Robby Krieger | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Summary

The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode: Robby Krieger | June 4, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this wide-ranging and heartfelt conversation, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan sits down with legendary Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. The episode explores Krieger's career post-Doors, the realities behind the band’s breakup, the development and legacy of Doors mythology, the enduring power of their music, and Krieger's ongoing journey as a musician. With humor, candor, and mutual admiration, Corgan and Krieger strip away the myths to reveal the humanity at the heart of the Doors’ story—making the episode a fascinating listen for fans of music history and creative process alike.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reviving the Doors & The Role of Mythology

• Doors' resurgence: The episode opens with talk about the revival of interest spurred by the Oliver Stone movie and the classic biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (00:00, 38:03).
  • Robby Krieger: “The movie really is what revamped the interest in the Doors.” (00:00)
  • Billy Corgan: “Here I am at 14 and I’m caring about the Doors in a way that goes beyond Light My Fire and Break on Through.” (40:44)
• Band mythology: They discuss how the band’s real-life dynamics differ from the public myth, and how band members’ books contributed to (sometimes conflicting) mythmaking (07:02, 08:21, 43:39).
  • Billy Corgan: “Your band particularly probably has more mythology around it than just about any other band ever.” (07:51)
  • Robby Krieger: “Both of their books… they each put each other down for various reasons.” (08:21)
  • Robby Krieger on Ray: “He was really just trying to keep it all going…he wanted people to know.” (44:18)

2. Krieger’s Post-Doors Career: Instrumental Bands and Personal Growth

• New project: Discussion about Krieger’s current instrumental band, Robbie Krieger and the Soul Savages, and the challenge/blessing of instrumental hits (00:44).
  • Robby Krieger: “My hope is to have an instrumental hit like Booker T…to bring back that…instrumental hit record type of deal.” (00:57)
• Naming woes: Amusing anecdotes about band names, from the Doors (which Krieger claims was “a stupid name”) to the Butts Band (02:03, 19:41).
  • Robby Krieger: “The Doors was a stupid name, too… and so was the Butts Band.” (02:03)
• Instrumental albums and influences: Krieger’s lifelong goal to “always get better…as a guitar player.” (32:41)
  • Robby Krieger: “My idea was to always get better…as a guitar player. And, you know, sometimes it took a wrong turn here and there, I would say. But I think if you get this album, you’ll see where I’m at now.” (32:41)

3. The Aftermath of Jim Morrison’s Death

• Immediate aftermath: Detailed recollection of disbelief, sending a manager to Paris, and the subsequent period of denial and grief (09:03).
  • Robby Krieger: “When we heard that he was gone…we didn’t believe it…there was always rumors…so we sent our manager…to check it out…Unfortunately, he never saw the body… Maybe he’s really just trying to fool everybody.” (09:03)
• Life after Morrison: Electra wanted them to continue, and the Doors made two albums without Morrison, experimenting with new singers and even considered searching in Europe (10:05, 15:31).
  • Robby Krieger: “We did have reservations…like the Stones going on without Mick Jagger…Maybe it was a stupid idea. I don’t know.” (11:33)
• Transition to new projects: Krieger and drummer John Densmore formed the Butts Band, incorporating newer influences like reggae via UK session ace Phil Chen (18:18, 19:41).

4. The Realities of Post-Stardom: Relationships, Reinvention, and LA

• Social fallout: Krieger says he didn’t experience the “cold shoulder” from friends after the Doors, in part thanks to interests outside of music, like golf (29:19).
• Struggles with new bands: Persistent challenges with launching new material post-Doors, and tales of lost/stolen guitars (05:01).
• Band-member relationships: Lighthearted and honest commentary on post-Doors pursuits—Ray Manzarek’s avant-garde efforts, Densmore’s attempt at acting, Krieger’s own instrumental albums (27:25).

5. On Being in a Band: The Artistic Glue

• Chemistry: Corgan and Krieger agree the Doors had a uniquely irreplaceable dynamic, with each member critical to the overall sound (13:35, 58:14).
  • Billy Corgan: “You're one of those rare bands where the four elements together…something magical happens.” (13:35)
  • Robby Krieger: “When I was added, it really helped… the song.” (59:50)
• Writing process: Many songs grew out of jam sessions, “all different kinds of ways.” Jim Morrison’s early material arrived with melodies in his head (59:10).

6. Drugs, Spirituality, and Performance

• 60s context: Drugs were entwined with spiritual searching, but the practice shifted as the decade went on (12:11, 62:19).
  • Robby Krieger: “In the 60s, drugs were spirituality. You know, that's what we use them for.” (00:09, 62:19)
• Band on LSD: Stories about performing under the influence, including Ray quitting acid after a disastrous gig at Hughes Aircraft (64:01, 65:06).
• Audience and mystique: Krieger reflects on the crowd’s reaction to Morrison’s provocations, notably the infamous Miami concert (68:51), and how the fallout led to increased recording.

7. On Influence and Legacy

• Enduring impact: Corgan credits the Doors' blend of literature and music with launching his own artistic journey (38:49, 81:46).
  • Billy Corgan: “That’s why I started reading Kerouac and Jean Paul Sartre…Jim’s interest in those writers…and the musical influences set me off on this very particular path.” (38:49)
• Signature style: The show ends with Corgan describing his personal, musical debt to the Doors and a touching reading of “Crystal Ship” lyrics as tribute (81:46, 84:19).
  • Billy Corgan: “There’s a lot of Doors in the Pumpkins’ DNA…literally from the first gigs of my band, I was singing these lyrics.” (82:36)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On band names:
  • Robby Krieger: “The Doors was a stupid name, too… and so was the Butts Band.” (02:03)
  • Billy Corgan: “They hated my band name…They tried to get us to change our band name 50 times. It's not that bad. It worked out.” (25:09)
• On the end of the Doors and moving on:
  • Robby Krieger: “I just kind of shut off the Doors. I said, okay, that's over. I’m never, never going to have that type of thing again.” (29:49)
• On the Doors' unique chemistry:
  • Billy Corgan: “There’s only a few bands where it’s like the Beatles come to mind, Led Zeppelin comes to mind where it’s like without one of you, I wouldn’t be into the band. It’s the communication between the four of you.” (58:14)
  • Robby Krieger: “Every blues song we ever did was not just a blues.” (72:58)
• On Jim Morrison:
  • Robby Krieger: “Jim didn’t really have his parents in his life…I think he kind of…liked hanging around my house because it was something he didn’t have.” (45:05, 47:00)
  • Billy Corgan: “My real connection with [Jim Morrison] is he introduced me to something very personal.” (39:15)
  • Robby Krieger, on Morrison’s death rumors: “We sent our manager…to check it out. And unfortunately, he never saw the body. So, you know, we were still thinking, gee, maybe he’s...trying to fool everybody.” (09:03)
• On American Prayer and the lost poetry tapes:
  • Robby Krieger: “Luckily Jim had put the poetry down on tape. And about 10 years later…I said, hey, whatever happened with that poetry thing?…So he plays it for me and I just said, wow, we could put music to this and it would be cool.” (34:01, 34:40)
• On legacy and why the band endures:
  • Billy Corgan: “You can build your own world. And the Doors did that because the Doors sound like the Doors…it’s like the spooky mystery, little bit Kurt Vile, mixed with Chicago Blues.” (41:41)
  • Robby Krieger: “There’s so many Doors cover bands…none of them really [get the vibe].” (42:14)

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:44: Discussion of Krieger's new instrumental album, referencing Booker T. & the MGs
• 02:03: Origins of band names and the Butts Band
• 09:03: Krieger on the immediate aftermath of Jim Morrison’s death
• 15:31: The Doors’ quest for a new singer in Europe
• 18:18 – 19:41: Birth and adventures of the Butts Band
• 29:19: Adjusting to post-fame life and friendships
• 32:41: Krieger’s ethos of constant self-improvement
• 38:03: The legacy of No One Here Gets Out Alive and the start of Doors revival
• 43:39: Ray Manzarek leaning into "Jim the Shaman" and keeping the Doors’ story alive
• 62:19: Drugs as spirituality in the 60s
• 72:58: The signature of Doors’ blues songs
• 81:46 & 84:19: Corgan closes with a tribute to "Crystal Ship" and musical influence

---

Tone & Language

The episode is colored by mutual respect, understated humor, and a thoughtful, reflective tone. Billy Corgan mixes fan enthusiasm with musician-to-musician insight, frequently referencing his own artistic journey and using it as a bridge for deeper questions. Robby Krieger, ever soft-spoken and self-effacing, provides intimate recollections and personal admissions, often downplaying the band’s mythic stature and refocusing the story on the craft and relational realities at the heart of the Doors’ journey.

---

Conclusion

Robby Krieger offers a rare, candid look at life during and after the Doors, demystifying both the band's meteoric rise and the mythos that followed. Billy Corgan, as both interviewer and admirer, draws out stories, emotions, and wisdom that connect the past to the present, making this episode invaluable for musicians and fans seeking to understand how great art endures, evolves, and continues to inspire across generations.

Transcript

[Robbie Krieger]

And the movie really is what revamped the interest in the Doors. But you remember, even hate to admit

[Interviewer]

it, drugs versus spirituality.

[Robbie Krieger]

In the 60s, drugs were spirituality.

[Interviewer]

I'm surprised. Did anyone call you to join their band?

[Robbie Krieger]

No.

[Interviewer]

I mean, you wrote a lot of big hit songs. You think somebody would have called you?

[Robbie Krieger]

I think people were kind of scared maybe, you know. Scared.

[Interviewer]

Scared of you. LA LA can make you crazy. Has LA made you crazy, Robbie?

[Robbie Krieger]

No.

[Interviewer]

You still doing all right?

[Robbie Krieger]

I, I grew up here.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

So.

[Interviewer]

Okay, let's start here.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

New album, right? Robbie Krieger and the Soul Savages.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Now it's all instrumental.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Are you it like a Booker t in the MGs? Are you trying to bring back kind of the instrumental?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, that's my, my hope is to, to have an instrumental hit like Booker T. Yeah. In fact, so many great.

[Interviewer]

Was it. So, so Hugger or Green Onions?

[Robbie Krieger]

Hip hugger.

[Interviewer]

Hip Huggers. Thank you.

[Robbie Krieger]

Green Onions.

[Interviewer]

Did you like that music? Do you like Stacks?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, you know, and that's not what I'm trying to do, but I'm just saying in general to have a.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, no, I'm not saying it sounds like that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. To bring back that. Yeah, the instrumental hit record type of deal. You know, it's, it's fun.

[Interviewer]

And of course, I read this book when it came out. So it's great to talk to you about some of the stuff in the book. Set the Night on Fire. I really enjoyed this book a lot. We'll talk about that. Okay, so let's start with the Soul Savages thing.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

I saw a funny thing where you said Robbie Krieger and the Soul Savages is a stupid name. But then I also saw where you said the Doors was a stupid name too.

[Robbie Krieger]

Exactly.

[Interviewer]

And so, so what should the Soul Savages be called?

[Robbie Krieger]

And so was the Butts Band.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

You ever hear about the Butts?

[Interviewer]

Oh, I, I, I think I read about it in this wonderful book of yours.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. What would I rather have?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

I mean, that was the one we picked.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

You know, Marco is great at names, so he, he made up about a hundred names.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

And we whittled it down.

[Interviewer]

Was it a democratic vote? Yeah, but it shouldn't be because it's called Robbie Krieger first. You see.

[Robbie Krieger]

I know, and I didn't want.

[Interviewer]

You should have pulled rank.

[Robbie Krieger]

I, Well, I really didn't want it to be Robbie. Yeah. I wanted to be more like a real.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[Robbie Krieger]

Group type thing. But, you know, they said, oh, well, you get More airplay or something.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

You know, people love the Doors and all that, but then they're gonna think it's gonna sound like the Doors.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So I thought your guitar playing sounded great. Great tone.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, thanks.

[Interviewer]

Are you playing an SG or.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, still playing the sj, I remember.

[Interviewer]

I. I've seen a bunch of the videos that you posted. Did you. That your. Your original got lost, Right. Or somebody stole it.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. Yeah. Stolen something.

[Interviewer]

Surprised it hasn't surfaced. I'm sure you've seen some of those things where people are finding.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Paul McCartney's guitar and.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I can't believe somebody hasn't found your. Your sg.

[Robbie Krieger]

I know. I think it must be just sitting somewhere in an attic.

[Interviewer]

You probably don't know this story, but somebody stole my guitar from a gig in Detroit in 1992, and it was gone for 27 years. And I got it back.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Somebody showed up with it.

[Robbie Krieger]

How did you get it back?

[Interviewer]

This gentleman contacted me and said, I think I have your guitar. And I'd heard this before. So I was very skeptical. And he sent, obviously, new digital photos of my guitar. And there were certain markings that only I would recognize. And I knew right away it was my guitar. And I thought, this just can't be. And the story I was told was somebody bought it at a garage sale, and it was hung on somebody's wall. And eventually they came into the basement and they saw it and they said, that's Billy Corgan's missing guitar. And I don't believe the story, but all I know is I got my guitar back.

[Robbie Krieger]

What kind was it?

[Interviewer]

A 70s strat. Had a very distinctive sound. You know, when you have a guitar. Like that guitar was your guitar. Right. And, you know, like, that thing had a certain cut this way, and it sounded good in this key. So when you lose that and you go looking for the other guitar, and it never quite gets the same thing. Such a painful.

[Robbie Krieger]

Luckily, my guitar wasn't that great. I mean, it was just a sound like any other. As it wasn't even an SG. It was a Les Paul Jr. Yeah. Special Junior, I think.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Had the black pickups, you know, and, you know, I did the first two albums with that guitar.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So. So it sounded pretty good.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

But when somebody stole it, I was kind of happy because, oh, boy, I can get something else.

[Interviewer]

Well, I hope they find it. I. I would buy that guitar if it was.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, we thought we found it, oh, a couple of months ago, but it turned out it was not it.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

But now I've Got a guy, my friend Jerry, and he's using those tuning forks or whatever they call.

[Interviewer]

They're dowsing rods.

[Robbie Krieger]

Dowsing rods. And he claims it, that it's here in LA somewhere.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Robbie Krieger]

So we're still looking.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so if the Doors was a stupid name, what would have been a better name?

[Robbie Krieger]

Better name than the Doors? Ah, that's a good question. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

Right. I mean, was the. The name Jim's idea or was it somebody else?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, it was Jim's side.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Do you guys have a vote on that one?

[Robbie Krieger]

No, I. In fact, they. They had named it before I was even in the band.

[Interviewer]

Oh, okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So I had no.

[Interviewer]

I didn't know that part.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Yep. I was the last one in to be inducted into the band.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[Robbie Krieger]

So.

[Interviewer]

So, fun fact, I was with Linda Ramone, who was Johnny Ramones, widow of the Ramones, and she said you're the only person the Ramones ever invited on stage, ever.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Wow.

[Interviewer]

The only person who played with the Ramones that wasn't in the Ramones ever. She showed me the clip of you guys playing a door song. Take it as it comes, I think.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, that's right. Wow. And that was so weird because nobody ever plays that song.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

As you know, when you go up, hey, let's do a door song.

[Interviewer]

You wrote House Blues.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. It's always I Light My Fire, Roadhouse Blues, Love Me Two Times. But that's. That was crazy.

[Interviewer]

I thought it was pretty cool.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Got your punk bona fides there. So this is a strange way to jump into this. But I'm fascinated because obviously, you know, Doors mythology is you have the movie, you have the book, you know, and what I loved about your book holding up again is. And you say it very early in the book, I'm just going to tell the story as I experienced it. Like, I'm really not into the whole mythological part of this whole thing. I'm just going to talk about the person that I knew in my experience with these other guys. Yeah, I love that. And I really. If you're a Doors fan, and I'm a huge Doors fan, it's a real. It feel. You feel like you're in the room without all the extra junk on top of it. Does it make sense to you?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, I hope so, because, you know,

[Interviewer]

my band's 36 years and going. Not continuously, but. And for you, it's been how many years?

[Robbie Krieger]

50.

[Interviewer]

We remember what it was like to be in the living room practicing. You know what I mean? Not the magazine cover part, you know, arguing over hamburger and fries and stuff. It's a different experience when you're in the band as opposed to what people think the band was. And your band particularly probably has more mythology around it than just about any other band ever. And you talk about that. And so does John Densmore. In his book. He talks about sort of the Rays puffing up. The mythology of the band.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, they. Both of their books were kind of. They kind of each put each other down for various reasons.

[Interviewer]

Well, that's, that's the other part about being a band is you love and maybe don't love each other, you know.

[Robbie Krieger]

Exactly.

[Interviewer]

But this is an interesting way to get into it because obviously it's been a long time. So I looked up the date the Jim passed. It was July 3, 1971. So if you could, if you want. I found myself thinking, what did it feel like on July 4, 1971? Did you guys have a meeting? Did you. Like, how did you even kind of begin to grapple with what was going on?

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, well, well, we, when we heard that he was, he was gone, we, we didn't believe it, for one thing, because, you know, there was always rumors about, sure, you know, Paul is dead, and blah, blah, blah. So we sent our manager, Bill Siddons, over to France, to Paris to, you know, to check it out. And unfortunately, he never saw the body. So, you know, we were still thinking, gee, maybe he's. Maybe he really just trying to fool everybody.

[Interviewer]

Yes.

[Robbie Krieger]

But after a while it sunk in and.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And

[Interviewer]

the reason I ask is not to be morbid. It's because you guys made the decision to carry on and you did two more albums.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right, Right.

[Interviewer]

So I'm more interested in that, which is like, hey, what do we do? We're a great band. You know, we've had all the success and you guys were a great band. I mean, the way you three played together was legendary. And still.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, we were. I mean, you know, so what happened is when Jim had had gone to Paris, we, we had continued to, to practice and play almost, you know, every day.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And we, we had come up with a whole bunch of new songs that, you know, we're going to be on the next album.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And if Jim liked them.

[Interviewer]

Right, right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And so, you know, Electra Records, Jack Holtzman, he was, he was really cool about the whole thing. And he, he, he, he says, why don't you guys, you know, put out another record? I, you know, everybody's going to want Ms. Jim and everything, but you know, in our contract, we had two more albums to go.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So he says, yeah, let's do. You know, let's. Let's keep. Keep it. Keep it going, you know. And did you feel.

[Interviewer]

Do you have any reservations? You felt like, leo, let's just keep going.

[Robbie Krieger]

We did have reservations, you know, I mean, you know, it's like the Stones are going on without Mick Jagger or something like that. And maybe it was a stupid idea. I don't know.

[Interviewer]

I don't know.

[Robbie Krieger]

But I. I really love some of those songs.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

That are on those albums. So.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I think it was. You know, what struck me in thinking about it this morning, because I knew I was going to interview you, is these days you see bands carry on with different lead singers, and the public has kind of gotten used to it. Like, if it had happened. If it happened to you today, if you were in that exact situation today, I think. I think people would have said, yeah, you should carry on. Now, obviously there we. Some people don't, but even a famous band like Linkin park, their. Their lead singer passed away. Chester, who's a great lead singer, and Linkin park just came back with. With a new singer, a female. Yeah, it's quite good. But I'm saying is the. The world seems to have, for lack of better way to put it, matured with the idea that if people still want to hear the music, it's better to hear the music and not get caught up in necessarily the personality part of it all.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Interviewer]

And, you know, Journey is a stadium band with a singer that they found on YouTube.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, exactly.

[Interviewer]

You know what I'm saying?

[Robbie Krieger]

That worked out.

[Interviewer]

And I know you guys did tour, like, with Ian Astbury, who's somebody I'm very fond of, but, like, I think the environment for you would be much more receptive now, where back then I think it was probably more harsh, like bands over. Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. I mean, you know, even then when Ray and I decided to keep to touring, it was pretty well received, you know, it was pretty damn cool. I just wish John had had come along, but he didn't want to.

[Interviewer]

Right. And you're talking about later when you guys were touring.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, this was like.

[Interviewer]

But back to this time. Okay, so first show, three shows in. You know, you guys are totally tweaked as a four piece. And one of my things about you as a fan is you're one of those rare bands where the four elements together are really. It's the sort of a magical thing that happens when you guys Play. And I've listened to countless live recordings. I don't think I've ever heard you guys do a bad gig. And I'm sure I. I missed a few, but. And I'm not trying to be a fanboy, I'm saying is you guys were really a great live band. So now you got one missing element. How was that internally? How did it feel? And then how, how was the crowd with you?

[Robbie Krieger]

The crowd was great. You know, they. They were very cool there. Nobody's saying, hey, where's Jim? Really? No, none of that. And, you know, so Ray and I were left to be the singers. Right.

[Interviewer]

Who's the better singer? You were, you were, you were. Ray, I'm put you on the spot.

[Robbie Krieger]

I think Ray was better, probably, but. And then we had this other guy, Bobby Ray, who was rhythm guitar player and, and singer, and he sang a few of the songs. He was pretty good. But what happened was after the two albums, we decided, hey, maybe we should find a singer.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So we Talked about Paul McCartney, of course, and Bob Dylan, and I saw Iggy Pop somewhere. Iggy Pop, Yeah. But then we, for some reason, we decided to go to Europe. Let's go to Europe and find somebody over there, you know, that'll be different.

[Interviewer]

Sounds very 70s. Like, let's go to Europe and find a singer.

[Robbie Krieger]

So we did. We went over there and pretty much moved our whole families over there to London. And we were, you know, trying this guy, that guy. We didn't really get very far. And before Ray kind of blew the whole thing off.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Because. Because Dorothy was pregnant and she was not doing too well and she was, you know, you know, mentally. Sometimes when you're pregnant you get. Go crazy.

[Interviewer]

My wife is currently pregnant, so I. I am.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, so at that point it was okay, the doors are over. And we, you know, John and I were kind of pissed because, you know, we. We thought we still had some good stuff in us, you know.

[Interviewer]

How old are you at this point?

[Robbie Krieger]

Like 25ish.

[Interviewer]

A little young to have to decide it's over.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think we could have been like a jazz trio, you know, because, I mean, you know, I don't. I mean, you know, the whole idea to go. Going over there was to find another singer, but we, we never really got close to finding a singer, really.

[Interviewer]

So were you hoping to find somebody that had their own thing and then that would become additive? Like you weren't trying to necessarily recreate as much as sort of innovate?

[Robbie Krieger]

Exactly, yeah.

[Interviewer]

And when you say that about a jazz trio. What's interesting is the musical language of the Doors was so unique, I can actually kind of hear it. You know what I mean? Where most bands, I would think, well, where does that go? But with you guys, I could see where something would come of it.

[Robbie Krieger]

Sure. And I mean, yeah, and, and some of the songs, like I say on, on the two albums were pretty damn good.

[Interviewer]

Right? So you find yourself okay, 25ish bands done. What do you, what do you say to your wife? You know what I mean? Like, like, where are we going? Or did you take a year off? I mean, what did you.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, we, we stayed in, in London and John and I decided to form another band.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So we, we came across this guy, Jess Roden. He was, he was one of the guys lined up to maybe be in, in the Doors. And he was pretty cool. He had some really nice good songs and he was really into reggae, which John and I were getting into. And he happened to know the, this guy Phil Chen, who was probably the best bass player in London at the time. He was a session guy. He had come from Jamaica and you know, with the reggae group. I forgot the name of it, but they were, you know, pretty big time reggae band and they kind of broke up and then he decided to stay in London and be a session guy. So we jet. Jess Roden was buddies with him so we decided to try him out and it was great. He was the perfect bass player for, for our new band. And so we made an album.

[Interviewer]

And what was that called, sir? What was the band?

[Robbie Krieger]

The Butt Span.

[Interviewer]

That was the Butt Span. Okay, I thought, Sorry, I thought that came later.

[Robbie Krieger]

Talk about a bad name.

[Interviewer]

Well, not, not to look backwards, but it might have stifled your commercial upside.

[Robbie Krieger]

I mean, okay, that didn't mean what it means here really, but.

[Interviewer]

Right. But if, if this is a bad name and the Doors is a bad name, I think, I think the Butts wins the bad name.

[Robbie Krieger]

Anyway, we, we decided to make an album and we got Bruce Botnik to come over to England and. Which he was happy to do. And we, we started the, the album at Dynamic. Now what's the name of that studio over there where everybody play Goes?

[Interviewer]

Well, there was island back in the day, there was emi.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, Olympics. Olympic.

[Interviewer]

Get there eventually.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, Olympic Studio. So we did half of it there and then we decided to go to Jamaica because Phil was from Jamaica and he really hadn't seen his family for a long time and he was so happy to go back there. And Chris Blackwell became friends with us. And he, he had a, this great house up there called Strawberry Fields.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Or Strawberry. Yeah, I think it was Strawberry Field. And so he let us stay there and we recorded the rest of the album at Dynamic Studios.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

And. Which was really cool because, you know, all these reggae guys were, were recording there. Jimmy Cliff, who didn't, didn't have much interest in us.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

But he was okay, he was a nice guy.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

But Phil had a great time.

[Interviewer]

So were you thinking, I still have a future in commercial music or I just want to be a musician and make a living? I mean, where was your, I mean, you're coming off a pretty big high of success. That's pretty rare. I mean, most people don't as, you know, most people might have one album, two albums. I mean, you guys had five, six albums that all had hits, all had classics.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, no, I mean, you know, as far as I was concerned, and probably John too, we were gonna stick with it.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And make, have another band and, and you know, prove that it wasn't just luck. Sure. To have a Jim Morris.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And so what happened was we, after we finished the album in Jamaica, they all came, the English guys came to stay in la and we decided, you know, we tried to launch the band from la and it didn't really work out very well. The first thing that went wrong was we were on Electra Records. And who was the guy that was the president of Electra?

[Interviewer]

Jack Holtzman.

[Robbie Krieger]

No, the one after him.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

He was really not likable guy sometimes.

[Interviewer]

But is it like a famous name?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

So a famous shark.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So he, he listens to the album and you know, we, we, we really had fun doing this album and had Bruce Spotnik, a great engineer.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, fantastic.

[Robbie Krieger]

And so this guy listens to it and he goes, you know, I think you should redo the album with Tom Dowd. And you know, stupidly, I, I, I, we should have done it. Just to do something with Tom Dowd would have been cool. But I just got all pissed off and, and I had this horrible look on my face, I guess because, because the guy says, wow, Yes. I guess you don't like that idea. You've got all the excitement of a half dead worm. So when I told that to Phil Chen from then on, he called me the Worm. Yeah. So that was my nickname from then on. So we, we said that, let's just put, we'll go somewhere else. So we, we went and met with Bob Krasnow, you know who he is. So he had The. What was his band company called?

[Interviewer]

Was he with Columbia or Blue Note? Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

He took over Blue Note and yeah, he had. He had a lot of great people on there on that record.

[Interviewer]

Was anybody pushing back in America against the band name?

[Robbie Krieger]

No.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Robbie Krieger]

I found that didn't seem to bother them.

[Interviewer]

They hated my band name.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah. They tried to get us to change our band name 50 times.

[Robbie Krieger]

It's not that bad.

[Interviewer]

It worked out.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. So you guys just refused to change, right?

[Interviewer]

Yes, sir.

[Robbie Krieger]

Good for you.

[Interviewer]

It's not so much that I love the band name, it's that people always remembered the band name. It was one of those weird names if you said it once. No one ever forgot. Had a kind of a lucky thing to it where if you've just heard it, people. I would see people six months later and they would know the name of the band. It was just, you know, it's good marketing. It's just like it's. It's stuck.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right, right.

[Interviewer]

But back to you. So. So the launch goes not so good.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. So we had this, you know, we had our manager, Bill Siddons, who had managed the Doors for. For the past, you know, year or so originally. He was our roadie.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And for one reason or another, he couldn't get much lined up.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

To. For at least not enough. So the. The English guys got all they bored and stuff and they. They decided to go back to England. So John and I stupidly reformed the Bus Band, which. And. And there's really still some good stuff on that second album. We had this guy, Michael Stahl, who was the singer. He was actually a really good singer. And we had. We found this bass player, Carl Rucker, who is called Slick. And he was really good bass player.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And then we had this girl keyboard player, Alex Richmond. And so we did. We did a couple of minor tours with that band and it didn't really go anywhere. Right. So that was it. John decided to become an actor.

[Interviewer]

Of course, he won a bunch of Academy Awards. And I, I'm sorry, I. With all due respect to John, I had that happen in my band. I had a band member quit and become an actor. So I'm a little salty about the whole idea. It's like, you know, because I said to this person, have you ever acted before? And the person said, no.

[Robbie Krieger]

Who was that?

[Interviewer]

Now I'm going to be an actor.

[Robbie Krieger]

You know, though, who was that?

[Interviewer]

That was the. The female bass player in the original band. She just announced somewhere in the end of the 90s that she was Going to be an actor, even though she'd never acted. Well, I guess somehow Mickey Rour's connected to that story. But we'll, we'll tell that story for another day.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay. Last time.

[Interviewer]

So he, he's in now he's an actor.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Ray is doing like Carmina Barana or whatever he was doing.

[Robbie Krieger]

He did X, he produced.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that's right. That's right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So remember he did, he did that album where it was like, about a dung beetle pushing it across the universe or something.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

It's so, it's so behind the music. It's like this guy quits to be an actor. This guy's doing the. The musical about the dung beetle.

[Robbie Krieger]

And so I just started doing instrumental albums.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And

[Interviewer]

can I, can I stop you there? Because I'm. Because I'm always curious because everybody likes this part of the story, you know, the shiny. The shiny. You know, when you were on Ed Sullivan and all this type of stuff. I'm just as interested when, because I've experienced it myself. When, especially in this town in Los Angeles, like, did you see people treating you differently? Were people, you know, your friends no longer your friends? Did you go through that whole weirdness?

[Robbie Krieger]

Not really. Not really. I mean, people that were my friends were mostly not really because of the Doors. You know, it was, you know, because I, I was a golfer, so I had a lot of golfing friends. And that didn't really bother me. In fact, I just kind of shut off the Doors. I said, okay, that's over.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

I'm never, never going to have that type of thing again.

[Interviewer]

Sentimental about it. Were you like, hey, that was amazing. And now I just got to go on to something else, like, because that's a curious thing, you know, not many people experience your success.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And then like one day you wake up and it's your band, isn't your band anymore. You soldier on. You find yourself in this unique situation. You're in your mid-20s, you know, it's an interesting perspective. And I guess I'm taking it more like a spiritual point, you know, like life presents us with you really unique challenges.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

You've always struck me as a pretty down to earth person. So you're saying my friends were my friends. That makes sense to me. You know, you weren't necessarily caught up in the language. Bolt.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right, exactly.

[Interviewer]

So you lean back into what you knew, which is.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, and back then I really wasn't. Like today, if you're, you know, in a. In a band and it's And. And you're known. You know, people go and play in other bands and. Sure do all the. It wasn't really like that back then.

[Interviewer]

Didn't. I'm surprised. Did anyone call you to join their band?

[Robbie Krieger]

No, not really. I. I think people.

[Interviewer]

You wrote a lot of big hit songs. You think somebody would have called you.

[Robbie Krieger]

I think people were kind of. Kind of scared maybe, you know, Scared of you. Yours is so weird, you know.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, that's. That's how I saw it. I did. I did go out and tour with Eric Burden and.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

Some stuff like that. But, you know, I mean, you.

[Interviewer]

You know, we all look back on our 20s and we realize we're in a sort of a particular type of prime.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. And I. And then, you know, I had a. A kid. We had a. A family and. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So I know you've been with your wife since 1972 years. That's amazing.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Well, that's part of it, though, right? You lean back on your relationship, your family, your.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. And so I would say, what were we talking about?

[Interviewer]

Well, no, it's just. It's just the idea of, you know, America likes its shiny stuff, but I'm just as interested in the stuff that affects us as musicians. Right. Like, we both had the experience of a lot of success, and then that success casts a particular shadow, and what you do with that shadow is like, in your case, you've always just played music.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

You could have quit. You could have started, you know, an aquarium, you know.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. I mean, my. My idea was to always get better.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

As a guitar player. And, you know, sometimes it took a wrong turn here and there, I would say. But I think if you get this album, you. You'll see where I'm at now.

[Interviewer]

This album. Yeah. Well, it's amazing.

[Robbie Krieger]

I think I've improved as a musician.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, you're playing is as strong as ever. And it's definitely you playing.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I think only you play like you, which is.

[Robbie Krieger]

Wouldn't recognize my. My.

[Interviewer]

That's what I was saying. As a fellow guitar player, that's the greatest compliment. It's like when I listen to this, it's you playing. I can tell it's you. Your voice is in the. The chords and notes and the. Even the way you hit the pick, you know?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. You're the same way.

[Interviewer]

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, let's jump into the deep end of the pool, which is in this incredible Doris mythology. Right. So 1978, you release American Prayer, which was Jim's Recordings, mostly of poetry and then you. Musical backing and.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. And, you know, he. He had recorded this poetry about an hour's worth on a birthday.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, it's his last birthday and God bless.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. And he, He. He had planned on. On having music with it, but he wanted what do you call, kind of free jazz? No, not. Not jazz at all, but more like classical.

[Interviewer]

Oh, okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

Have you ever heard of Fred Myron? No. Well, he was. I think he's still around. He was the guy that, that Jim wanted to.

[Interviewer]

Oh, okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

To. And I. I don't even know if he ever got around to. To doing any of it, but that never happened. And. And luckily Jim had put the, the poetry down on tape. And about 10 years later, John Haney, who was the engineer who, who did that, I ran into him and I said, hey, what. You know, whatever happened with that poetry thing?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And. And so he played it for me.

[Interviewer]

So you didn't even know it existed? Oh, okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

I knew it. I knew it existed, but I didn't know what the hell was going on, you know, I don't know why we never asked about it before. But anyway, so he plays it for me and I just said, wow, we could. We could put music to this and it would be cool.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And really, it came out as. It's really one of my favorite Doors albums.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really. We still. We actually play some of the songs from it today.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

You probably don't know this, but when you guys put out the box set around 2000 or so, remember you did that?

[Robbie Krieger]

Which one?

[Interviewer]

It was like a 4 CD box set.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

Well, I can't remember what it was called. The Doors Unlocked or something. Anyway, I knew Ray a little bit, so I sent Ray a message because I love the box set. And what I loved about it was it wasn't just, here's the best songs and a couple unreleased tracks. It was like a live cut. Jim doing poetry live, you guys jamming, rehearsal tape, then.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

It was a really interesting. And what I wrote Ray, in the note was I was like, I love that. As a Doris fan, I thought I knew the band. But when I listen to this now, I understand how you guys see the band. Does it make sense to you, the way I'm saying it to you?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

It's like this is the band you were actually in, not my version of the band as a fan. This is how the Doors saw the Doors.

[Robbie Krieger]

And wait a minute, what year did that?

[Interviewer]

About 2000, I feel somewhere around there

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, I gotta check that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it was a box, so it's really beautifully done. And I don't know who curated it. I'm sure you guys had a lot to do with it, but it felt very personal. And I was struck by it because I was the guy who'd buy every box set that would come out, whether it was Motown or whatever. I just love unreleased tracks. And I'm just one of those guys, collector type. Right. So after I sent Ray the note, he wanted to talk to me. And so we sat on the phone for, like, an hour and just talked about his version of the Doors from inside. You know, he kind of gave me that insight of, like, the way you guys saw the band. And it was such a gift to hear him explain it because, like I said, when you're in the band, it's different. Fans decide what version of the band they want to believe in. But when you're in the band, you have your own version of the band. And I hear that, especially with you guys, because you have such a strong musical identity.

[Robbie Krieger]

Too bad you didn't record that conversation, right?

[Interviewer]

It would be nice. It would be nice. He was quite nice to me as a. As a fellow Chicagoan, you know. Oh, right, yeah. Okay. So I guess the. You know, the whole thing. American Prayer came out in 1978, and I think the Danny Sugarman book came out, what, 81. Somewhere around there. No One Here Gets Out Alive is the infamous book. So somewhere in there. Because I bought that book when it came out and I read it. So imagine I'm 14 years old and I'm reading, you know.

[Robbie Krieger]

You're 14 at the time.

[Interviewer]

At the time, yeah. And I read it cover to cover multiple times. And that's because of that book. That's why I started reading Kerouac and Jean Paul Sartre and all this. Huxley and William Burroughs and.

[Robbie Krieger]

Cool.

[Interviewer]

So that part of your history, Jim's interest in those writers. And then, of course, you know, the musical influences the Doors had set me off on this kind of very particular path, which had a lot of influence on me. So thank you for that.

[Robbie Krieger]

So how old are you?

[Interviewer]

14, 15 years old. I mean, not many kids at 14 years old are reading Kirkagaard. And, you know what I mean?

[Robbie Krieger]

Jim was.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, well, God bless. Right?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So that's always been my personal affinity for Jim. I certainly love Jim as a singer and a frontman. I didn't ever saw you guys live that way, but on video. But my real connection with him is he introduced me to something very Personal. Okay, that's cool. Right. So somewhere in there. 78, 81. Somewhere in there now, here comes. Let's call it Doors 2.0. The myth, the Lizard King. You know what I mean? And you talk in your book. Great book, by the way. You talk in your book. Very. As you are here. Very plain spoken about. You know, I know this thing's going on. It wasn't quite the Doors that I was in, but. Okay. You know, it's not a bad thing. People are interested in us.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

Did that. Did that. That resurgence of interest in. In your work, was that surprising, or did you feel it coming, like.

[Robbie Krieger]

No, I mean, I. You know, after we broke up, you know, in Europe, I thought, that's it. Nobody will ever care about the Doors anymore. Nobody'll. Nobody gives it. And I was. Yeah. And because of the book, Danny's book. That's. That was, I think, an impetus to the movie.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[Robbie Krieger]

And the movie really is what revamped the sure interest in the Doors. But you remember, even I hate to admit it.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. But that's. No, But I guess I would say there's no shame in that game because here I am at 14 and I'm caring about the Doors in a way that goes beyond Light My Fire and Break On Through. Right. I'm suddenly.

[Robbie Krieger]

Did you see the movie?

[Interviewer]

I did. I did. I even got to know Val Kilmer a little bit somewhere around that era. I knew that. Let's. I don't know how to put it in a way that's not any more Chicago than. I knew that part of the movie was just movie making. But if at the end of the day, it turns a whole generation on to want to listen to how good you guys. Great you guys are. Were. I don't see that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Interviewer]

Because you guys are great band. You're one of the only bands I could say where I can listen every record. And every record really has something for me as a fan. And I'm not talking about a couple songs. Like, I like every record. I do, honestly.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, thanks.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Huge influence on my work. So in many ways, obviously, not just the literature, just the sense that a band can create a mystique that's very personal. If I would point to anything that you guys had a huge influence on me. It's like, you can build your own world. And the Doors did that because the Doors sound like the Doors. It's like. And if you try to cover Doors songs and I've covered Door songs, you can't quite get the same vibe. It's like the spooky mystery, little bit Kurt Vile and, you know, mixed with Chicago Blues.

[Robbie Krieger]

And there's so many Doors cover bands, you know.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[Robbie Krieger]

And yeah, you're, you're right. None of them really.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, because it's the way your musical language is so particular. And, you know, if we were to, if we were to design the Doors on paper, you'd say, there's no way this band's going to sell any records.

[Robbie Krieger]

You did some Door songs.

[Interviewer]

You're jumping to my end. We'll get there. So, okay, here's Robbie Krieger in 1982 or whatever. The Doors mythology starts to take off. You know what I mean? You know, obviously things start to change now. I think it was John who talks in his book. Maybe I could be wrong because I've read all your books, but this idea that Ray starts to really lean into Jim the shaman. And there was that great. I don't know if you ever saw it. There was a great Onion headline once where it said, ray Manzarek goes for five minutes without calling Jim a shaman. You ever see that? It's hysterical. And they had fake quotes from Ray saying, you know, I just forgot to call him a shaman for a couple minutes, you know. But I remember listening to Ray doing interviews in the 80s and he was like, you know, Jim's a shaman and a mystic and yeah, I didn't know what a shaman was, you know, But I'm saying, and you talk about it in your book, but what was your perspective on all that? Were you kind of cool with it? Did you think it was a bit cheesy or you, you know,

[Robbie Krieger]

you know, I, I, I thought it was a bit cheesy, but I didn't, I couldn't blame Ray because really it was his whole life, you know, he's the one that discovered Jim. He's the one that, you know, started the Doors really, and he wanted to keep it going, you know, when Jim died, it was the end of the world for, for him.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And he, so he, he was really just trying to keep it all going.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And I, I can't blame him because, you know, he, like you say, the Doors are so different. And he, he wanted people to know, y', know, especially young people.

[Interviewer]

What I loved about your book is you talk about, like, Jim hanging out in your kitchen talking to your parents is so beautiful to me, because again, that's the Jim you knew, you know, not the lizard king and the leather pants, but like this, this young guy, obviously very intelligent.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

But the Personal aspect of you talking about like your father's influence and helping the band and something really beautiful about that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Can you just talk about that a little bit? Because obviously I had the benefit of reading the book.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, you know, Jim didn't really have his parents in his life. I, I think it was because he didn't want to embarrass them, you know,

[Interviewer]

because his dad was like an admiral

[Robbie Krieger]

or his dad was a real military, straight, straight up guy. And his mom was kind of weird too. But so I think he kind of, you know, I was lucky. I had the, the, the nice upbringing, you know, family type thing without having to please my, my parents that much. You know, when I became interested in, in music, they were, they were just happy that I was interested in anything, you know, something. So, you know, most, A lot of parents would have said, oh, that's not good, you're going to get into drugs. And. Yeah, and they were right.

[Interviewer]

But sorry just to steer you back because I'm so. I think this is the sweetest part of the story. It's like, you know, you guys, early 20s, literally hanging out in the Krieger kitchen.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

There's no Doors, there's no Mystique, you know, or if there is a Doors, it's. It's just another band amongst a thousand bands out here at the time.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. But, you know, Jim was, he was, you know, I think being brought up in the South, I think he was, he was very polite and very, you know, just. That's how he was brought up.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And my parents really liked him a lot and, and he, and he liked hanging around my house because it was, it was something he didn't have.

[Interviewer]

When's the first time in your mind that you saw that Jim had this other ability or, you know what I'm saying? It's like he wasn't just another guy who could sing or something. You know, I mean like the first time you found yourself going, oh, this guy's really got an interesting gear here.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, it was even, it was before I met him, you know. You know, John had gotten into the group by this time and he, he would tell me about him.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

How the, how he came up with the name and all this stuff and, and the first six or eight songs that they, they came up with were great lyrics, you know, stuff that I never heard.

[Interviewer]

So you heard about this guy before you kind of.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah. And the fact that it had a record deal with Columbia Records.

[Interviewer]

Ah, you know, is that where there's some of those early Demos are from that. Like they did some kind of demo or.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, there was demo. That was before that. And that's. That's how they got the deal. Columbia, I think.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, that was before Columbia. See that? At that time, Ray was buddies with this guy Dick. Dick Bach.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

You ever heard that name?

[Interviewer]

Doesn't rig a bell.

[Robbie Krieger]

He had a label called World Pacific.

[Interviewer]

Okay, that was the Birds were originally. Or Chris Hillman.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really.

[Interviewer]

Chris Hillman before the Birds was signed to World Pacific.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh.

[Interviewer]

Which is how the Door. Sorry, not the Birds, different band. The Birds end up doing all their early demos there with World Pacific.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

That's kind of the. So he was kind of this weird Ravi Shanker, right? World Pacific.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Yeah. World Pacific did all. All the Indian stuff.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And that's. So that's why Ray loved that kind of stuff. So he became friends with Dick Bach and so they got to record at World Pacific. Okay, that was the Doors demo before I was in the band. And it was. It was pretty cool. They had. They had this girl bass player, not Carol K, who claims that she did it.

[Interviewer]

Right. Well, I knew somebody was a session bassist back in the 60s. And he would argue. He would get. Tell me that he was still mad at Carol because Carol was taking credit for songs that he played on.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Like, who's that?

[Interviewer]

His name was Mark Tool and he played with the Electric Prunes. But he ended up. After the Prunes blew up,

[Robbie Krieger]

my buddy

[Interviewer]

played with them because.

[Robbie Krieger]

Billy Wolf.

[Interviewer]

Dave Heiser, I think his name. He was a Dave Hasinger or something. He had produced the. Some of the Stone stuff, Right? Well, he did one of those deals with the Prunes. He signed him out of a garage when they were 17. They weren't even old enough to sign the contract. They had to get their parents to sign off on it. But when he signed him, he signed them to his production company. So at some point he replaced all the Electric Prunes with a completely different band because they wouldn't do what he wanted to do. So by 18 or 19, he's out of a band that's already had hit songs and his band trundles on with other people. It was some crazy situation. But he went on to do. Be a session guy. He was like, kind of part of that. Like the later version of the Wrecking Crew guys.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

And he would do Sinatra sessions and all this stuff, and he would get mad and he'd say, carol's taking credit for songs I played on that were hits.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, for some reason she told people that she played bass on Light My Fire, which I know she didn't, because you were there.

[Interviewer]

It was.

[Robbie Krieger]

It was a guy called Larry Nechtel

[Interviewer]

who was part of the Wrecking Crew.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right, right, right. Maybe she thought she did, because, you know, she.

[Interviewer]

Not a bad thing to take credit for.

[Robbie Krieger]

She played on a lot of. A lot of stuff in those days.

[Interviewer]

So this band kind of comes together and I'm struck because, you know, I'm. I'm an obsessive type of person. So there's some very early clips of you guys on television, probably when the album first comes out. Door's kind. Jim's kind of wearing stripy pants. He doesn't quite look like Lizard King Jim yet. And then there's clips from you guys, like, six months later where it's like you guys almost look like a completely different band. So I'm kind of curious about that period of time because if I. If I see those early clips of you guys kind of look like a nerdy man from the Valley trying to be a bit psychedelic, and six months later, you look like the Doors that everybody knows, you know?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, well, things move fast.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, well, that's what you were in this incredible environment, the Sunset Strip, and everybody's doing house shows and. Yeah, because you guys. There was some club you were kind of a resident band at for a while, right?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, The London Fall.

[Interviewer]

Right. London Fog. You were playing how many nights a week? Type thing?

[Robbie Krieger]

Every night, pretty much.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And how many sets?

[Robbie Krieger]

At least two, maybe more.

[Interviewer]

And that's where some of the jams were born, because you're just filling time and.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, exactly. And then we. From there, we moved to the Whiskey.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And did the same thing there, pretty much.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And. And then we. We would go to New York and played at this club called Ondines.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And there we would play four sets a night.

[Interviewer]

Was Ondine Collect connected to the Velvet Underground world? Am I crazy about that?

[Robbie Krieger]

Not so much. Not so much there. They kind of specialized in having bands from LA and. Okay, California coming out. Come out.

[Interviewer]

You mind me A funny memory. One night I was driving down the Sunset Strip, and we were driving past the Whiskey, and. And I've played there a few times. And I said to the person I was driving with, stop. And they said, why? And I said, I have to go in there. I just had this strong feeling. So I jumped out of the car and the person went to park the car. The doorman recognized me, said, come on in. And it was a Doors tribute band. Right. And I walk In. And as I. Literally. As I walk in, the band's starting to play. The end. It was the strangest thing. It was like God pushed me out of the car and said. So I got to have this weird. Obviously it wasn't you guys, but they did.

[Robbie Krieger]

When was this?

[Interviewer]

20 years ago. It was just a weird, like, get out of the car, go in the club and the band and, you know, the guys dressed like Jim and doing the voice. And I got as close as I would ever get to seeing you guys play like that. The funniest funny story. We don't have to belabor the whole. Because, you know, like. Like the doors mythology, the 60s, Sunset Strip mythology has been way over overblown, too. But I'm curious, from a musician point of view, what were some of the bands that you liked at the time that were playing around town?

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, I like to love Arthur Lee. In love.

[Interviewer]

Super Talented Guy.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And they were. They were on Electra too, right?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah. They were on Electric before us.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And they were. They helped us get on Electric.

[Interviewer]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

That's cool.

[Robbie Krieger]

Buffalo Springfield. Right. We played a lot of gigs with them.

[Interviewer]

Did you ever think they would turn out to what they turned out to later? You know, I mean, they went on to have this other crazy success. Success. Did you see it then, or. No?

[Robbie Krieger]

I thought. I thought they would be big. Yeah. And we did a lot of stuff with the Airplane. You know, when we go to San Francisco, we'd play with them a lot. And the Dead and all those guys.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And who's the guy who was kind of blind?

[Interviewer]

San Francisco guy.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Was he a blues guy?

[Robbie Krieger]

No, it was kind of. It was rock. Okay. Steppenwolf.

[Interviewer]

Oh, he's blind.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I didn't know that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Not totally, but he couldn't see. Kind of like Edgar Winter.

[Interviewer]

Oh, okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I didn't know that. Grace Slick talks in her book about sleeping with Jim at some point. I don't know if you know that. She goes. She goes in a lot of detail. Let's just put it that way.

[Robbie Krieger]

Wow. I never read that. Gotta check that out.

[Interviewer]

There's some story I heard and you. You can confirm it or not, but, like, when you guys did break on through, there's like 140 takes. Or is that. Is there. Is that one of those mythological concepts that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. I don't know how many takes, but it was nowhere near one for. You know, that was the first album.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

And one of the first songs we did. So I'd Say we'd be lucky to do three takes.

[Interviewer]

Okay. And this is live vocals or would you do an over overdub vocals?

[Robbie Krieger]

Probably overdub vocals.

[Interviewer]

But Jim, it's cut. Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

With us and.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And then if, if, if it was good enough, he keep it.

[Interviewer]

But on later where ke. There's a lot of stuff where he would sing live, like LA Woman Times or, Or there was the overdubs too.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, a lot on la. Lot of it. On the third album, 5 to 1 was live vocal.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, Great vocal.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

We tried to cover that, by the way too.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh yeah.

[Interviewer]

We never could quite nail it.

[Robbie Krieger]

You have to sound like you're drunk.

[Interviewer]

I can't drink. I'm allergic to alcohol. So maybe that's the problem.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. I just can't drink. And, And I have children, so I always. My joke is always I wish I could drink because I have children. I have young children. That's the other part. As I said before, you guys are one of those unique bands where I. I can't imagine the band without one of you. There's only a few bands where it's like the Beatles come to mind. Led Zeppelin comes to mind where it's like without one of you, I wouldn't be into the band. It's the communication between the four of you. Like Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer for the Pumpkins, we were talking one time about John's drumming and I think we were trying to get a certain feeling and I said, can you get a little bit more of that Doris feeling? And he said, well, if you listen to John's hi hat, he's always swinging the hi hat. Even when he's playing in four. Four. There's almost always a little bit of a shuffle in the hi hat, you know, so even when. When John's playing a straight beat, this is from Pumpkin's Brain, but there's a little bit of swing in there. You know, You. You mostly played finger picking, right? Am I crazy here?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I always finger.

[Interviewer]

And I know you guys would use basis on the records, but I love listening to you guys live because there's something about the. The rhythmic interplay between raised left and right hands.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, I mean, there was a number of the songs on the first and second album were just Ray playing. Right piano bass.

[Interviewer]

Right. Would. Would a lot of those songs be written and kind of come out of jams? Or would you guys work as a four piece? Or you guys work as a three piece a lot? And then Jim would come in and we say we Got this.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh. All different kinds of ways. Yeah. But usually, I mean, the first. Those first songs on the Doris demo, those were. Those songs were. Just Came into Jim's mind. He could hear them, like, you know. Yeah. There it was like, would he sing

[Interviewer]

melodies and you guys would try to.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Interesting.

[Robbie Krieger]

And I mean. Well, I wasn't in the band yet.

[Interviewer]

Oh, right, right. Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

So that's. So we ended up redoing most of those songs.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Because, you know, I hate to say it, but I'm. When I was added, it really helped.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

The. The song.

[Interviewer]

Well, he loved your blues. Ish. Kind of that was. Is that myth or is that reality?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, but I mean, you know, Race was blues to the hill. You know, he grew up in Chicago and all that. I was. I was more. You know, I love blues, but, you know, I liked Indian music. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

When I say that. Guitar player talk. But when I. Sorry. It's. I should have been more articulate. But the way you play blues is only your way of playing the blues. But I. I registered as blues. But it's like you're. It's like if I listen to Albert King, he plays a particular way. When you play blues, you play a very particular way. So it didn't come out of my mouth. Right. But it's like. That's what I mean. He loved the way you played the blues.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Interviewer]

Especially slide and kind of the atmospheric type of stuff.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, Slide, especially.

[Interviewer]

What would be like a sneaky guitar influence of yours that we wouldn't necessarily hear. Does that make sense? Like somebody that if you said, I really like this guy playing, but you wouldn't necessarily hear it in my playing? Every guitar player's got that sneaky influence, right?

[Robbie Krieger]

I guess so. I mean, know I liked Bloomfield a lot.

[Interviewer]

Okay. My dad saw Bloomfield play once. That blew his mind.

[Robbie Krieger]

Uhhuh.

[Interviewer]

He saw him at Aragon Ballroom in, you know, somewhere in the 60s. Said Bloomfield came out with a little amp, put it on the chair, and he said he couldn't believe what this guy was getting out of the am.

[Robbie Krieger]

The Aragon Boner.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I think back then it was called the Electric Playground or one of those 60s names, you know.

[Robbie Krieger]

Where's that?

[Interviewer]

Aragon Ballroom? Yeah, it's north of Chicago. It was an old dance ballroom that turned into a rock venue. I'm not sure you guys ever played there. I remember whenever I saw you guys listed in Chicago type stuff, it was always like Universal Amphitheater. If you remember, that venue was a total hole.

[Robbie Krieger]

But I'm trying to remember who I saw at the Aragon Ballroom.

[Interviewer]

Here's a good one I have on my list.

[Robbie Krieger]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

Drugs versus spirituality. I don't know what that means other than sounds good.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, I think, you know, when we. In the 60s, drugs were spirituality.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

You know, that's what we use them for.

[Interviewer]

Right. So was it more of an LSD band, A weed band? So I mean, like. Like we were more of an LSD band.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Well, by the time I got in the band, it was. It was on the tail end of lsd.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

And so when I was doing acid, it was before the Doors. And that's. That's kind of how I met John was. We had this. This friend. We both went to the high school, west la. And we used to kind of. We used to get lsd like every weekend.

[Interviewer]

Is this when it was legal? Remember it was legal up until a certain point?

[Robbie Krieger]

I guess so, Yeah. I think it was. And. And then we would get Morning Glory seeds.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

That was legal. And peyote.

[Interviewer]

But this is all pre Doors.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, pretty much. And then, you know, I was still doing it once in a while.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And I. I did do it with Jim a number of times for shows.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I've had that experience as well. It's like, what key am I in?

[Robbie Krieger]

I remember this one show we did in. In Tucson, I think, or Phoenix. And it was in this weird place. It was like that ceiling came down like that. It was a horrible sound.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And they had this. This guy that played the second act was an Elvis impersonator.

[Interviewer]

And you guys are on lsd.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Oh, my God.

[Robbie Krieger]

It was weird.

[Interviewer]

Is it amazing when you take lc? Like, that's when the Elvis impersonators. It's like the timing is.

[Robbie Krieger]

And then. And, and right. Right around the first show we did. First show we did was raise Dad's company party. He. He worked for Hughes Aircraft.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

And Ray got. Got. Did too much acid or something. He. He was wasted. He couldn't. Didn't know what he was doing.

[Interviewer]

And this is the first gig.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Yeah. And. And so that. That's when Ray quit acid pretty much.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And you know, Jim would still do it and I would still do it, but, you know, it was kind of going on out. Going out. I. I wish it would have stuck around longer so it would have avoided liquor.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Robbie Krieger]

Because, you know, Jim was. Was. Was a drunk in, in high school.

[Interviewer]

I didn't know that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. And. And college. And he quit by using acid.

[Interviewer]

And, you know, then it came back.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, acid was acid showed him that. That liquor was bad, I think, and showed me that.

[Interviewer]

Sure.

[Robbie Krieger]

And. But didn't. Didn't last too long for him.

[Interviewer]

Mark Tool, in the gentleman I told you about that I was friends with from the Electric Prunes, he said at one point they did one of those, like week long tours with you, you know, up and down the coast or something. And so, you know, like any fanboy, I was like, what was Jim like live? You know, you were there because of course I can only see him on YouTube or something.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

And he said it was the strangest thing to him and he was a little bit younger than you guys and he said Jim was he. He found Jim kind of strange backstage and a bit off putting and not very friendly. But he said so he said, like you can in a band, if you feel like the guy in the other band isn't interested in you or nice to you, you know, you have a hard time watching their band. It's like, it's just. It's a band problem. You know what I mean? Even if you like their music, it's not like, well, that's the guy that just wouldn't say hello to me backstage, you know. And he said he would go out and watch you guys every night. And he said somehow Jim on stage would transform almost into a completely different person. And it was shocking to him because he had trouble putting the guy backstage together with the guy that he was watching on stage. And he said even one night he took acid and somehow there was a. You guys were playing like a stage and there was an. An understage. So him and two girls took acid and like laid on the stage and watched you guys from like this perspective. And he said it was pretty mind blowing because he said Jim would blossom into this other performer on stage, but he couldn't put it together with the guy backstage. I mean, obviously you knew the guy, you know, the guy who ate hamburgers. Jim. You know what I mean? But did you. And I'm not talking about the mythology, I'm talking about you as somebody in the band with your bandmate. Did you see that or. Or did you just it.

[Robbie Krieger]

Not really, no. I mean, to me he was the same guy on stage. Yeah, was. All right. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I. I don't know when Jim would get super provocative with crowds. There's some stuff, some of that stuff available. I'm not saying it's a. It's a good cross section, but in my band, when I would get super provocative on stage, they would get really mad at me in my band. We call it the Art breakdown. And they would get mad when I would do the art Breakdown. I would say something about the government or God or MTV or whatever, and my band would get super uncomfortable and yell at me after the show when Jim would kind of go off in these verbal flights of fancy. Not poetry. Like, he was obviously being provocative.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, but that, you know, that didn't happen that often. You know, I think the, the only time really was in Miami when he. He was just. I don't know what he was.

[Interviewer]

That's the famous night with the goat and the sheeper. Oh, see, right on cue.

[Robbie Krieger]

Must have been a combination of drugs or whatever that night. And he just started ranting and raving to this crowd. I. I've never heard him do that before.

[Interviewer]

Really? No, it was kind of. That was a one off kind of experience.

[Robbie Krieger]

It was.

[Interviewer]

Are you guys looking at each other like, what the hell is happening?

[Robbie Krieger]

Or I mean, you know, we, we knew he was capable of stuff like that, so it didn't surprise us. But you know, when, when he started saying he was going to take off the pants, then that's. Luckily that didn't really happen.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, but that caused you guys a ton of problems, right? Yeah, honestly, it did. I don't want to talk about it because I. I find when stories are. When there's so much talk about it, it's like, what can we say that hasn't already been said?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So I'm not trying to dive into that, but it is interesting in a way.

[Robbie Krieger]

It was, it was a good thing because, you know, because of. Of what happened there, we were put on the no hire list, you know. Right.

[Interviewer]

And so like, no promoters would hire you.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right, Exactly. So because of that, we ended up recording a lot.

[Interviewer]

Ah.

[Robbie Krieger]

And you know, is that the.

[Interviewer]

Is that LA Woman Times or. Yeah, the one before.

[Robbie Krieger]

There weren't two before that.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Wow.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. In fact, all three of those last

[Interviewer]

three hours off Parade, Morrison Hotel in Adelaide. Women.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. Those were all done pretty quick because we had nothing else.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

We could do

[Interviewer]

towards the end. Musically, it certainly gets less kind of spooky and a little bit more bluesy. The general word on the street. Maybe I've just read too much about the Doors, but it's like the gym was really pushing more blues. Is that true or do you guys all go there together?

[Robbie Krieger]

That was true. For some reason, he just really was going blues on us, you know, and we all loved the blues, so it was not a problem.

[Interviewer]

And you had great blues songs. I mean.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I mean, and even some of the covers were like, they're. They're legendary parts of your catalog. So it's not like it was a flight of fancy.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. I mean, we. We love blues and. But we didn't want to be a blues band especially.

[Interviewer]

What do you think you guys would have gotten into musically if it hadn't sort of trended towards the blues there at the end?

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, I definitely think it would have gone a lot into the blues because that's where Jim wanted to go. But, you know, if you listen to those last two albums without Jim.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

You can tell kind of.

[Interviewer]

Okay, I have to go back and listen from that perspective. That's interesting.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

When a band makes a commitment to a certain path and you guys, whatever you committed to at the end, let's call it, you got more bluesy. Right. If that's fair. I'm making my own thing. I want you to correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's fascinating when great bands commit to a certain lane, they're able to create songs that somehow rise above the idiom. So LA Woman is bluesy, but somehow it's. Only the Doors could do that. Does it make sense, what I'm after?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying.

[Interviewer]

There's a signature moment that's.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. I mean, every blues song we ever did was not just a blues.

[Interviewer]

That's what I'm after.

[Robbie Krieger]

It was.

[Interviewer]

That's. That's such a testament to your guys's ability.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Because, you know, we all work in idiomatic. You know, we're doing the raga here and we're doing the blues thing here. You know, at some point you've got to rise above and write a song is. That's worthy of your. Of your rep. Right. Otherwise you just sound like everybody else.

[Robbie Krieger]

Sure. So, yeah. And LA Woman album, there was probably more blues on that than any other album.

[Interviewer]

Okay. We're bringing it to the gentle ending here. And we'll get to my. My Doris cover. So 80s. Here comes the mythology of the Doors. Right. You know, there's a lot of energy around you guys. Was your guys relationship good at that point or did you have to kind of reevaluate your relationships in light of this renewed interest in the band between Ray and John? Yeah, yeah,

[Robbie Krieger]

yeah. I would say a little bit like

[Interviewer]

you guys got hot again. And. And then there was the. The Apocalypse now, which was that incredible use of the end in the. In the scene with the bombs going. I mean, it's like, talk about a movie. Immortality.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. Love that.

[Interviewer]

It's beautiful.

[Robbie Krieger]

I mean, I remember when I. When that came out, I went. I went to see it at the Cinerama Dome. Sat in the first row, and the first thing you hear is my guitar. And with the helicopters going by, here's

[Interviewer]

how crazy that is. I can remember the first time I saw that. I was in somebody's basement and they had, I don't know, VHS or something. And they said, do you want to watch this movie? And I thought, I don't really want to watch this movie. And they put it on anyway. And that scene comes on and it's like. It's a moment frozen in my mind because it was such the perfect use of music with film. It's like Seal, like. Like, it's the ultimate music video, you know, it's almost like you guys wrote the song for the film, but it's not. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's jealousy that I'm expressing. So. Okay, just real quick. We don't have to get too deep on it, but what was the relationship like in the 80s? You know, you're. You're 20 years or so past, you know, or whatever it was. I don't do math. But now you've got. You have to kind of reevaluate your relationship in light of this new information. There's suddenly a bunch of kids like me in basements. Want to listen to your band? Well, okay, here's an easy one. Who ran the business at that point? We collective a business. Or was there one band member that was sort of more business person?

[Robbie Krieger]

That's a good question. That's a good question.

[Interviewer]

Because somebody's got to approve the T shirts and the, you know, the. Yeah, the new wave.

[Robbie Krieger]

Well, we still had Bill Siddons.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

Who was doing that kind of stuff. And I would say John was totally out of the doors. No interest in really anything until his book came out. He. He did some, you know, a lot of signings and. And he had his book being used for the movie.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

And he. In fact, he. He is in the movie, if you remember. He. He's in the first scene of the movie. He. He plays the. He plays John Haney, who was the engineer when Jim was doing his poetry.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Robbie Krieger]

Remember that scene?

[Interviewer]

I do remember the scene. I don't remember John.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, John was at the microphone. So, you know, other than that, John really had no interest in playing or doing anything.

[Interviewer]

Did you guys talk about getting back together or.

[Robbie Krieger]

No, not really. Not until 1990. I guess it was. There was a. It was a show where VH1 Storytellers was 1999.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

All right. So that. That was the first time that we all got back together and played.

[Interviewer]

Okay. You don't remember, but you guys called me once in a studio to ask me to be involved in that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Oh, and you didn't do it.

[Interviewer]

Well, hope you don't get mad at me all over again. They called me and said, you know, would you like to do this thing where the Doors are going to play the old songs and you'll be one of the singers? And I was very honored that you guys called. And I said, I would love to do it, but I want to write a new song with them. And you and John called me on the phone in the studio. I was at Village Recorder here in Los Angeles, and we had about a 20 minute conversation where I tried to convince you guys to do a new song with me and you guys said no. So I didn't end up doing it. And I kind of regret it because I would have loved to play with you guys. But I got it in my head as, you know, pigheaded artists, I got it in my mind, I want to write a new song with you guys. I think what it was is ultimately was an insecurity because I thought, I can't do Jim better than Jim. And I didn't want to try to do that.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Interviewer]

You know, I mean, so I thought if I could write something with you guys, we could sort of make some new music together. Because if you really think about it, it's how much respect I have for you guys as musicians, because I just know you guys. Like. I guess what I wanted to say and say to you now is I know if I threw you guys in the deep end of the pool, you guys would deliver. Because I know how good you guys are. Because I was such a fan. I knew all of it, so. But you guys were on that trajectory. It's like there was a lot of interest. It's the movie and somebody record label in the whole thing. So it wasn't my business to get involved in, but that's. That was my.

[Robbie Krieger]

On that thing that was after the movie. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that. That was a pretty good album. Really?

[Interviewer]

You're happy with it?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

I need to go back and listen to it.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. I mean, some of it wasn't that great, but. Well, some of them were better than others.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Like the guy that did the end, what was his name? Marco.

[Interviewer]

We just need Marco Here the whole time for. For reference.

[Robbie Krieger]

Anyway, that was pretty good.

[Interviewer]

As long as you felt good about the whole thing. And then you guys went into this whole period where you started touring again.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. Ray and I did Travis from Days of the New. Remember that?

[Interviewer]

I remember the name of the band. Yeah.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. He was pretty. He was good. He. We did it in three, four instead of four.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

I need to go and check that.

[Robbie Krieger]

See that. That, that was.

[Interviewer]

I didn't really listen to when it came out because I still was hurt that I didn't get to work with him. Yes. But again, I blame that on me, not on you.

[Robbie Krieger]

I don't know.

[Interviewer]

I know we talked briefly about you being married to your wife so since 1972. But as you know, like having a partner with you through this whole journey must be an incredible thing for both of you. Right? I mean, am I projecting? But seems pretty self evident that she was there with you through this. Incredible.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah, yeah. She. I don't know. Sometimes I think she doesn't really appreciate it, but.

[Interviewer]

But which part doesn't you think she appreciates?

[Robbie Krieger]

The parts up and the parts after we got married.

[Interviewer]

Well, God bless her.

[Robbie Krieger]

I'm kidding.

[Interviewer]

God bless her. Okay, let's. Here's. Here's a place to end. So in 1988, when my. My band really started and I was just starting to learn how to really write songs, I wrote songs. Okay. But there was. And I remember it at a practice saying I wish we could get the Doors vibe, that spooky vibe. Because I didn't know how to write like that. Like. Like when Ray would write those weird. Maybe you wrote them. But those weird kind of passing chords, you know, this kind of Kurt Weil, Bertol Brecht, you know, I don't know who was writing those chords. Was probably you for all I know. But we.

[Robbie Krieger]

Songs.

[Interviewer]

Crystal Ship was the song. You know, it starts like C sharp minor before you slip into beautiful chords like, you know, almost like Bach modal.

[Robbie Krieger]

I always assumed it was Ray that was right.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Because I assume because it has a bish right kind of thing. So I thought nice place to end is so. So literally my earliest gigs with the band and maybe even from the first gig on we were doing Crystal Ship.

[Robbie Krieger]

Really?

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Because it captured something that I wanted for my band that I didn't know how to do. So bringing you guys into it was a way of me saying I want to understand what this is because it's so beautiful to me when I listen. So evocative. So I wanted to Stop here, because it's really a tribute to you.

[Robbie Krieger]

So you tried to write a song like Crystal Ship.

[Interviewer]

I think I've tried to write 20 songs like Crystal Ship.

[Robbie Krieger]

Which one came closest?

[Interviewer]

That's a good question. I'd have to think about that. But we certainly. We did a lot of stuff that was sort of modal because of the end. This idea of kind of jamming an open dish. But we, in our case, we, you know, we blow them through Marshalls at full volume. That was part of what we. We learned how to do.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So there's a lot of doors in the Pumpkin's DNA. But I wanted to stop here because it struck me because obviously I knew we were going to talk about Jim in this whole journey you're on. And I think it's such a beautiful thing because you think about, like, even when you said when. When. When you heard that Jim was gone, you weren't even sure he was really gone. And of course, we've heard the. The 8,000 rumors and, you know, the National Enquirer version.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right.

[Interviewer]

And, you know, in our generation, we lost, of course, many people, Kurt Cobain being among them. You know, that what they horribly call the 27 Club. You know, it's like for some reason, 27 seems to be the age. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. But, you know, there's something about certain artists. They burn so bright, you know, that when they're gone, you still feel. Spend a lot of time sort of trying to figure out what they were really saying or what they meant. And I'm sure you've had those moments where you kind of realized that there were things there that you didn't see at the time. And you were standing right there.

[Robbie Krieger]

Right. Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So I thought it would be interesting because I, you know, literally from the first gigs of my band, I was singing these lyrics. So I think it's a nice way to bring our conversation before you slip into unconsciousness. I'd like to have another kiss Another flashing chance at bliss Another kiss, another kiss the days are bright and filled with pain Enclose me in your gentle reign the time you ran was too insane we'll meet again we'll meet again so I think the beautiful thing is in. In loss, whether it's family or generational, in your case, your bandmate, that once we get sort of far enough from the pain, we can certainly really appreciate, like, what they left us. And so in that case, I. I do appreciate him.

[Robbie Krieger]

Yeah. That's cool. Well, thanks.

[Interviewer]

Thank you. Thank you, Robbie. Appreciate.