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St.
Petersburg Times, May 22, 2003
The Doors: a new perception
Gina Vivinetto
Robby Krieger, guitarist for the legendary Doors, is known to be
a tough interview – that is, when you can get him on the phone.
Stories of Krieger blowing off scheduled interviews are legend among
music writers. But Krieger, 57, is touring with The Doors 21st Century,
a new incarnation of the band that gave us Light My Fire, Break
On Through and Touch Me. The band performs tonight at
the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. So he's feeling a little chattier.
Krieger reunites with original bandmate Ray Manzarek, 64, on keyboards.
Ian Astbury, 41, lead singer of the British alt-rock band The Cult
sings in place of Jim Morrison, who died in 1971. Original Doors
drummer John Densmore declined to tour; then he made a legal fuss
over his bandmates' using the name The Doors. Former Police drummer
Stewart Copeland beat the skins for a spell, but he, too, split
because, well, we'll let Krieger explain. Turns out, get Krieger
on the phone and he's a heck of a nice guy and great fun to talk
with.
How
do you feel when people tell you that you can't use the name the
Doors? Are you like, "Man, I wrote 'Light My Fire'!"
Especially when our own teammate John Densmore is saying it. It's
terrible. We just wish he would play with us.
Why isn't he?
That's what he hasn't said. First, it was because his ears were
messed up. He had tinnitus... He claims that if we use the name
The Doors, people will think he's playing and maybe Jim Morrison
is playing. (Laughs.)
Ian Astbury is on the record as being a huge
Doors fan. The Cult even did Doors covers. Is the admiration mutual?
Not really. I had heard of The Cult, but I had never seen them until
a couple of years ago.
Were you impressed?
Yeah, oh, yeah. I was impressed by Ian, anyway. His voice is amazing.
In many ways, he is sort of like Jim. Psychically, he's sort of
like Jim in that he's into Eastern religions and politics and all
this stuff. His heritage is very similar; he's Scottish. He even
kind of looks like Jim. He just seems to be in the right place at
the right time.
Do you share any of those interests? Are you
into the whole Eastern trip?
Oh yeah, sure. John and I and Ray met at the meditation meeting,
at the Maharishi's meeting. I've always been into that. I used to
play sitar. I went to Ravi Shankar's school, stuff like that.
How are you the same – or how are you different – from when you were a young cat in your 20s and The Doors were
in their heyday?
In a way, everything is the same. There's the war right now, and
then we had the Vietnam War. Although I'm a little bit less of a
Democrat than I used to be. I don't agree with all the leftist-type
philosophies now, and maybe I did back in those days.
How's it different for you now; you're just
less idealistic?
Yeah, maybe so. I used to think everything – I was into conspiracy
theories and all that stuff, which maybe I don't believe so much
nowadays. In general, I'm like I used to be: I hate the idea of
war. And killing people.
Who's idea was it to tour?
It was sort of my idea. I was talking to Ray one day, and we started
to write some songs about a year ago. Then my manager mentioned
that Harley-Davidson was going to do their birthday celebration
and wanted to see if The Doors would play there. So I asked Ray;
I kind of talked him into it. Of course, John couldn't do it. So
we got Stewart Copeland and Ian. It turned out to be a huge success.
It got all these great reviews. Promoters started calling us and
wanting us to play.
Why isn't Stewart doing the tour?
We loved his drumming and stuff. What happened was, he broke his
arm, and then he got sick, and then he missed a bunch of... well,
he caused us to have to cancel some gigs. Then it just turned out
that he really wasn't playing the songs how we wanted him to. He's
a great drummer, but ...
What, was he putting reggae beats on stuff?
(Laughs.) No, it wasn't especially reggae beats, it's just the feel.
He's like a very on-top-of-the-beat drummer, and we needed somebody
who was more like John, who's more laid back and more... The Doors'
songs are very moody.
Are you considering with this lineup putting
out a new Doors disc?
Absolutely. Hopefully by the end of the year.
Why didn't you do this tour a long time ago?
It wasn't the same without Jim. We didn't want to cheapen the image
and all that. But after so many people asked, "Hey, when are
you guys going to play together again?" we finally figured,
"Hell, why not?"
What are your favorite Doors songs to play?
When The Music's Over and Light My Fire.
How does it feel as an artist to have written
these songs 30 years ago and people still want to hear them?
It's the greatest, the greatest thing you can ever imagine. So many
of the other groups from that time have totally disappeared. We
get a lot of young people coming to the shows. A lot of them don't
even realize we're from the 1960s.
So, it feels pretty good onstage, doing the
songs?
It's great. I can tell you, this is the closest you'll get to the
real thing.
What is Jim saying to himself? Should he be
looking down – or up, as the case may be – at you guys?
(Laughs.) I think he would love it. He'd love to hear us playing
the songs again.
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