00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio all Right. So this season we had Chuck d on first and some popping conversations that I hope to have ongoing with his platform and mine. Chuck just released an album, Dope, with no other than John Densmore of the Doors, and John has already been on QLs back in twenty twenty one, where he spoke to myself, La Fonte, Sugar, Steve, and Mate Bill about music, politics, and the creative process of the One of the Wee Jim Marson. So check out John and Chuck's album, and also check out this classic episode of QLs en joy. Oh oh, there's Joe, I having already already. 00:00:57 Speaker 2: Oh let's go. 00:01:00 Speaker 3: How you doing? 00:01:00 Speaker 4: Hey? 00:01:02 Speaker 1: Good to good to be here with you. 00:01:04 Speaker 4: Oh hey, I don't know, I don't know if you can see this my. 00:01:08 Speaker 1: Wardrobe, I see it. Thank you? He sat in with us, Yes, I remember. 00:01:14 Speaker 4: Remember Is it because of COVID that that the roots are pared down? 00:01:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's because of COVID. We can't state law says that only uh six people out of eleven uh are information. So that's how it is. I got okay. 00:01:34 Speaker 4: Well, I used to love that the tube of duplicating the baselines that sent me right to. 00:01:39 Speaker 1: Nor nice lower. Yeah, that's cool crap since we already talking when we start the introduction. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, this is quest Love Supreme. My name is quest Love. We have Teams Supreme with us. We gotta fine take a low Happy New Year, Happy New Year. This is also the time that I'm not pluralizing the word year. I always say Happy New Years, and I've been corrected one too many times. Sugar Steve, Hello. 00:02:12 Speaker 3: Hello, how you doing everybody? Hi John? 00:02:14 Speaker 1: It's kind of weird for me to say hello to you because I see you every day. 00:02:17 Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm pretty sick of you too. 00:02:19 Speaker 1: Let's move on, okay, Yeah, happy run off with the Sugar Steve really is a live episode. Yeah, paid Bill, Yeah, man's with us as well. How you doing good? Have you run off? Day good? Yeah? Happy? Yeah? 00:02:35 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:02:35 Speaker 1: Happy? Whatever you said day layah, yes as well, that's right. Happy fifty month, my friend. Oh you're right with me. There's okay, you're still nineteen. 00:02:47 Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I mean I'm not. 00:02:48 Speaker 6: Yes, I'm right with you as far as our birthdays on the same day, but it's your fifty you know. What I'm saying. 00:02:54 Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, all right, So our guest today, y'all. Our guest is huge man, Yeah, very huge. He's a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he's literally from one of the most influential bands of all time, The Doors have sold over one hundred million records. That's nothing to stuff at. Their music and their influence still resonates to this day. Yes. I don't know if you know that, John, but. 00:03:23 Speaker 3: Those were actual records too, not I. 00:03:25 Speaker 4: Better check my royalties. 00:03:27 Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, we're on the verge of an aswer, you know, as pay back today. 00:03:30 Speaker 3: It'd be good for John. 00:03:32 Speaker 1: Not not to mention. Our guest is also an author, actor, playwright, Grammy Lifetime Achievement War Winner recipient, and we are extremely honored to have him talk shop with us today and his illustrious career. Please welcome to Court Left Supreme. John Dinsmore, drummer of the Doors. 00:03:51 Speaker 4: Hey, yo, thank you, and and I'm not dead. 00:03:56 Speaker 1: Yes, a good start. 00:03:59 Speaker 5: Congratulation, Thank you, thank you. 00:04:02 Speaker 1: That's an achievement. We're all right now. Where are you right now? 00:04:05 Speaker 4: I'm in my office slash rehearsal room, you. 00:04:09 Speaker 1: Know, Okay, I meant like, in what part. 00:04:12 Speaker 4: Of the world. I'm in Laky where I was born, my mom was, My mom was born here in nineteen oh four. But we're not native. The Chumash Indians are the first. People's got to get. 00:04:28 Speaker 5: That, right, You better credit, you better get it. 00:04:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, So listen, I want to say, I'm really pleased to be doing this because, you know, Quest and I are in the same tribe, a tribe called drummers. 00:04:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, we are, you know, And I just. 00:04:48 Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that. You know, you're the leader of the roots and not a lot of drummers or leaders, and and it makes me think of you and Lionel Hampton or Art Blakey and the jazz Messengers, you know who I saw many times, or Chico Hamilton, who I stole to ride cymbal bell beat from. 00:05:08 Speaker 1: You know, so wait, how did you pull that time out? 00:05:12 Speaker 3: Please tell tell our audience who Chico Hamilton is, please, because nobody ever talks about him. 00:05:18 Speaker 4: He was a wonderful jazz cat in the early sixties and I saw him as a teenager. I think Charles Lloyd was playing with him, and uh man, you know, I heard a real cool thing. And I later I put it in the end. You know, you steal from the best. 00:05:34 Speaker 1: Right, exactly flattery I was. I was going to say, though, you're you told me at Fellin that your your weapon of choice wasn't initially the drums. You started out, you said as a piano player. 00:05:48 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, that's in my new book My Mom is the first chapter, because she encouraged me to play piano, and I just was crazy for music and I wanted to play any instrument. And then I got into junior high and there was no piano in the band or the orchestra, and I chose clarinet because I thought, you know, Benny Goodman's cool whatever. And I had braces on my teeth and they said, no, no, no, you can't do that. You're trying to push him back and they're going to come out with that instrument. So drums. Yeah, so I owe my career to the dentist. 00:06:28 Speaker 1: Oh so you're saying that adults encouraged you to play the drums, because normally, in my situation, adults drums are always the last resort of every drummer because their parents don't want them to make noise or anything. 00:06:43 Speaker 4: I got you, now, My parents were okay with it, but quest did you have one of those black rubber pads a drum pad? You know they bounced back, but they have no sound, and that's what you got to do when you're too. 00:06:59 Speaker 1: Loud, right exactly. Well even that, I'll say, like my first two years of taking drum lessons, you know, my teacher had like this this shiny Ludwig drum set and also a practice pad next to that drum set, and we would just walk to the practice pad and I would ask him like, wait, when do I get to play those? And he's like, You're not ready yet. So like for two years I had to play on that practice pad, almost like it was like torture for you know, to sit there in front of that drum set and not even touch it for the first two years. 00:07:39 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, same deal with me. I was told if I took private lessons, I'd get better, and so I did, and I was surrounded by drum sets on the damn practice pad with the teacher. 00:07:52 Speaker 1: Who's your north star as far as drumming was concerned, Like you know, because I mean you were the rock era, the modern rock era, so it wasn't like you have tales of seeing anyone that modern musicians see now, So who was your north Star? As far as like like who would have been your Beatles on Sullivan movement? As far as like that's what I want to do for a living? 00:08:17 Speaker 4: Elvin Jones. 00:08:19 Speaker 3: Wow, great. 00:08:20 Speaker 4: I got my fake ID in Tijuana and went to Shelley's man hall, which the door man looked at and said, this is fake, but come on in, you know, and I saw Coltrane many times. 00:08:35 Speaker 7: Oh my god, God, I wanted you to say that your fake ID, said Elvin Jones on it. 00:08:42 Speaker 1: What was that like to see like people that we take for granted. I don't think we've ever had a guest on the show that I saw Coltrane? Yeah, that seen like gods and you knew they were gods then? So what was that like for you to see? 00:08:57 Speaker 4: All right, Well you can read all about it. Hey, new book, The second or third chapter is on Elvin. So you know, I knew there was magic. I mean I didn't know that I was seeing iconic, that people were going to be just legendary, you know, but I sensed just I don't know, there was fire and energy, like I couldn't believe the conversation. Elvin would have with Coltrane, they'd just be you know, he'd keep the groove, but he'd be riffing off him all the time. And you know, it gave me a little courage now and then to riff off Jim Morrison, you know, to fuck around with what he's saying and you know, keep the groove. But you know, Elvin, he's my man. And so after Coltrane died, I saw Elvin. Well, let me back up, all right, So my my idols are in the dressing room at the jazz club, and the bathroom is right next to the greenroom green room, and so I went to the bathroom a lot because they right around the corner, you know. And I was afraid to say anything. But later after Coltrane died, I I introduced myself to Elvin, and then I had I have three self centered memoirs, and the first one, Riders on the Storm, I gave to Elvin and I quickly said, hey, man, I wrote in here, you gave me my hands, you know, worried that he would be condescending, this jazz giant, and he was so warm and friendly, and I saw him many more times, and I took his symbol bag to the car towards the end of his life. So we're talking to real mentor you know. 00:10:42 Speaker 2: What was it about his playing? 00:10:44 Speaker 8: Because a lot of homies I went to school with that were in the jazz department, they all like just swore by Elvin Jones. So if you could explain to kind of a layperson on what was it about his drumming technique that just made him so amazing? 00:10:59 Speaker 4: I think they called it poly rhythms, you know. I mean he'd have the pocket. You have to have the pocket, of course, but he was continually playing triplets and all this shit all going on all the time, like churning up an rhythmic egg beater, and it sounded like he was going to fall into his kit. 00:11:20 Speaker 3: He was. 00:11:20 Speaker 4: It was just but he didn't, you know, I don't know that's how I describe it. 00:11:25 Speaker 3: You know, with your clear love for jazz, did you ever actually play jazz in a serious way? 00:11:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, A few years back I had a group called Tribal Jazz, which was a jazz quartet or quintet with two African drummers, which was really fun because you know, I'm trying to integrate Senegalese rhythms into a drum kit, you know, so it rearranged some brain cells. It was good. 00:11:59 Speaker 3: And what about back when you were younger, did you play any jazz then? 00:12:04 Speaker 4: Well as a kid like crazy and then I stumbled into this rock band. 00:12:12 Speaker 8: I say it worked out pretty good. 00:12:15 Speaker 1: Well, let me let me ask, because yeah, like was there musical snobbery in the sixties to the level of where you know, like it was a big deal for like Leonard Cohen to say, like I actually like the Beatles like that sort of thing. 00:12:30 Speaker 4: I see? 00:12:31 Speaker 1: Was it was it a struggle back then to win respect, Like did you care as much or just were you unaware? 00:12:39 Speaker 4: Uh? Back then the whole country was polarized into four and against the Vietnam War, kind of like today's kind of polarized, you know, and you know rock and roll was against the war and a sort of liberal bent, and so you were either for that or you know, I would say that country music kind of represented the other side. But the last chapter I got in this book is on Willie Nelson, And you know, I'm looking for the soul in any genre. You know, I can get fed by if you're if you're saying something truthful and if it's in a simplistic form. It doesn't matter. Man. In fact, in my old age, I've learned that if I put the right symbol crash in the exact right spot, it can be as powerful as you know, in my twenties when I showed all my shit or when I had more chance, you know what I mean? 00:13:45 Speaker 1: What was the what was the modern music scene like in Los Angeles in the mid sixties before yeah, before you guys really got established, Like was Whiskey Go Go a thing sort of before you guys came along, or like what was Yeah, it was just a modern scene. 00:14:03 Speaker 4: Like exactly, No, the Whiskey was mecca and we were playing in a little club of blockdown from the Whiskey. The night we were fired because there was a fight, which we did not cause, but they blamed it on the band. The booker from the Whiskey dropped in and saw us, and she hired us as the house band at the Whiskey. And it was heaven. I mean every night the streets were packed with hippies and music freaks and and every band that came in, I don't know, let's see Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Van Morrison et. Cetera, et cetera. The Birds all, you know, they had to deal with the opening act. Wow, I don't mean to well that sound a little self serving, but we were we were different. You know, we were the undeclared via non war. We were not singing about peace and love. We were singing about this is the end, beautiful friend. Man, things are there's a lot of lying going on, and so you know, we play light my Fire and everybody dance and that was really cool. And then we play the end and it got very quiet, and then people had to follow that the other bands, which I mean, we were friends with them all, but it was a really cool scene. 00:15:32 Speaker 1: What were your thoughts on like the postmod kind of movement of music, like people that weren't that political, more poppy, like I guess I still want to know, like where they're different tribes or different clicks of did you guys mess together at all? 00:15:51 Speaker 4: You know? The British invasion was kind of poppy, you know, but then then we all started experimenting with then legal psychos and the Beatles music got a little darker like our. 00:16:06 Speaker 1: Did you appreciate it at the time, Well, appreciate their contribution at the time, you know, it's it's from a from a person from my generation. We'll be quick to lump like anyone that came from the mid to late sixties in the same bowl, you know, whereas I'm certain that three four decades from now, you know, somebody will look at my band or Fonte's band and you know just think like, oh, okay, well, you know, Kanye West outcasts. You guys are all the same, right, We've talked much about each other and that sort of thing. So like, you know, were you what are your thoughts on your contemporaries at the time, like the Stones, the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks. 00:16:59 Speaker 4: Let me break it. You know. In the beginning, I I was a jazz snob, but I was certainly aware of the roots of rock and roll, Chuck Berry and Little Richard and All and Elvis and whatever. Then I saw these four mop tops on Ed Sullivan and I thought, wow, man, what are they gay? What is this? You know? And uh then I noticed I noticed their melodies. I thought, wow, you know, because melodies, man, are they key? I don't I don't care if it's heavy metal or country. If you got a beautiful melody with a with a cool lyric they got to be wetted together. Wow, you got great songs, So you know, I knew the Beatles had great songs, and we we looked up to the stones and like. 00:17:49 Speaker 1: That van Were they of an older generation to you? Because even in my world, like someone that came out four or five year years ago, I'll see that as in hip hop terms, like someone that made their debut in two thousand and ten even is kind of old. Even even though they're not old school, they're considered old school. So, you know, because of the of the years between you guys them starting in sixty one sixty two, was it still the same fraternity or were they seeing as older statesmen? Not older statesmen? But that's what I'm asking. 00:18:33 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, they were just a few years older, so they weren't an entirely different genre, you know. You know, and then as you go along, can you keep making records that are important? And a lot of folks followed by the wayside, And we managed to do okay, even though Jim, you know, he started drinking so much that it got quite difficult, you know, Like I got a chapter in this new book on Jim and one on Janis two cautionary Chaplin two cautionary tales. You know, self destruction and creativity come in the same package with them, but not with everybody. 00:19:24 Speaker 1: We're we're really good friends with Shep Gordon, who told us a lot about the scene in la especially at the hotel. I forget the hotel and sunset where every yeah, everyone yeah, well yeah, everyone just hungt and whatnot. Like this book of the group love and and all those things. Were you directly like a part of that scene, like off stage where you guys sort of. 00:19:59 Speaker 4: Not quite that scene. I'm trying to think of the hotel too. But but but once you played the whiskey, Mario the door guy let anybody in, so we would all go see each other when we were not playing, and so was it fraternity, you know, and we love for example. Man, they were really like them a lot. They were so different. Forever Changes is a masterpiece. 00:20:24 Speaker 3: That album, Yeah, Forever Change, Forever Changes is masterpiece. It's you know, the that's from the Summer I love too. I mean there was there's just like there's a few there's a few albums from from that era that are just yeah, I. 00:20:40 Speaker 4: Want to get on the soapbox for a second's go get pissed off when people dissed the sixties as a failure. 00:20:48 Speaker 1: Wait, okay, based on everything from the sixties, I. 00:20:56 Speaker 5: Mean, there's no progress without the sixties. 00:20:59 Speaker 4: I never mind what I was going to say. 00:21:02 Speaker 5: I want to hear it. It's feeling that way. So glad I talked about, Yeah. 00:21:06 Speaker 1: Well, there is a perception that like post sixty nine, that there was not diminished returns per se, but everything was over and everything that was fought for and built was sort of just washed away. 00:21:22 Speaker 4: So well, what were you saying, Well, yeah, the seeds of civil rights, the peace movement, feminism all were planted in the sixties, and maybe these seeds take like a long time, fifty hundred years for full fruition. So don't dis you know, we're on the shoulders of all folks before and so you know, yeah, progress is not as fast as we wanted, you know, like ge Obama got elected, so there's no more racism, yeah, what know? So But anyway, and speaking of which, I was hoping, uh, sometime during this podcast, I could do a five minute poem for Stacy Abrams. Oh, because I've been thinking about Jesus. All right, now I'm not approved before I'm going to approve. I'm the drummer, not the singer. I've been thinking about Georgia, Georgia, No Piece of Fun. You're on my mind when they're voting today. 00:22:39 Speaker 1: Everybody, Man, by the time this area as we'll have the results that we want. 00:22:43 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:22:44 Speaker 6: Yeah, but we're going to get that poem too, because I want to get that old to stay. 00:22:48 Speaker 8: Yes, I was curious to know, man, do you have to give us kind of a parallel the band that the Doors and kind of what you guys represented when you guys came out, Who would you say is probably the closest modern day contemporary And by modern day, I mean it could be anyone from the last you know, twenty years whatever, But uh, that you think kind of embodies the spirit of what you guys were about. 00:23:15 Speaker 4: Oh, putting me on the spot here. 00:23:17 Speaker 3: I mean Nirvana would be my guess. 00:23:20 Speaker 1: Really, you know, it was weird though I always thought the doors were doors are really kind of I feel like the Doors are hip hop as far as they were rebellion is concerned. 00:23:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's good. Okay, Let me let me tell you something way back, jay Z asked. 00:23:37 Speaker 1: For five to one on yeah. 00:23:42 Speaker 4: You know, and I was just coming on board. I didn't know what was happening, and I went, wait a minute, you know what, huh it's all bitches and holes. No, you can't have it. And he he writes me a letter, and he sends me a Team Rock jersey and he breaks it down for me and said, man, you know we're doing what you're doing, fighting the establishment, going for truth. And and then I got it. Believe me, I got it. 00:24:13 Speaker 7: Along those lines, The Doors is one of the only bands that I can think of that didn't have a bass player. And while Ray played bass in his left hand, it is one of the few bands that didn't have like a legit bass player. Can you talk about what that was like, because yeah, it's not a thing. It's not a normal a lot of work. 00:24:33 Speaker 4: I mean, usually the bass player and the drummer or the rhythm section, you know, holding holding down the groove in the basement. And it was me and Ray's left hand and uh, but but but he he he played simplified sort of boogie woogie bass lines with his left hand, which turned out to be gold like dome Don't Don't do don't it's just hooky stuff. And so fortunately we felt the same pocket. Actually, the first tune we played together ever was all Blues by Miles Davis, which is in three you know, and then I knew, I knew Ray knew some shit. So we played the blues and we were sort of laying back on the groove as you do with the blues, and then we started writing our own stuff, and then we kind of found our pocket. 00:25:25 Speaker 8: But so were you and Ray the kind of the beginning, the start of the doors? Were you to primary songwriters or how did that work? 00:25:34 Speaker 4: Well? Jim had all these words and melodies and couldn't play one chord on any instrument. We're talking gifted here. So he would sing acappella and and you know roadhouse blues, which we played with with I played with you guys, you know is blues that's not too difficult. But he would sing these complicated before you lip into unconsciousness, I'd like to have another kiss, Like wait a minute, f sharp, what the hell? You know? He just had his head so wow, you know, So what. 00:26:13 Speaker 1: Were those songwriting sessions like? Like he would just would it start with him and his words first, and you guys figure out where he's going with it. 00:26:20 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, we'd figure out the groove, then we'd stop and change chords or say, oh man, well we need a bridge or a solo here or whatever. So that's why he said, Hey, let's credit all the songs written by the Door. It's not lyrics by me, you know, Wow, And let's split all the dough really. 00:26:40 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:26:43 Speaker 6: Can I ask a question, because you met, you talked about this, and you touched on it. But I gotta know you said you were kind of like in your own snobby sense when you were an early musician, and somehow you met him and he convinced you to go to this route, because it sounds like you weren't even trying to go this rock and roll route, like you had this this jazz mind. So what was that moment that he convinced you? 00:27:04 Speaker 4: You know, I was passionate for music, but I never thought i'd make a living at it, you know what I mean? 00:27:10 Speaker 5: What did you think? 00:27:10 Speaker 7: You know? 00:27:13 Speaker 4: How? Then when the Doors got going, I thought, oh, god, man, you know, if we can pay the rent for a decade, wouldn't that be a miracle. Well let's see. Yeah, I'm seventy six and it's wow. Later, I'm still talking about this damn band. 00:27:29 Speaker 6: But was it a conversation that you had that that convinced you that I'm an ride this ride because I know that this is going somewhere or was it something that he sang or something? 00:27:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, good, good good good. All right. So after we play all blues and I'm noticing this guy in the corner, and Ray says, Jim, this is Jim the singer. He's never sung before and he can't play any instrument, but look at these lyrics. And he hands me a crumpled piece of paper and on the paper it says, day just draws the night, night divides, the day, tried to run, tried to hide, break on through to the other side. Okay, right right away, right rhythmic stuff starts. That's that pulled me in immediately, you know. 00:28:16 Speaker 1: So was I always wanted to know? Was that song somewhat influenced from Ray Charles? Is what I say? Oh wow, it's funny, man, we're past the statue. 00:28:32 Speaker 4: Good. 00:28:32 Speaker 1: No, you know I. 00:28:34 Speaker 4: Used to play that what I say, only I couldn't do it with one hand. I had to have both hands on the bell of the ride symbol didn't have the chop shit Anyway, what was going on was Bosan Nova was coming up from Brazil big time, and so this little government and I'm digging the groove. It's real light. Okay, I'm gonna make it stiffer and harder and faster, and so I copped the whole thing and made it rock and roll. But break on Through is kind of a rock and Bossanova rock or whatever rock brock. 00:29:21 Speaker 3: And I ask a question getting back to what what Bill asked you about playing with with Ray Manzeric and him playing the bass with his left hand. Uh so that's that's that's the main that's the doors sound basically, But on later albums you did use uh actual electric bass players on certain on certain things. 00:29:46 Speaker 4: Really good question. 00:29:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I just I mean my question is, actually, you know what, as the drummer from the drummers perspective, what's the difference being, you know, part half of the rhythm section with somebody who's playing it on the organ and somebody who's playing it with the guitar. 00:30:06 Speaker 4: Well, first of all, when we played live, when Ray would take a solo on organ, he'd get excited and the bass player would speed up. 00:30:17 Speaker 1: Holy moly, there's no more frustrating that happening. 00:30:23 Speaker 4: I got to pull the reins back. Okay, So this was before Moog synthesizers were even invented, So we knew that the keyboard bass, he had a Fender Rhodes keyboard basic kind of kind of was mushy and it needed a little more punch. And so even on the first record, we had Larry neckt Ol Studio bass player over dub on Fender Electric bass. Ray's exact bass lines to give it the pluck of the string, gave it the punch we needed, you know. And then later we did have bass players and you know, God, Harvey Brooks was on Soft Parade, great bass player played with Dylan and the Electric Flag and so that was a lot of fun for me. You know, Elvis's bass player played on La Woman Jerry Chef, and that was cool. He even said that he put a little line from uh, the La Woman, do do do do do do do do do do do? He's stuck a little bit of it in an Elvis recording session. 00:31:29 Speaker 3: So so we can just finish up this thought that playing playing with Ray versus playing with Harvey Brooks, you know from a rhythm section. 00:31:41 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Well I mean I could almost play one handed, because when there's a separate bass player plucking and concentrating on the groove, you know, he's helped he's your brother helping them. It's it's easier, you know, and you play off each other and whatever. Ray was playing sort of simplistic lines, but it kind of gave space. There was more air and openness in the sound, which was quite cool and unique. You know. We auditioned bass players way back. We even had a girl for a minute there, but we felt like we sound like another white blues band, the Rolling Stones or something. And then we discovered this keyboard base went oh Man and the guy who made all the LSD in San Francisco, I can't think. 00:32:33 Speaker 7: Of his name. 00:32:34 Speaker 3: He can't think of his name. 00:32:35 Speaker 4: Of course, we were playing one of the psychedelic ballrooms. He comes back, Owsley, that's his name, Owsley. He comes backstage and said, hey man, you guys you're great. You got a hole in your sound, though, you need a bass player. He leaves and I turned to Ray and I said, wow, we're making the Acid King Nervous. I think we're on the right track here. 00:33:09 Speaker 1: I have a question of I can't think of another. Besides, besides the Look of Love, I believe that Light. 00:33:20 Speaker 2: My Fire, the most covered song is probably. 00:33:23 Speaker 1: No, No, No. Even more than that, I feel like light my Fire is probably the only song in which you cannot drop the ball as far as covering is concerned, and billions of people have covered it, do you have a preference of of of the many covers that of the of that song. 00:33:46 Speaker 4: First of all, quest thanks for putting Light my Fire in the same category as the Look of Love. 00:33:53 Speaker 1: I'm just saying I've never found I never found a bad cover of Light my Fire, never found a back cover look of bluff like, it's impossible to drop the ball in that song. 00:34:05 Speaker 4: Who sang look a Love? 00:34:08 Speaker 2: The original was God? Who was the original? 00:34:16 Speaker 1: It was. 00:34:18 Speaker 4: Right, right, right right. What what's cool is somebody covers your song and finds a new way to interpret it. That's really cool. I mean, it's cool to get any song covered, even if they copy your arrangement, because you get the writers share but facts. Jose Feliciano takes my Fire, yea, he makes it a ballad. We all went, oh, that is beautiful. 00:34:49 Speaker 1: What did you think of Al Green's version? 00:34:51 Speaker 4: Man? 00:34:51 Speaker 2: I think that's probably my favorite one. 00:34:53 Speaker 4: I bet I can't. I didn't hear it. Give it to me that really he did it? 00:34:58 Speaker 1: Were you never heard Al Greens version? 00:35:01 Speaker 4: Can we play God? 00:35:05 Speaker 6: This is fair use to podcast, fair use, we talk about it journalistic, this is even. 00:35:12 Speaker 1: The spoken part. 00:35:13 Speaker 8: The Right have his version and have you, uh, John, have you ever heard the Free Design? 00:35:21 Speaker 2: Have you ever heard their version of Jesus Christ? 00:35:23 Speaker 1: Yeah? Free Design, they they just. 00:35:28 Speaker 2: They just like Mama's and the Papas on LSD. 00:35:31 Speaker 1: Yeah, they take chromatic like Ninth Harmony chords to another place. I will say the Free Design is probably my go to version, even though I love the Al's version. Actually, it's funny you mentioned Jose. Jose actually doubles down because even on many Ripperton's version, h Jose shows up and and does his riffing at the end the fire right right exactly exactly. So Okay, I gotta know this because the one thing that I know that you're a big one, which you know, it's it's it's weird because even though with the rebellion of the first wave of modern rock, not modern rock, but you know, the the sixties rock cats and hip hop cats, is this rebellious spirit to the system. But somehow I will say that in hip hop terms, our relationship with capitalism slightly different from the sixties rock generation in that, you know, licensing songs and commercial uses. You know, rappers about that all day a commercial, whereas you know, I often hear the sixties generations sort of like I'm not selling out and so you're world famous for your thumbs down on which you know that. I'm like, that must be nice, But. 00:37:21 Speaker 4: Uh, I see it from all sides. I mean, you know, Tavis Smiley said to me, you're you're you're either really great or you're crazy. 00:37:31 Speaker 3: You know about that. 00:37:33 Speaker 4: But you know, what, can I say it? If you're trying to pay the rent and you get to do it commercial paid, you do it. Man, It's hard enough out there. What happened was that we got this offer, come on buick light my fire. 00:37:56 Speaker 1: No no, yeah, and. 00:38:01 Speaker 7: See the article that's not on the Google. Like if the Google said that, it would be a very different thing. 00:38:07 Speaker 2: That's everyone would understand why you did. 00:38:10 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:38:11 Speaker 4: So Jim was out of town. It was a lot of dough and we were kind of drooling and he came back and he said, yeah, let's do it. And I got a really good idea for a TV ad. I'll smash a buick on television with a sledgehammer. 00:38:32 Speaker 3: Okay, and that's on fire. 00:38:38 Speaker 4: That's a no. And so all right, Uh, Jim wrote one line in light my fire. Robbie Krieger wrote all the lyrics, and Jim added, our love become a funeral Pyre Morrison esque. And so this guy is so upset about a song he didn't write. I'm like, wow, he cares about the whole catalog, everything we're doing. And you know, I'm a little hard ass, but he's passed. He's my ancestor, so I'm trying to stick to what he wanted. But I mean, you know, I get hey, you know, I get hip hoppers doing. I get it. You know, It's just we're different, and it was back always, and I don't know exet. 00:39:30 Speaker 3: In a modern context if they might offer you a lot more money now for something than you were offered for the Buick ad, and it would be kind of a no brainer to take the money. 00:39:41 Speaker 2: I mean, and also too, to be fair, I think now it may be. I think now you have people in position who understand kind of the spirit of what you guys are about and would do it in a very tasteful way as opposed to a cheesy way like you know, like my view or whatever. The hell? You know what I think? People, now you know what I'm saying. 00:39:58 Speaker 1: Actually, I would like to see someone said of going fire. 00:40:06 Speaker 4: All right, let's see break on a new deodorant. 00:40:10 Speaker 1: No, right, I think. But the thing is is that I think the common denominator for the average creator is avoiding a rasure. And yes, the music of the Doors, I feel is the ripple effect and the resonance of it all. I have no doubt that the songs you know, writers of the Storm still stand every time I play it. People, you know, oh my god, what is that like it's brand new or something, so you know it's it's timeless. But does it ever? Do you ever have thoughts that you know one day? Because you know, I will say that when songs are placed in and this is me as a DJ speaking, when songs are placed in a movie or placed on a television show or in a commercial, it just extends the life of it just a little bit more. So. I'm one of those guys. And again, as a DJ who mainly uses as DJ sets to educate people and stuff. It kind of makes my job easier, even though I have to re you know, correct them, like, no, this isn't just the song that you heard in the blah blah blah movie, Like this is where it comes from. But do you ever have thoughts of like if you clutch too tight to the pearls, that there's a possibility of erasure. I know the Beast Boys are going through that right now, Like they just recently kind of loosen the reins a little bit to allow one of their songs to get licensed for a commercial, even though they took this hard stance like we will never ever do that, right integrity. 00:42:06 Speaker 4: Yeah, I gotcha. I mean, you know, Bob Dylan is certainly making me nervous. 00:42:11 Speaker 1: Man. Man, Yeah, he sold all his ship it for a while, right, Yeah, you can't take it with him, so you might as well just you know what I'm saying. 00:42:20 Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, okay, So first of all, I don't we okay, movies, TV shows, it's just a specific product selling, which makes me twitch a little. I mean, like, and also we are pretty established and there's a lot of people who say to us, oh, man, you know I was in Vietnam. You guys helped me the first time I made love, the first time I had a joint whatever, And so it's sort of like the soundtrack to people's lives, and so I kind of well Vietnam. For example, recently, Robbie told me, I didn't know this that the lyric loved Me two times? He wrote, he goes love me two times because I'm going away. He was thinking going away to Vietnam. That's not in lyric, And so how about love me two times? Because I just took viagra. 00:43:20 Speaker 3: It's some commercials have seriously ruined certain songs forever, you know, where they're known more for the commercial than from the original album or from. 00:43:30 Speaker 1: Yeah, Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing is definitely ruined viagra. 00:43:36 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, but you're right. You know I'm going to be erased, I don't know in the next twenty years or so. Anyway, so I got to think about it. 00:43:49 Speaker 3: Now, stick to your guns, I've wrote stick to your guns. 00:43:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, stick to your guns how I want to. 00:43:55 Speaker 8: I was on to know how accurate or what were your thoughts on Oliver Stones filmed The Doors. 00:44:02 Speaker 3: Yeah he was in it? 00:44:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, No, no, I wasn't it for a second there, No, I liked it. It was it was primarily about a tortured artist, and Oliver, you know, kind of fits that category. Brilliant and kind of out there, and uh, I wished it had been a little more about the sixties and in the climate of the times. There was a documentary called When You're Strange that Johnny Depp narrated, and that has that has more of that, and I think the two of them together really represent our whole career. But I gotta say, Val kilmer Man, he gave me the creeps. I thought Jim was back. 00:44:51 Speaker 6: Yes, he looked just like him, he sounded just like it was. I mean, I didn't know him like you did, but it gave me the creeps of watching him play that role. 00:45:00 Speaker 4: These actors are amazing, the way they transformed their bodies and everything. Yeah. 00:45:04 Speaker 7: Yeah, can we talk about like drummers from your era and the the African influence, the ginger Bakers in the mid and like dudes like that. I feel like like I got that bug when I was a kid, but I was I'm not the same thing, but like, was it the same? 00:45:20 Speaker 2: Was it? 00:45:21 Speaker 7: My experience was It's like everything sort of began there, so it made sense to figure out that shit and how to bring it into your own thing, like what was why did you get into it? And how did you apply it to the doors or whatever? 00:45:32 Speaker 1: Else? 00:45:32 Speaker 3: Are you doing. 00:45:33 Speaker 4: Well with the African stuff? I primarily got into later, but I will say that we were recording Hello, I Love You, and we're struggling with the arrangement, and Robbie the guitar player, said, why don't you turn the beat around like Ginger does in Sunshiny or Love. 00:45:56 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:45:58 Speaker 4: So I go, okay, I love you. So I copped a couple of bars of Ginger. 00:46:13 Speaker 7: And here we are coping, and Ginger coping. 00:46:16 Speaker 1: Here we are. I was going to ask, the recording of that particular song has such a distinctive like modern made for FM radio sort of recording technique to it. Were you guys aware of that as far as like, because there's a clear difference sonically between the recording that particular album and what came before it. So were you guys aware of the sort of transforming of AM radio. AM radio being the I guess the destination point of most music had been slowly morphing into f M radio at the time. Because there's just just such a clarity to it that sounds super modern, like even if you listen to it now with the synth working, even the way that your drums are are tuned on that song like a deeper a deeper sound. 00:47:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right about that. 00:47:19 Speaker 1: It could have. Like it's almost like the you hear the seeds of what talking heads like a Devo's second record, even Gary Numan's like first record, you hear the seeds of that in there. 00:47:31 Speaker 4: Well, you know, our first single was break on Through, and it was too sophisticated. You know, it got to number thirteen or something. That was due to us calling up the station saying, hey, this is Fred Schwartz, will you play this and wait? 00:47:48 Speaker 1: Break Oning Through was not a top ten hit. 00:47:51 Speaker 4: No, but later it became just you know, everybody just is crazy for it. So okay, okay, Light My Fire was six minutes. You know, we had that long jam and then we cut it to three minutes, and then it became a hit. But then FM radio started bragging about playing the long version, which was really cool. So you know, we had some hits. I guess people are strange. I think was the next hit. And then in the studio. We were struggling and Paul Rothschild, our producer, pressed us on Hello, I love you. He said, Man, we got to make this a hit. And fuzz tones that just came in on guitar, you know, fuzzboxes, and we just worked on that and worked on it, and frankly, I thought it turned out a little too poppy for me. But that's just for me personally. But I always was just absolutely crazy for Jim's lyrics. 00:48:54 Speaker 1: Oh my god. 00:48:57 Speaker 3: And what about Bruce Bonnick, the engineer, what was his special sauce? He did all your albums. 00:49:03 Speaker 4: Yeah, he did all of them, and he worked at Sunset Sound and all the great studios as a teenager with the Supremes and Phil Spector, and he knew what he was doing. And each time you know, CDs, streaming, whatever it is, he keeps us up to date sonically. You know, he's on it. Yeah, he's the fifth door. 00:49:31 Speaker 1: Most will say that, of course. You know, when you think of historic concert and events, everyone of course makes a big deal of woodstock. However, I feel like enough has not been made of the Olive Whight Festival that you guys did in nineteen seventy do you have any particular memories of that, you know, because the lineup was Yeah, to me, this is crazy, Uh that that year it was Hendricks, Joni Mitchell who Moody Blues, Uh Slim in the family Stone ten years after Chicago. Usually, you know, I know that for a lot of artists, this for a lot of fans. This is always a disappointing question because you know, the the festivals are a spectator thing, and usually artists are just getting in doing the gig, leaving really not soaking in the atmosphere. Were you able to really soak in the festival at the time or was it just like you showed up and did your thing and left. 00:50:41 Speaker 4: Yeah. I took a hit off of Roger Daltrey's Peppermage snapps bottle. 00:50:47 Speaker 2: You know, I didn't know they made peppermint. 00:50:55 Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I think. 00:50:59 Speaker 4: The white. We were under a lot of stress because Jim was on trial in Miami for supposedly exposing himself, which he did not do, but but he was drunk and he got real political and said you're letting him shove your faces in the ship of the world. Wake up, And that didn't go over well. 00:51:22 Speaker 6: So closing yourself that's crazy how he translated it into that. 00:51:28 Speaker 4: Well, I got the climate at the time was this polarized country and and we were, you know, the hippies, and we were the dirty doors, and so Jim was targeted. There was a rally for decency at the Orange Bowl. Thirty thousand people showed up. Nixon sent a letter, and then Nita Bryant presided, and it was because of us, you know. Yeah, well back to the Isle of White, the isle of white. So Jim was kind of subdued in his performance. I was trying to make up for it, playing really strong, but it's pretty good. But the whole festival had the feeling of the end of the era, the end of Woodstock. There was some dispute about the ticket prices and they busted down the fences and people came in, which, you know, it was all right. It was just kind of a chaotic festival. Had incredible lineup, like you said, but it kind of didn't get the attention because it was sort of the crumbling of the outdoor hippie festivals being the ultimate you know. 00:52:41 Speaker 6: And just a clarification for nobody, people who don't know the concert and the cituative venue this is an island right close to London where they exclusively have this big festival. They've been doing this for like the last forty fifty years, right, yeah, correct, right, yeah yeah. 00:52:58 Speaker 3: Are you more of a touring person or studio studio person? 00:53:02 Speaker 4: Either one? Either one. I mean at first I was frustrated. I didn't understand it's kind of cool to muffle the drumheads in the studio, you know. I thought you just play live and make a record, and so it was a learning curve. 00:53:21 Speaker 1: I like both what was your weapon of choice, uh, in in the early part of your career, What what drums were you using? 00:53:30 Speaker 4: Oh? My first set was Gretch and then I Ludwick. I went crazy for Ludwig and Ludwig silver snare drum, and yeah, I always kept kept a little kit. I had rivets in my symbol. I saw Oscar Peterson's drummer ed Thigpen. He had a lot of rivets, and I went, oh, man, I'm that's good. You can hear that on riders. There's kind of rivet sound. 00:53:56 Speaker 7: In the right Yeah, yeah, exactly. 00:53:59 Speaker 1: Do you have you kept uh a majority of your drum sets or like the sort of iconic your career. Yeah, I'll be taking them over. 00:54:10 Speaker 4: Thank you some not enough, damn it like like like the floor Tom. Uh it's the floor Tom. That's barking back in the Hello, I love you, but it about I like it when the heads are tired and rancid, and then when they break, I have to get a new one. And I hate it because I like the personality of it talking back. 00:54:35 Speaker 1: You know, I see you still have that time time. No, oh, okay, that's what I was asking. 00:54:47 Speaker 5: My address is collection. 00:54:50 Speaker 1: You have a collection too. 00:54:53 Speaker 6: It's just a dumb drummer question. Y'all can tell me if not, if it is or not. But my father's the drummer. He always has to say that he likes he prefers playing with brushes. Is that a thing where you have a certain kind of stick that you prefer, like mallet versus just regular stick versus brushes versus whatever else is around these days? 00:55:08 Speaker 5: Because I haven't been checking in the latest. 00:55:10 Speaker 1: Not a dumb question. 00:55:12 Speaker 4: That's a real good questions. 00:55:15 Speaker 7: Don't play with brushes, that's true, you know, it's you know, it's weird. 00:55:22 Speaker 1: What so when I was working on uh Welcome to Detroit up in uh uh in studio A where Dilla was. He only played with mallets, and at the time I thought, all right, that's dumb, Like not that's dumb, because by then anything he did I declared like this, I'm sorry, it's it's my my my. Elvin Jones is a producer from Detroit. His name is Jay Diller. 00:55:56 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just can't. I just can't hear. 00:56:02 Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, j Dill is a actually to bring it back to five to one the okay. I won't say that I know the original producer of that, but he would. I'd ask him like, why are you using mallets instead of traditional traditional drumsticks? And he just wanted a different texture than that of what when sticks hit the skins? So I think at the time I scoffed like that's whatever, and then I caught myself doing it a lot, so I actually like the texture of it. 00:56:46 Speaker 4: I'm curious, what what size sticks do you use. 00:56:55 Speaker 1: Here? It is I'm a seven eight guy. 00:56:58 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:56:59 Speaker 1: However, however, my sticks are a little bit unusual because I learned through well Steve. Steve is like one of my longtime music engineers, so I had to I learned about twenty years ago that the softer, at least for my purposes, the softer that you play, the better the mixing options are. Because I use a lot of old ribbon mics. So I used to like power play, like in my mind, you think like take like like Bonzo, like John Bonham from Zeppelin. Like you know, everyone thinks that they have to play like Animal from the Muppets. Uh, and you know, and that really destroys the sound because the compression and the microphones like it just it just crunches. It's not good. So I learned the softer you play, the better it is. So I when I got my deal with Vic Firth, I told them to make me seven eight drumsticks, but I made mine two inches longer so that way I could put my wrist on my legs and not move my hands at all. What most non drummers would look at uh uh what's the name of Foo Fighters Nirvana? Yeah, they'll look at David growling like smells like teen spirit and think like that's how I should be German like like modern Animal. And for me, I get the best results when I when I do the least, just you know, the quietest. So I made seven eight drumsticks two inches longer so that I don't have to move my arms at all. 00:58:38 Speaker 4: Wow, that's what I was saying about. Playing the right beat in the right spot is as much power as all that animal shit. But you know what's so beautiful about your playing is the way you sit. You know, you don't slump over the kit, and you see relaxed. You know, it's just beautiful. 00:59:00 Speaker 1: A little too or like sometimes. 00:59:02 Speaker 5: Whatever, John, you didn't answer that question for yourself, But that's a no, it's. 00:59:06 Speaker 4: No seven A. They're they're thin. They're thin sticks, so I can play faster, but they break all the time. If you're playing a big concert, you know, so you know you just throw them in the audience and grab some more. 00:59:20 Speaker 1: You know, speaking of throw in the audience. 00:59:23 Speaker 5: You think that's not your role, but it's just try it. 00:59:28 Speaker 1: Speaking Yeah, speaking of throwing them in the audience, what did this make you to watch Keith Moon destroy a kit occasionally? Like? Is that blasphemous to you? 00:59:40 Speaker 4: It was over the top. I understood the anger because you know, we were pissed off about the establishment and everything's going on. I get it. Uh. He was bizarre. He was the most unusual drummer i've ever seen. I watched him on stage right at the Isle of White, stood next to him. You know, he the wait, he hits the sticks. He's like he's conducting or something. I don't know what it is, but speaking of brushes, Hey, this is what This is what I'm gonna accompany myself with. 01:00:12 Speaker 6: On that I didn't get, John, I didn't. 01:00:20 Speaker 3: What I would want to ask you is not not which Doors album is your favorite, or not which one you think is the best, but which one do you think you're playing the best on? Oh, that's a good question, all of them. 01:00:36 Speaker 1: That's why you gotta start with guns your head, because. 01:00:40 Speaker 3: I'm just trying to make a point. I think, like the first Doors album was recorded in just a few days or a couple of weeks or something like that, and other albums later down the line probably took longer. And ye, but you may think that you're playing on light my fire is your is your absolute pinnacle or something like. 01:00:57 Speaker 4: A good question. All right, So first album, we're trying to learn how to make records, you know, and we only did a few takes. But you know it's second album, we're getting more relaxed in the studio, like using the studio as a as another door and fooling around with backward tracks and ship and having fun experimenting. But then you know, we have to make our own Sergeant Pepper. So we get to Soft Parade. 01:01:25 Speaker 1: And put string. 01:01:28 Speaker 4: Strings and horns and all this ship and it was fun, and people got angry with us changing our sound. Uh but touch Me was number one Morrison Hotel. And then finally La Woman we get back to the garage and the blues and and La Woman is I like it a lot. It's just a few takes. I said to Ray. You know, Miles live at Carnegie Hall. There was a terrible trumpet note at the beginning of So What, And the engineer said to Miles, I can fix that, and he said, no, it feels good. See there it is. That's the key to La Woman. It's the first punk album. We're gonna fuck the mistakes. We're gonna go for it in a few takes, put as much passion as we can. 01:02:24 Speaker 1: See there you go. 01:02:24 Speaker 3: It's like a jazz album. I mean, that's how a jazz album is recorded. 01:02:28 Speaker 1: Well you kind of pre answered, I was going to say that with the Soft Parade, was there a pressure two suddenly deliver like the highest art. I mean, based on the kind of atmosphere that brought upon, like Pet Sounds and Sergeant Pepper's and even with their Satanic Majesty's request and all that stuff. Well, I know people laugh at that, but I feel like one day, some generations really going on. Now I'm telling you thanks for playing. Look, I'm a guy who love uh. I know, critics hated Black and Blues by the Stones, and that's one of my favorite records. So I feel like somebody's going to find the wrong record and make it their record. But what I was asking was what the salt Parade was that the intent to show that we're just as artistic and just as experimental as our contemporaries. 01:03:40 Speaker 4: Yeah, no, thank you. Ray and I had talked about before recording the first album, man, someday if we could ever have some like horn solo tenor sacks and you know, that'd be cool, some jazz stuff, and so we finally got to that by Soft Parade. Actually, I think Sergeant Pepper and Pet Sounds they were out kind of around Strange days our second album, and that's when we were like, wow, man, we this is a challenge, you know, but but turn on too, you know. 01:04:28 Speaker 3: Think about the Doors though, is like I never I never think about them in comparison to other bands because they have this their own world. You know, they created one of these few bands or artists that can create their own sonic universe, and you it's like pointless to compare them to to other bands. 01:04:47 Speaker 4: Almost well, keep talking, I feel healing andizing and. 01:04:53 Speaker 3: Still it wasn't a compliment. I'm saying you're weird. 01:05:00 Speaker 4: Oh, you guys are amazing. 01:05:03 Speaker 1: You know, we try. Thank you. I do have to ask for our listeners and for myself as well, Like what was how long did it take you guys to come to grips after Marson's death on whether or not you should continue or not continue? And the creative direction? First of all, I mean, is the idea of a group really kind of an illusion that's not real? Like is it really everyone gets their equals say, and if one doesn't agree and it's not unanimous, then we don't do it. 01:05:44 Speaker 4: Well that's how we were. 01:05:45 Speaker 1: But okay, so absolutely everyone A. 01:05:49 Speaker 4: Lot of groups have singer songwriters Lennon McCartney, Keith Richards and Mick and and they're kind of the dominant force, whereas Jim not being able to you know, how do we write songs? But I got all these words and melodies. It were we were really more equal because of that. 01:06:11 Speaker 2: You know, you always translated almost. 01:06:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, beautiful, that's it. Yeah. 01:06:17 Speaker 1: So yeah, the the as far as the meeting with you guys in what direction to take his work? Well, yeah, I mean, can you just talk about that period of the decision to continue on? 01:06:32 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's good man. You don't let me off the hook, all right, No, no, no, it's good. Okay. So Jim dies and we're working on stuff, and we first entertained replacing him, and I said, excuse me, who's going to fill Jim's leather pants. That's a tall order. Uh so uh then Ray and Robbie tried to sing. We made two albums because we had this material and we were tight. And after those couple of albums, we realized, wait a minute, this is ridiculous. Our focal point is gone, and let's do you know, we wanted to do individual stuff, and so it naturally kind of fell away. We went our own ways. We came back later and we did a poetry album. It's pretty cool American prayer way out there Jim's words, you know, he had died and we wrote all this music and that was fun. 01:07:35 Speaker 5: I wonder if you think that Queen pulled it off. 01:07:38 Speaker 6: Was trying to think of another man who actually has done that with their lead singer who's passed, and I'm like, yeah. 01:07:46 Speaker 4: Pretty close. 01:07:47 Speaker 1: I don't know, no, no, for nostalgia's sake. I mean, you know, Lambert is yeah, yeah, yeah, leather pants to fill, yes, huge. 01:08:03 Speaker 4: You know, like my second book was called The Doors Unhinged. It was about my struggle with Ray and Robbie playing and I love their playing, but they were going out as the Doors. 01:08:17 Speaker 1: Right. 01:08:18 Speaker 4: Well wait, you know, Ian asked Berry from the cult. It's fine, but but it's like the police without sting come on call it founding members of the Doors or whatever. 01:08:34 Speaker 5: You know, but Earth went Maurice. 01:08:37 Speaker 1: Well that's how it is. 01:08:39 Speaker 5: I know. 01:08:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, But I mean I understand people want to hear and hear them play like hear Queen and Earth Wind and Fire. I get it, you know, I get. 01:08:50 Speaker 1: Where we are today. Does it irk you a little bit that somehow not only do we wind back at square one, we're kind of way like damn near Neanderthal times that we took forty eight steps backwards, like just as just as a person who had ideas in the sixties to you know, to fight against this corrupt system and push us forward, just to see us come back to the place where we now have to struggle all over again like it was the sixties. Like does that this may you like? Was it? 01:09:29 Speaker 2: Like? 01:09:30 Speaker 1: Was your work for naught? 01:09:32 Speaker 4: Oh? 01:09:33 Speaker 3: Man, love you promised us? 01:09:34 Speaker 1: Bro? Where's the peace and love? 01:09:38 Speaker 4: You see there? 01:09:41 Speaker 5: It is? 01:09:42 Speaker 4: Oh my god, big questions, you know, I mean, uh, this country was founded on racism. 01:09:53 Speaker 2: Say that, and. 01:09:55 Speaker 4: You know I got a piece of rolling Stone asking Obama to pardon Leonard Healthier, Native American who has been in jail frigging fifty years. You know, there was a shootout and FBI guy died and nobody knows who did it, but they had to nail somebody and whatever. So in that article, I also said, oh god, you know, it wouldn't be a bad thing if if we could apologize to the first people's the genocide, and then we can move on. And there's a that's how you go forward, admit shit. 01:10:28 Speaker 6: You know, they'd be there a long time admitting an apologize doesn't worry. 01:10:34 Speaker 4: But I guess I'm an eternal optimist. I mean, we got agent Orange out or any minute. 01:10:43 Speaker 2: Now, right, Yes, oh, we're all he's out. 01:10:48 Speaker 5: According to this recording, he's out. 01:10:50 Speaker 1: Yes. 01:10:51 Speaker 2: Now we're just waiting to see what George is doing. We' just waiting on Georgia now. 01:10:54 Speaker 4: And you know, between you and me and and and your zillions of listeners, you know, Biden is. 01:11:03 Speaker 1: Like me. 01:11:03 Speaker 4: He's another old white guy, but. 01:11:08 Speaker 5: He wish he like you, though. We hope that he's like you. 01:11:10 Speaker 4: Well, hey, hey, you know what. Okay, here it is. Hillary loses and I go, God, damn it, I'm going to see a woman president before I die. And I'm up there and now I'm like, whoa wait a minute. Now I might see a black woman. Yeah, and you know, and she's I love her, but you know, I don't want I can't idealize her like Biden either. You know, she was a prosecutor, holy oh. 01:11:46 Speaker 5: My god, everything everything you stand. 01:11:49 Speaker 1: For, John. 01:11:50 Speaker 4: She's a beautiful you know, she threw me in jail, but she's a beautiful woman. 01:11:57 Speaker 5: It was her job, you know. 01:11:59 Speaker 4: But I I still we're just it can it's slow, but we're going forward here it is Leonard Cohen. Democracy is coming to the USA. It's not here. We're working on it, you know. So there it is. 01:12:22 Speaker 5: You can't let me go without the poem. 01:12:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, I was going to say before before you close this out with this poem. That's also one of the reminder listeners that you're The Secrets is your third book, correct, correct? Okay, Yeah, The Secrets Meetings with Remarkable Musicians is available. Came out late twenty twenty, and it's you exploring the creative process of modern artist. And yeah, we want to thank you for doing this. So could you please bless us with this poem in closing my. 01:13:00 Speaker 5: Thing on mute til it was time for my snaps? 01:13:02 Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So uh yeah, this goes out to Stacy Abrams and uh, I'm gonna play it. I'm gonna play my jazz brushes on my on my doom back, which is crazy, but so what and what can I say? All Right? This is a poem by Ethridge Knight, African American poet who I think he won the National Book Award or was nominated, and Gwendolyn Gwendolyn Brooks Pulitzer Poet was his mentor. Yes, and so uh Ethridge wrote this for his daughter when she was fourteen. Now I'm gonna move this mic down in the front of my face so I won't drown out the vocal. We'll see if this works. It's called circling the daughter. You came to be in the month of Malcolm, and the rain fell with a fierce gentleness, like a martyr's tears on the streets of Manhattan, when your light was lit and the city sang you welcome. Now I sit trembling in your presence. Fourteen years have brought the moon, blood, the roundness, the girl giggles, the grand leaps. We are touched, tender in our fears. You break my eyes with your beauty. Oh baby, I. 01:14:52 Speaker 1: Love you, OK, listen, that is the legend. John Dinsmore orn brushes poet quests supreme. 01:15:09 Speaker 4: Yo. 01:15:09 Speaker 1: Man, I was watching. 01:15:10 Speaker 8: I was thinking, Yo, they need to get John Dinsmore and cast you as Joe Biden on sn L. 01:15:18 Speaker 4: That's funny. 01:15:20 Speaker 5: You can Jim Carrey can't do what you could do. 01:15:24 Speaker 1: There you go. 01:15:25 Speaker 4: If this damn virus gets better, maybe next year my paper back will be out and I'll get to sit in with the roots again. 01:15:32 Speaker 1: So, ladies and gentlemen, this is Quest Love Supreme. We like to think John Dinsmore for blessing us, uh with this interview, very informative the performance. We gotta bring the performance back on. Behalf of Team Supreme. Want take a little on pay bill Sugar Steve and like, yeah, this is Quest Love. We will see you on the next go round. Thank you. 01:15:55 Speaker 9: Hey, this is Sugar Steve. Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at L and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. 01:16:12 Speaker 1: Must Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.