'd be doing that instead.
Q: Do you feel that you reflect society in your songs?
Jim: It has to be. You don't have any choice in that. You live in a
certain time and you can't help but reflect it. But you also
influence it. At the same time, you act as a mirror. Then, those
things, in turn, come back on you and it just goes on.
Q: Do you feel that you influence an audience?
Ray: Well, I suppose that they're influenced. Hopefully, they come
to get involved: that's the music part of it. If they become
involved, there's an influence that stays with them because they
realize perhaps that they have experienced the same involvement.
Hopefully, they'll like it and want even more involvement.
Q: With constant exposure to anything, people tend to become jaded.
When psychedelic lights came out, they grabbed everyone
immediately. Now, only fantastic light shows, like the one in 2001:
A Space Odyssey, seem to really involve people. Do you feel that
you constantly have to find something new with which to grab people
who were immediately with you when you first started?
Ray: You naturally evolve into new areas and you explore the areas
you're in. That exploration opens new doors into other areas. Then,
there's all of your own accumulated influences. All these years,
you've been accumulating these things, and these ideas have to be
expressed, too. But that's getting into the areas of film and
theatre. Those were the influences on me, and so I'd like to work
in those areas, too.
Q: The area of theatre would seem to involve a slightly different
discipline than that of a rock concert. Do you feel that you could
work within the framework of theatre?
Ray: It might be a different kind of discipline, of work. It's easy
to think in terms of what's already been done. But the new things
probably won't come out that way. It probably won't be Brecht and
Weill. It won't be Marat/Sade, it will be something else. It will
be something in that genre but not exactly like that. It will be
something different. I really don't know what it will be.
Q: John, Ray was already asked whether or not he felt any musical
stagnation from playing with the same musicians all of he time. Do
you feel that this limits you in any way?
John: No, it's not limiting because you get to know the other
musicians. You know them and immediately you know what they're
going to do. That's true even with the words. Jim will improvise,
but we know one another so we can immediately respond. That's a
very broadening thing. You can listen to other musicians on
records. I heard Cannonball (Adderly, a famous jazz musician) last
night. His pianist just killed me. They did this one thing and
Cannonball said, 'We have the greatest pianist in the world in our
band and we're going to let him play as long as he wants or as
short as he wants.' Then they all split, and he went crazy for
about 15 minutes.
Ray: Do you know what I was thinking of doing? I was talking to
Bill (Siddons, the Doors' manager) about maybe getting someone like
Miles Davis-
Robby: Not Miles.
John: Well, maybe someone like Cannonball. Cannonball's had two
hits, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy and-
Ray: They'd be good. They'd be on a show, and it would be a good
show. Let's start doing that.
John: Did we ever try Jerry Lee Lewis?
Q: It is impossible for you to do the same kind of improvisations
that jazz musicians do?
Ray: We could.
John: But it's a different situation. We're not in a small club
now.
Robby: The Doors have the greatest guitarist in the world but they
never let him do anything!
Q: Frank Zappa once said that an audience's attention span is about
three minutes long. Do you feel that your audience limits you, that
unless Jim throws the microphone off the stage, no one is going to
listen?
Robby: Well, Zappa is exaggerating. I don't think that our audience
limits us. When we play, the kids are staring. They can't take
their eyes off the stage.
John: Each person does his thing.
Robby: I know that they say that a person's attention span for a
record is about three minutes. But I think that it's different in a
concert because the audience has the sound. It keeps your
attention.
John: We played Light My Fire the other night. Jim left the stage,
and we played solos for about 15 minutes. Everybody's got to get
their rocks off.