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