The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Robby Krieger | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Billy Corgan sits down with legendary Doors guitarist Robby Krieger for an engaging conversation about music, legacy, and the evolving mythology of one of rock's most iconic and shadowy bands. Diving into Krieger's latest musical venture, Robby Krieger and the Soul Savages, and stories from his memoir, Set the Night on Fire. Robby shares songwriting secrets behind classic like "Light My Fire," and navigating creative and personal challenges following Jim Morrison's untimely death. Plus musings over the impact of Oliver Stone’s controversial Doors biopic, and the mystery behind Robbie’s famously stolen guitar. https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

And the movie really is what revamped the interest in the doors. I hate to admit it. Drugs versus spirituality. In the 60s, drugs were spirituality. I'm surprised did anyone call you to join their band? No. I mean, you wrote a lot of big hit songs. You think somebody would have called you.

I think people were kind of scared, maybe. Scared to you? L.A. can make you crazy. Has L.A. made you crazy, Robbie? No. You still don't. I grew up here. Yeah, right.

Okay, let's start here. Okay. New album? Right. Robbie Krieger and the Soul Savages. Yeah. Now, it's all instrumental. Yeah.

Are you, is it like a book or tea in the MGs? Are you trying to bring back kind of the instrumental feel? Yeah. That's my hope is to have an instrumental. instrumental hip like Booker T. Yeah. In fact, my drama. That's so many great, was it so hugger or was green onions?

Hip huggers. Hip huggers, thank you. Green onions. Did you like that music? Do you like stacks? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and that's not what I'm trying to do, but I'm just saying in general to have a.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying it sounds like that. Yeah, to bring back that. Yeah. The instrumental hit record type of deal. You know, it's fun. And then, of course, I read this book when it came out, so it's great to talk to you about some of the stuff in the book. Set the Night on Fire.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. We'll talk about that. Okay. So let's start with the Soul Savages thing. Okay. I saw a funny thing where you said, Robbie Krieger and the Soul Savages is a stupid name. But then I also saw where you said,

The Doors was a stupid name, too. Exactly. So what should the Soul Savages be called? And so was the Buts Band. Right. Do you ever hear about the Buts? Oh, I think I read about it in this wonderful book. Yeah.

What would I rather have called? Yeah. That was the one we picked. Right. You know, Marco is great at names. So he made up about 100 names. Okay. And we whittled it down.

Was it a Democratic vote? Yeah. But it shouldn't be because it's called Robbie Krieger. first, you see. I know, and I didn't want that. You should hold rank. Well, I really didn't want it to be, Robbie. Yeah, I want it to be more like a real group type thing.

But, you know, they said, oh, well, you get more airplay or something. Right. You know, people love the doors and all that. But then they're going to think it's going to sound like the doors. Yeah. I thought your guitar playing, it sounded great, great tone. Thanks. Are you playing an SG?

Yep, still playing the SG. I remember, I've seen a bunch of the videos that you posted. Did you, your original got lost, right? Or somebody stole it? Right. Yeah, stolen. It hasn't surfaced. I'm sure you've seen some of those things where people are finding Paul McCartney's guitar.

Yeah. I can't believe somebody hasn't found your SG. I know. I think it must be just sitting somewhere in an attic. You probably don't know this story, but somebody stole. my guitar from a gig in Detroit in 1992, and it was gone for 27 years, and I got it back. Really? Somebody showed up with it.

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

guitar back what kind was it uh a 70s strat had a very distinctive sound you know when you have a guitar like that guitar was your guitar right yeah and you know like that thing had a certain cut this way and it sounded good in this key sure so when you lose that and you go looking for the other guitar and it never quite gets the same thing. It's such a painful process. Luckily, my guitar wasn't that great. I mean, it was just a sound like any other, it wasn't even an SG, it was a- Les Paul Jr. Special?

Junior, I think. Yeah. Had the black pickups, you know. And, you know, I did the first two albums with that guitar. Okay. So it sounded pretty good. Yeah. But when somebody stole it, I was kind of happy because, oh, boy, I can get something else now.

Well, I hope they find it. I would buy that guitar if it was a... Yeah, we thought we found it a couple of months ago, but it turned out it was not it. Right. But now I've got a guy, my friend Jerry, and he's using those tunings. forks or whatever they call. Your dousing rods? Dowsing rods.

And he claims it that it's here in L.A. somewhere. Wow. So we're still looking. Okay, so if the Doors was a stupid name, what would have been a better name? Better name than the doors? Ah, that's a good question. I don't know. Right?

I mean... Was the name Jim's idea, or was it somebody else? Yeah, it was Jim. Yeah. Do you guys have a vote on that one? No. In fact, they had named it before I was even in the band. Oh, okay.

So I had no. I didn't know that part. Yeah. Yep. I was the last one to be inducted into the band. Sure. So, fun fact. I was with Linda Ramon, who was Johnny Ramon's widow of the Ramones.

And she said, you're the only person the Ramones ever involved. invited on stage ever. Really? Yeah. Wow. You're the only person who played with the Ramones that wasn't in the Ramones ever. She showed me the clip of you guys playing a Dora's song. Yeah, I remember.

Take it as it comes, I think. Yeah, that's right. Wow. And that was so weird because nobody ever plays that song. Yeah. As, you know, when you go up, hey, let's do a Dora song. Yeah, Roadhouse Blues. Yeah, it's always, I like my fire, I rode house blues.

He just loaned me two times, but that was crazy. I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah. Got your punk bonafetes there. So this is a strange way to jump into this, but I'm fascinated because obviously, you know, Doors mythology is you have the movie, you have the book, you know. And what I loved about your book, holding up again,

is, and you say it very early in the book, I'm just going to tell the story as I experienced it. Like I'm really not into the whole mythological part of this whole thing. I'm just going to talk about the person that I knew in my experience with these other guys. I love that. And I really, if you're a Dors fan, and I'm a huge Dors fan, you feel like you're in the room without all the extra junk on top of it? Does it make sense to you? Yeah, I hope so.

Because, you know, my band's 36 years and going, not continuously, but, and for you, it's been how many years. We remember what it was like to be in the living room practicing, you know what I mean? not the magazine cover part, you know, arguing over hamburger and fries and stuff. It's a different experience when you're in the band as opposed to what people think the band was. And your band particularly probably has more mythology around it than just about any of the band ever. And you talk about that. And so does John Densmore in his book, he talks about sort of the rays puffing up the mythology of the band. Yeah.

Yeah. They, both of their books were kind of, they kind of each put each other down for various reasons. Well, that's the other part about being a band is you love and maybe don't love each other, you know. Exactly. But this is an interesting way to get into it because obviously it's been a long time. So I looked up the date the gym passed. It was July 3rd, 1971. So if you could, if you want, I, I, I.

I found myself thinking, what did it feel like on July 4th, 1971? Did you guys have a meeting? How did you even kind of begin to grapple with what was going on? Well, when we heard that he was gone, we didn't believe of it, for one thing, because, you know, there was always rumors about, you know, Paulus did and blah, blah, blah, blah. So we sent our manager, Bill Siddens, over to France, to Paris, to, you know, to check it out. And unfortunately, he never saw the body. So, you know, we were still thinking, see, maybe he's, maybe he really just trying to fool everybody.

Yeah. But after a while, it sunk in. Yeah. The reason I ask is not to be morbid. It's because you guys made the decision to carry on. You did two more albums. Right, right. So I'm more interested in that, which is like, hey, what do we do?

We're a great band. We've had all the success. And you guys were a great band. I mean, the way you three played together was legendary and still. Yeah, we were. I mean, you know, so what happened is when Jim had gone to Paris, we had continued to practice and play almost, you know, every day. Yeah.

And we had come up with a whole bunch of new songs that, you know, we're going to be on the next album. Right. And if Jim liked them. Right, right. And so, you know, Elektra Records, Jack Halsman, he was really cool about the whole thing. And he says, why not you guys, you know, put out another record. You know, everybody's going to want Miss Jim and everything, but, you know, in our contract, we had two more albums to go.

Okay. So he says, yeah, let's do them. You know, let's keep, keep it going, you know. And did you feel, do you have any reservations? Do you felt like, let's just keep going? We did have reservations, you know. I mean, you know, it's like the stones are going on without Mick Jagger or something like that. And maybe it was a stupid idea.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But I really love some of those songs that are on those albums. Yeah, I think it was weird. You know, it struck me in thinking about it this morning because I knew I was going to interview you is these days you see bands carry on with different lead singers and the public has kind of gotten used to it. Like, if it happened to you today, if you were in that exact situation today, I think people would have said, yeah, you should carry on. Obviously, some people don't. But even a famous band like Lincoln Park, their lead singer passed away, Chester, who's great lead singer.

And Lincoln Park just came back with a new singer, a female. Yeah, it's quite good. But I'm saying is the world seems to have, for lack of a better way, to put it, matured with the idea that if people still want to hear the music, it's better to hear the music and not get caught up in necessarily the personality part of it all. Yeah, I think you're right. And, you know, Journey is a stadium band with a singer that they found on YouTube. Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? That worked out pretty.

And I know you guys did tour with Ian Asbury, who's somebody I'm very fond of, but, like, I think the environment for you would be much more receptive now, where back then I think it was probably more harsh, like, bands over, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, even then when Ray and I decided to keep touring, it was pretty well received you know it was pretty damn cool and i just wish john had had come along but he didn't want to right and you're talking about later when you guys were touring yeah this was like but back to this time okay so first show three shows in you know you guys are totally tweaked as a four piece. And one of my things about you as a fan is you're one of those rare bands where the four

elements together are really, it's this sort of a magical thing that happens when you guys play. And I've listened to countless live recordings. I don't think I've ever heard you guys do a bad gig. And I'm sure I missed a few. And I'm not trying to be a fan boy. I'm saying is you guys were really a great live band. So now you've got one missing element. How was that internally? How did it feeling and how was the crowd with you? The crowd was great. They were very cool. Nobody's saying, hey, where's you?

Really? No, no, none of that. And, you know, so Ray and I were left to be the singers. Who's the better singer you were Ray? Put you on the spot. I think Ray was better, probably. But and then we had this other guy, Bobby Ray, who was rhythm guitar player and singer, and he sang a few of the songs. He was pretty good. But what happened was after the two albums, we decided, hey, maybe we should find a singer.

Okay. So we talked about Paul McCartney, of course, and Bob Dylan. I saw Iggy Pop somewhere. Iggy Pop, yeah. But then for some reason we decided to go to Europe. Let's go to Europe and find somebody over there. You know, that'll be different. Sounds very 70s.

Yeah. Let's go to Europe and find a singer. So we did. We went over there and pretty much moved our whole family's over. there to London and we were trying this guy that guy we didn't really get very far and before Ray kind of blew the whole thing off really yeah because Dorothy was pregnant and she was not doing too well and she was you know you know mentally sometimes when you're pregnant you get oh my wife is currently pregnant so I am well so at that point

it was okay the doors are over and we you know John and I were kind of pissed because, you know, we thought we still had some good stuff in us, you know. How old are you at this point? Like, 25-ish. It's a little young to have to decide it's over. Yeah, and, you know, I think we could have been like a jazz trio, you know, because, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, you know, the whole idea to go, going over there was to find another singer,

but we never really got close to finding a singer, really. Were you hoping to find somebody that had their own thing, and then that would become additive? Like you weren't trying to necessarily recreate as much as sort of innovate. Exactly. Yeah. And when you say that about a jazz trio, what's interesting is the musical language of the doors was so unique.

I can actually kind of hear it. You know what I mean? Where most bands I would think, well, where does that go? But with you guys, I could see where something would come of it. And I mean, yeah, and some of the songs, like I say, on the two albums, were pretty damn good. Right. So you find yourself, okay, 25-ish bands done. What do you say to your wife?

You know what I mean? Like where are we going? Did you take a year off? you well we we stayed in in london and john and i decided uh to form another band okay so we we uh came across this guy jess rodin he was he was one of the guys lined up to maybe be in the doors and um he was pretty cool he had some really nice uh good songs and he was really into reggae which John and I were getting into and he happened to know this guy Phil Chen who was probably the best bass player in London at the time he was a session guy he had come

from Jamaica and you know with the reggae group I forgot the name of it But they were, you know, pretty big time reggae band. And they kind of broke up and then he decided to stay in London and be a session guy. So we, Jess Rodin was buddies with him. So we decided to try him out and it was great. He was the perfect bass player for our new band. and so we made an album and what was that called sir what was the band uh the butts band that was the butt spanish okay i thought i thought that came later talk about a bad name well not to look backwards

but it might have stifled your commercial upset i mean in english that didn't mean what it means here really right but if if this is a bad name and the doors is a bad name i think the I think the butts wins the bad name. Anyway, we decided to make an album, and we got Bruce Botnick to come over to England, which he was happy to do. And we started the album at Dynamic Now, what's the name of that studio over there where everybody plays, goes? Well, there was Island back in the day. There was EMI.

Yeah. Olympic. Olympic. See? I get there eventually. Olympic studio. So we did half of it there. And then we decided to go to Jamaica because Phil was from Jamaica and he really hadn't seen his family for a long time.

And he was so happy to go back there. And Chris Blackwell, became friends with us and he he had this great house up there called strawberry fields right or strawberry yeah I think it was strawberry field and so he let us stay there and we recorded the rest of the album at dynamic studios and which was really cool because you know all these reggae guys were we're recording there Jimmy Cliff, who didn't have much interest in us. Right.

But he was okay. He was a nice guy. Right. But Phil had a great time. So were you thinking, I still have a future in commercial music or I just want to be a musician and make a living? I mean, where was your, I mean, you're coming off a pretty big high of success, that's pretty rare. I mean, most people don't, as you know, most people might have one

album, two albums. I mean, you guys had five, six albums that all had hits, all had classics. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, as far as I was concerned, and probably John, too, we were going to stick with it. Right. And make, have another band and, you know, prove that it wasn't just luck. to have a Jew Morris. And so what happened was we, after we finished the album in Jamaica, they all came, the English guys came to stay in L.A. And we decided, you know, we tried to launch the band from L.A. and it didn't really work out very well.

The first thing that went wrong was we were on Elektra records, and who was the guy that was the president of Electra? Jack Holtzman? No, the one after him. He was a really not likable guy sometimes. But is it like a famous name? Yeah, yeah. So a famous shark?

Yeah. Okay. So he listens to the album. And, you know, we really had fun doing this album. And had Bruce Botnick, who was a great engineer. Yeah, fantastic. And so this guy listens to it. And he goes, you know, I think you should redo the album with Tom Dowd.

And, you know, stupidly, we should have done it just to do something with Tom Dowd would have been cool. But I just got all pissed off. And I had this horrible look on my face, I guess, because the guy says, wow, I guess you don't like that idea. You've got all the excitement of a half-dead worm. So when I told that to Phil Chen, From then on, he called me the worm. Yeah. So that was my nickname from then on.

So we said that, let's just put, we'll go somewhere else. So we went and met with Bob Krasnow, you know who he is. Of course, yeah. So he had the, what was his company called? Was he with Columbia or? Blue Note. Okay. He took over a Blue Note.

And, yeah, he had a lot of great people on that record. Was anybody pushing back in America against the band name? No. Really? I found it didn't seem to bother that. Because they hated my band name. Really? Oh, yeah, they tried to get us to change our band name 50 times.

It's not that bad. It worked out. Yeah. So you guys just refused to change, right? Yes, sir. good for you yeah it's not so much that i love the band name it's that people always remembered the band name it was one of those weird names if you said it once no one ever forgot it had kind of a lucky thing to it where if you've just heard it people i would see people six months later and they

would know the name of the band it was just you know it's good marketing it's just like it's stuck right right but back to you so uh so the launch goes not so good yeah so uh we had We had our manager, Bill Siddens, who had managed the doors for the past year or so. Originally, he was our roadie. Right. And for one reason or another, he couldn't get much lined up for at least not enough. So the English guys got all, they bored and stuff, and they just, they just, decided to go back to England.

So, John and I stupidly reformed the bus band, which, and there's still some good stuff on that second album. We had this guy Michael Stahl, who was the singer. He was actually a really good singer. And we had, we found this bass player, Carl Rucker, who is called Slick. And he was a really good bass player. And then we had this girl keyboard player, Alex Rich.

And so we did a couple of minor tours with that band, and it didn't really go anywhere. So that was it. John decided to become an actor. Of course he won a bunch of Academy Awards. And I... Sorry, with all due respect to John, I had that happen in my band. I had a band member quit and become an actor.

So I'm a little salty about the whole idea. It's like, you know, because I said to this person, have you ever acted before? And the person said, no. Who is that? Now I'm going to be an actor, you know what I? Who was that? That was the female bass player in the original band.

She just announced somewhere in the end of the 90s that she was going to be an actor, even though she'd never acted. Somehow, Mickey Roark's connected to that story, but we'll tell that story for another. So he's in, now he's an actor. Ray is doing like Kermina Barana or whatever. He was doing like, he was. He did X. Oh, that's right.

That's right. Yeah. Remember, he did that album. where it was like about a dung beetle pushing it across the universe or something. Right? It's so behind the music. It's like, this guy quits to be an actor. This guy is doing the musical about the dung beetle.

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

Not really. Not really. I mean, people that were my friends were, my friends were. mostly not really because of the doors, you know? It was, you know, because I was a golfer, so I had a lot of golfing friends. It didn't really bother me. In fact, I just kind of shut off the doors. Okay, that's over.

I'm never going to have that type of thing again. Were you sentimental about it? Were you like, hey, that was amazing? and now I've just got to go on to something else. Because that's a curious thing. Not many people experience your success. Yeah. And then like one day you wake up and it's your band isn't your band anymore.

You soldier on. You find yourself in this unique situation. You're in your mid-20s. Right, right. You know, it's an interesting perspective. And I guess I'm taking it more like a spiritual point, you know. Like life presents us with really unique challenges. Right.

You've always struck me as a pretty down-to-earth person, so you're saying my friends were my friends. That makes sense to me. You weren't necessarily caught up in the L.A. Bolt. Right, exactly. So you leaned back into what you knew, which is... Yeah, and back then it really wasn't like today if you're in a band and it's in and you're known. You know, people go and play in other bands and do a... Well, it wasn't really like that back then.

I'm surprised did anyone call you to join their band? No. Not really. I think people... You wrote a lot of big hit songs. You think somebody would have called you. I think people were kind of scared, maybe. Scared to you?

The stories are so weird, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's how I saw it. I did... I did go out and tour with Eric Burden and some stuff like that. But, you know. I mean, you know, we all look back on our 20s and we realize we're in a sort of a particular type of prime.

Yeah. And I, and then, you know, I had a kid. We had a family. Yeah. I know you've been with your wife since 1972? 50 years. That's amazing. Yeah.

Well, that's part of it, though, right? You lean back on your relationship, your family. Yeah. And so I would say, what were we talking about? Well, no, it's just the idea of, you know, America likes its shiny stuff. But I'm just as interested in the stuff that affects us as musicians, right? Like, we both had the experience of a lot of success, and then that success casts a particular shadow. And what you do with that shadow is, like in your case, you've always just played music. Yeah. You could have quit.

You could have started, you know, an aquarium, you know. Yeah, I mean, my idea was to always get better. Right. As a guitar player. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes it took a wrong turn here and there. say but I think if you get this album you'll see where I'm at now. This album, yeah.

Well, it's amazing. I think I've improved as a musician. Yeah, you're playing as strong as ever and it's definitely you playing. Yeah, I think people. Only you play like you, which is. Wouldn't recognize my. Well, as I was saying, as a fellow guitar player, that's the greatest, compliment. It's like when I listen to this, it's you playing. I can tell it's you. Your voice is in the

chords and notes and even the way you hit the pick, you know. Yeah, well, you're the same way. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Okay. Let's jump into the deep end of the pool, which is this incredible Doris mythology, right? So 1978, you released American Prayer, which was Jim's recordings, mostly of poetry and then musical backing. Right. And, you know, he had recorded this poetry about an hour's worth. On a birthday, right? Yeah, it's his last birthday. Mm.

God bless, right? Yeah. And he had planned on having music with it, but he wanted, what do you call, kind of free jazz no not not jazz at all but more like classical okay have you ever heard of fred myro well he was i think he's still around he was the guy that that jim wanted to oh okay to and i don't even know if he ever got around to uh to doing any of it but that never happened and and luckily Jim had put the the poetry down on tape and about 10 years later John Haney who was the engineer who did that I ran into him and I said hey what you know

whatever happened with that poetry thing yeah and so he played for me so you didn't even know it existed oh okay i knew it i knew it existed but i didn't know what the hell was going on with it you know i don't know why we never asked about it before but anyway so he plays it for me and i just said wow we could we could put music to this and it would be cool yeah and really came out as it's really one of my favorite Doors album yeah really you would we still we actually play some of the songs from it today oh wow yeah yeah you probably don't know this but um when you guys put out the box set around 2000 or so remember you did that which one it was like a four

cd box set oh okay well i can't remember what it was called the doors unlocked or something anyway i knew ray a little bit so i sent Ray a message because I love the box set. And what I loved about it was, it wasn't just, here's the best songs and a couple unreleased tracks. It was like a live cut, Jim doing poetry live, you guys jamming rehearsal tape. It was a really interesting. And what I wrote Ray in the note was I was like, I love that as a Doris fan, I thought I knew the band, but when I listen to this, now I understand how you guys see the band. Does it make sense to you, the way I'm saying it to you? Yeah. It's like this is the band you were actually in. Not my version of the band as a fan.

This is how the doors saw the doors. Wait a minute. What year did that? About 2000, I feel, somewhere around there. Oh, I got to check that. Yeah, it was a box set. So it was really beautifully done. And I don't know who curated, and I'm sure you guys had a lot to do with it, but it felt very personal. and I was struck by it because I was the guy who'd buy every box said that we'd come out, whether it was Motown or whatever. I just love unreleased tracks, and I'm just one of those guys, collector type, right? So after I sent Ray the Note, he wanted to talk to me.

And so we sat on the phone for like an hour and just talked about his version of the doors from inside. You know, he kind of gave me that insight of like the way you guys saw the band. And it was such a gift to hear him explain it. because like I said, when you're in the band, it's different. Fans decide what version of the band they want to believe in, but when you're in the band, you have your own version of the band. And I hear that especially with you guys because you have such a strong musical identity.

Too bad. You didn't record that conversation, right? It would be nice. It would be nice. He was quite nice to me as a fellow Chicagoan, you know? Oh, right. Yeah. Okay, so I guess the whole thing,

American Prayer came out in 1978, and I think the Danny Sugarman book came out, what, 81, somewhere on there? No one here gets out alive, is the infamous book. So somewhere in there, because I bought that book when it came out, and I read it, so imagine I'm 14 years old

and I'm reading, you know. You're 14 at the time? At the time, yeah. And I read it cover to cover multiple times. And that's because of that book, that's why I started reading Carowac and Jean-Paul Sart and all this Huxley and William Burroughs.

And so that part of your history, Jim's interest in those writers. And then, of course, you know, the musical influences the doors. It set me off on this kind of very particular path, which had a lot of influence on me. So thank you for that. So how old are you? I'm like 14, 15 years old. I mean, not many kids at 14 years old. They're reading Kierkegaard and you know what I mean.

Jim was. Yeah, well, God bless, right? Yeah. So that's always been my personal affinity for Jim. I certainly love Jim as a singer and a front man. I didn't ever say you guys live that way, but on video. But my real connection with them is he introduced me to something very personal. Yeah, me too.

Okay, that's cool, right? So somewhere in there, 78, 81, somewhere in there. Now here comes, let's call it, Dores 2.0, the myth, the lizard king. You know what I mean? And you talk in your book, great book, by the way. you talk in your book very as you are here very plain spoken about you know i know this thing's going on it wasn't quite the doors that i was in but okay you know it's not a bad thing people are interested in us right did that that that that resurgence of interest in in in your work

was that surprising or did you did you feel it coming like um no i mean i you know after we broke up, you know, in Europe, I thought that's it. Nobody will ever care about the doors anymore. Yeah. Nobody gives it. And I was, you know, and because of the book, Danny's book, that's, that was, I think, an impetus to the movie. Sure.

And the movie really is what revamped the interest in the doors. But you remember even... I hate to admit it. Yeah, but that's no... But I guess I would say there's no shame in that game because here I am at 14, and I'm caring about the doors in a way that goes beyond light my fire

and break on through, right? I'm suddenly... Did you see the movie? I did. I did. I even got to know Val Kilmer a little bit somewhere around that era. I knew that...

I don't know how to put it in a way that's not any more Chicago then. I knew that part of the movie was just... movie-making bullshit. But if at the end of the day, it turns the whole generation on to want to listen to how good you guys, great you guys are, were. I don't see that as a second.

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

huge influence on my work. So in many ways, obviously not just the literature, just the sense that a band can create a mystique that's very personal. If I would point to anything that you guys had a huge influence in me, it's like you can build your own world. And the doors did that because the doors sound like the doors. It's like, and if you try to cover door songs and I've covered door songs, you can't quite get the same vibe. It's like the spooky mystery, a little bit Kurt Vile and, you know, mixed with Chicago blues. There's so many doors cover bands, you know. Sure. And, yeah, you're right. None of them really.

Yeah, because it's the way your musical language is so particular. And, you know, if we were to design the doors on paper, you'd say there's no way this band's going to sell any records. You did some door songs? You're jumping to my end, but we'll get there. So, okay, here's Robbie Krieger in 1982 or whatever. The Doors mythology starts to take off, you know what I mean? You know, obviously things start to change. Now, I think it was John who talks in his book.

Maybe I could be wrong because I've read all your books. But this idea that Ray starts to really lean into Jim the Shaman and there was that great, I don't know if you ever saw it, there was a great onion headline once where it said, Ray Manxerikos for five minutes without calling Jim a shaman. You ever see that? It's hysterical. And they had fake quotes from Ray saying, you know, I just forgot to call him a shaman for a couple minutes. But I remember listening to Ray doing interviews in the 80s.

And he was like, you know, Jim's a shaman and a mystic. And I didn't even know what a shaman was. But I'm saying, and you talk about it in your book, but what was your perspective on all that? Were you kind of cool with it? Did you think it was a bit cheesy? or you know you know I I thought it was a bit cheesy

but I couldn't blame Ray because really it was his whole life you know he's the one that discovered Jim he's the one that you know started the doors really and he wanted to keep it going you know when Jim

died it was the end of the world for for him yeah um and he uh so he he was really just trying to keep it all going yeah and i i can't blame him because you know he like you say the doors are so different and he he wanted people to know yeah especially young people what i loved about your book is you talk about like gym hanging out in your kitchen talking to your parents is so beautiful to me because again that's the gym you knew you know not the lizard king and the leather pants but like this this young guy obviously very intelligent right but the personal aspect of you talking about like your father's influence and helping the band and something really beautiful about that yeah Could you just talk about that a little bit?

Because obviously I had the benefit of reading the book. Well, you know, Jim didn't really have his parents in his life. I think it was because he didn't want to embarrass them, you know. Because his dad was like an admiral. Yeah, his dad was a real straight up guy. And his mom was kind of weird too. But so I think he kind of, you know, I was lucky I had the nice upbringing, you know, family type thing without having to please my parents that much.

you know when i became interested in in music they were they were just happy that i was interested in anything you know something so uh you know most a lot of parents would have said oh that's no good you're going to get into drugs yeah and uh they were right but sorry just to steer you back because i'm so i think this is the sweetest part of the story it's like You know, you guys, early 20s, literally hanging out in the Krieger kitchen. Yeah. There's no doors, there's no mystique, you know. Or if there is a doors, it's just another band amongst a thousand bands out here at the time.

Right, right. But, you know, Jim was, you know, I think being brought up in the South, I think he was, he was very polite and very, you know, Just, that's how he was brought up. Yeah. And my parents really liked him a lot. And he liked hanging around my house because it was something he didn't have. When's the first time in your mind that you saw that Jim had this other ability or, you know what I'm saying?

It's like he wasn't just another guy who could sing or something. You know what I mean? Like the first time you found yourself going, oh, this guy's really got an interesting gear here. Well, it was before I met him. You know, John had gotten into the group by this time, and he would tell me about him. Yeah. How he came up with the name and all this stuff.

And the first six or eight songs that they came up with, were great lyrics, you know, stuff that I never heard. So you heard about this guy before you kind of... Yeah. And the fact that they had a record deal with Columbia Records. Ah. Is that where some of those early demos are from that? They did some kind of demo or...

Yeah, the Doors demo. That was before that. And that's how they got the deal at Columbia. I think. Right. Yeah, that was before Columbia. See, at that time, Ray was buddies with this guy, Dick, Dick Bach.

Okay. You ever heard that name? Doesn't ring a bell. He had a label called World Pacific. Okay, that was the birds were originally, or Chris Hillman. Really? Chris Hillman, before the birds, was signed to World Pacific,

which is how the door, sorry, the birds, different band. The birds end up doing all their early demos there with World Pacific. That's kind of the, so he was kind of this weird, did Rabby Shanker, right, World Pacific? Yeah, yeah, World Pacific did all the Indians. Yeah.

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

Right. Well, I knew somebody was a session bassist back in the 60s, and he would argue, he would tell me that he was still mad at. Carol because Carol was taking credit for songs that he played on. Really? Yeah. Like, who's that? His name was Mark Toole and he played with the electric prunes.

But he ended up after the prunes blew up. Like the prunes? My buddy played with him. Billy Wolf. Dave Hazzer, I think his name. He was Dave Hazzinger or something. He had produced some of the stone stuff. Right.

Well, he did one of those deals with the prunes. He signed him out of a garage when he were 17. they weren't even old enough to sign the contract. They had to get their parents to sign off on it. But when he signed him, he signed him to his production company. So at some point, he replaced all the electric prunes with a completely different band because they wouldn't do what he wanted to do. So by 18 or 19, he's out of a band that's already had hit songs.

And his band trundles on with other people. It was some crazy situation. But he went on to be a session guy. He was kind of part of that later version of the wrecking crew. guys and he would do Sinatra sessions and all this stuff and he would get mad and he'd say Carol's taking credit for songs I played on there were hits well for some reason she told people that she played bass on light my fire which I know she didn't because you were there was a guy called Larry Nectal who was part of the wrecking crew right right maybe she thought she did because

you know she's not a bad thing to take credit for her She played on a lot of stuff in those days. So this band kind of comes together, and I'm struck because, you know, I'm an obsessive type of person. So there's some very early clips of you guys on television, probably when the album first comes out. Jim's kind of wearing stripy pants. He doesn't quite look like Lizard King Jim yet. And then there's clips from you guys like six months later where it's like you guys almost look like a completely different band. So I'm kind of curious about that period of time

because if I see those early clips of you guys kind of look like a nerdy band from the valley, trying to be a bit psychedelic. And six months later, you look like the doors that everybody knows, you know? Yeah. Well, things move fast.

Yeah, well, you were in this incredible environment, the sunset strip, and everybody's doing house shows. Yeah. Because you guys, there was some club you were kind of a resident band at for a while, right? Yeah, London Falls. Right, London Falls. You were playing how many nights a week type thing?

Every night, pretty much. Really? Yeah. And how many sets? At least two. And that's where some of the jams were boring because you just fill in time and... Yeah, exactly. And then from there we moved to the whiskey.

Right. And did the same thing there pretty much. Yeah. And then we would go to New York and played at this club called on deans right and uh there we will play four sets of night was on dean collect connected to the velvet underground world am i crazy about that um not so much not so much they they kind of specialized in having bands from l a okay california come out you mind me a funny memory one night i was driving down the sunset strip and we were driving past the whiskey

And I've played there a few times. And I said to the person I was driving with, stop. And they said, why? And I said, I have to go in there. I just had this strong feeling. So I jumped out of the car and the person went to park the car. The doorman recognized me. He said, come on in.

And it was a door's tribute band. Right? And I walk in and as I literally as I walk in, the band's starting to play the end. It was the strangest thing. It was like, God pushed me out of the car and said, And so I got to have this weird, obviously it wasn't you guys, but they did, when was this? 20 years ago. It was just a weird, like, get out of the car, go in the club and the band and, you know, the guys dressed like Jim and doing the voice.

And I got as close as I would ever get to seeing you guys play like that. That's a funny, funny story. We don't have to belabor the whole, because, you know, like the Doors mythology, the 60s, Sunstead strip mythology has been way over, overblum. too. But I'm curious from a musician point of view, what were some of the bands that you liked at the time that were playing around town? Well, I like to love, Arthur Lee and love. Super talented guy. Yeah. And they were on a lecture too, right? Yeah. Yeah, they were on lecture before us. Right. And they helped us get on electric. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. That's cool. Buffalo Springfield. We played a lot of gigs with them.

Did you ever think they would turn out to what they turned out to later? You know what I mean? They wanted to have this other crazy success. Did you see it then or no? I thought so. I thought they would be big. Yeah. And we did a lot of stuff with the airplane.

You know, when we go to San Francisco. We'd play with them a lot. And the dead and all those guys. Yeah. And who's the guy who was kind of blind? San Francisco guy? Yeah. Was he a blues guy?

No. It was kind of, it was rock. Okay. Shit. Steppenwolf. Oh, he was blind? Yeah. I didn't know that.

Not totally, but he couldn't see. kind of like Edgar Winner. Oh, okay. Yeah. I didn't know that. Grace Slick talks in her book about sleeping with Jim at some point. I don't know if you know that. She goes in a lot of detail, let's just put it that way.

Well, I never read that. I got to check that out. There's some story I heard, and you can confirm it or not, but like when you guys did break on through, there's like 140 takes. or is that one of those mythological concepts? Yeah. I don't know how many takes, but it was nowhere near one. You know, that was the first album. Right.

And one of the first songs we did. So I'd say we'd be lucky to do three takes. Okay. And this was live vocals? Or would you do an overdub vocals? Probably overdub vocals. But Jim would sing live when you guys would cut. Yeah.

with us and then if if it was good enough he'd keep it but on later work he there's a lot of stuff where he would sing live like LA woman times or there was the overdubts too yeah a lot on LA ones yeah a lot of it on the third album five to one was live vocal yeah great vocal we tried to cover that by the way too oh yeah we never could quite nail it you have to sound like you're drunk. I can't drink. I'm allergic to alcohol, so maybe that's the problem.

Really? Yeah, I just can't drink. And I have children, so I joke is always, I wish I could drink because I have children. I have young children. That's the other part. As I said before,

you guys are one of these unique bands where I can't imagine the band without one of you. There's only a few bands where it's like, the Beatles come to mine, Led Zeppelin comes to mine, where it's like, without one of you, I wouldn't be into the band. It's the communication between the four of you.

Like Jimmy Chamberlain, the drummer for the pumpkins, we were talking one time about John's drumming. And I think we were trying to get a certain feeling. And I said, can you get a little bit more of that Doris feeling? And he said, well, if you listen to John's hi-hat, he's always swinging the high hat, even when he's playing in 4-4. There's almost always a little bit of a shuffle in the hi-hat. You know, so even when John's playing a straight beat, this is from Pumpkin's brain, but there's a little bit of swing in there.

You know, you mostly played finger-picking, right? Am I crazy? Yeah. Yeah, I always finger-picking. And I know you guys would use bassists on the records, but I love listening to you guys live because there's something about the rhythmic interplay between raised left and right hands. Yeah, I mean, there was a number of the songs. on the first and second album were just Ray playing piano bass. Right. Would a lot of those songs be written and kind of come out of jams?

Or would you guys work as a four piece or you guys work as a three piece a lot and then Jim would come in and we say we got this? Oh, all different kinds of ways. Yeah. But usually, I mean, the first, those first songs on the Doris demo, those were, Those songs were just came into Jim's mind. He could hear them like, you know. Yeah, it was like. Would he sing melodies and you guys would try to.

Yeah. Interesting. And I mean, well, I wasn't in the band yet. Oh, right, right. Okay. So that's, so we ended up redoing most of those songs. Right. because, you know, I hate to say it, but I'm, when I was added, it really helped the songs.

Well, he loved your blues-ish kind of, is that myth or is that reality? Yeah, but, I mean, you know, Ray's was the blues to the hill. You know, he grew up in Chicago and all that. I was more, you know, I love a blues. blues, but, you know, I like to end you music. Yeah, when I say that, it's a guitar player talk, but when I, sorry, it's, I should have been in my articulate, but the way you play blues is only your way of playing the blues. But I registered as blues, but it's like you're, it's like if I listen to Albert King, he plays

a particular way. When you play blues, you play a very particular way. So it didn't come out of my mouth right, but it's like, that's what I mean. He loved the way you played the blues. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Especially slide and. Kind of the atmospheric type of stuff. Yeah, slide especially. What would be like a sneaky guitar influence of yours that we wouldn't necessarily hear? Does it make sense? Like somebody that, if you said, I really like this guy.

Yeah. It's playing, but you wouldn't necessarily hear it in my playing. Every guitar player's got that sneaky influence, right? I guess so. I mean, you know, I liked Bloomfield. Oh, wow. Okay. My dad saw Bloomfield play once, said, Blue his mind.

Uh-huh. He saw him at Aragon Ballroom and, you know, somewhere in the 60s. He said Bloomfield came out with a little lamp, put it on the chair, and he said he couldn't believe what this guy was getting out of the ham. The Aragon Ballroom. Yeah. I think back then it was called the Electric Playground or one of those 60s names, you know. Where is that? Errigan Ballroom.

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

I'm trying to remember who I saw out there. Here's a good one I have on my list. Drugs versus spirituality. I don't know what that means other than sounds good. Well, I think, you know, when we, In the 60s, drugs were spirituality. Right. You know, that's what we used them for.

Right. So was it more of an LSD band, a weed band? Is it I mean? Like, we were more of an LSD band. Yeah. Well, by the time I got in the band, it was on the tail end of LSD band. So when I was doing acid, it was before the doors. And that's kind of how I met John.

We had this friend. We both went to the high school, West L.A. And we used to get L.S.D. like every weekend. Is that when it was legal? Remember it was legal up until a certain point? I guess so. Yeah, I think it was. And then we would get morning glory seeds.

Okay. That was legal. And peyote. But this is all pre-doors. Yeah, pretty much. And then, you know, I was still doing it once in a while. Yeah. And I did do it.

did do it with Jim a number of times for shows. Yeah, I've had that experience as well as it. It's interesting. It's like, what key am I in? I remember this one show we did in in Tucson, I think, or Phoenix. And it was in this weird place. It was like that ceiling came down like that. with a horrible sound.

And they had this guy that played the second act was an Elvis impersonator. And you guys are on LSD? Yeah. Oh, my God. It was weird. Isn't it amazing when you take LSD? Like, that's when the Elvis impersonating. It's like the timing is.

And then right around the first show, we. did first show we did was at Ray's dad's company party he worked for Hughes aircraft okay and Ray got got did too much asset or something he he was wasted he couldn't didn't know what he was doing and this is the first gig yeah yeah and and so that That's when Ray quit acid pretty much. Yeah. And, you know, Jim would still do it, and I would still do it. But, you know, it was kind of going out, going out.

I wish it would have stuck around longer, so it would have avoided liquor. Right. Because, you know, Jim was a drunk in high school. I didn't know that. Yeah. and college. And he quit by using acid. And, you know.

And it came back. Yeah, unfortunately. You know, acid was, acid showed him that that liquor was bad, I think, showed me that. Sure. But didn't last too long for him. Mark Toole and the gentleman I told you. about that I was friends with from the Electric Prunes, he said at one point they did one of those like week-long tours with you, you know, up and down the coast or something. And so, you know,

like any fanboy, I was like, what was Jim like live? You know, you were there because, of course, I can only see on YouTube or something, right? And he said it was the strangest thing to him, and he was a little bit younger than you guys. And he said, Jim was, he found Jim kind of strange backstage and a bit off-putting and not very friendly. But he said, so he said, like you can in a band, if you feel like the guy in the other band isn't interested in you or nice to you, you know, you have a hard time watching their band. It's like it's a band problem, you know what I mean? Even if you like their music, it's not like, well, that's the guy that just wouldn't say

hello to me backstage, you know? And he said he would go out and watch you guys every night. And he said, somehow Jim on stage would transform almost into a completely different person. and it was shocking to him because he had trouble putting the guy backstage together with the guy that he was watching on stage. And he said even one night he took acid.

And somehow there was a, you guys were playing like a stage and there was an understage. So him and two girls took acid and laid on the stage and watched you guys from like this perspective. And he said it was pretty mind-blowing because he said Jim would blossom

into this other performer on stage. But he couldn't put it together with the guy backstage. I mean, obviously, you knew the guy, you know, the guy who ate hamburgers, Jim, you know what I mean? But did you, did you, and I'm not talking about the mythology. I'm talking about you as somebody in the band with your bandmate. Did you see that or did you just, it?

Not really. No, I mean, to me, he was the same guy on stage. Yeah. Right. Yeah. When Jim would get super provocative with crowds, there's some stuff, some of that stuff available. I'm not saying it's a, it's a, it's a. Good cross-section.

But in my band, when I would get super provocative on stage, they would get really mad at me. In my band, we call it the art breakdown. And they would get mad when I would do the art breakdown. I would say something about the government or God or MTV or whatever. And my band would get super uncomfortable and get yell at me after the show. When Jim would kind of go off in these verbal flights of fancy, not poetry, like he was obviously being provocative.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, but that, you know, that didn't happen that often. You know, I think the only time really was in Miami when he was just, I don't know what he was. That's the famous night with the goat and the chupor. Oh, see, right on cue. Must have been a combination of drugs or whatever that night. And he just started ranting and raving to this crowd. I've never heard him do that before.

Really? No. That was a one-off kind of experience. It was. Are you guys looking at each other like, what the hell is happening? I mean, you know, we knew he was capable of stuff like that, so it didn't surprise us. But, you know, when he started.

and saying he was going to take off the pants, then that's, well, luckily that didn't really happen. Yeah. But that caused you guys a ton of problems, right? Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I did. I don't want to talk about it because I find when stories are, when there's so much talk about it, it's like, what can we say that hasn't already been said?

Yeah. So I'm not trying to dive into that, but it is interesting. But in a way, it was a good thing because. because of what happened there, we were put on the no hire list, you know. Right. And so, like no promoters would hire you at it. Right, exactly. So because of that, we ended up recording a lot.

Ah. And, you know. Is that the, is that L.A. Woman Times or the one before? They went two before that action. Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah, in fact, all three of those last three albums. Soft Parade, Morrison Hotel and Emily, Women. Right.

Those were all done pretty quick because we had nothing else we could do. Towards the end, musically, it certainly gets less kind of spooky and a little bit more bluesy. The general word on the street, maybe I've just read too much about the doors, but it's like the gym was really pushing more blues. Is that true, or do you guys all go there together? That was true. He had, for some reason, he just really was going blues on us, you know. And we all loved the blues, so it was not a problem.

And you had great blues songs. I mean, and even some of the covers were like, they're legendary parts of your catalog. So it's not like it was a flight of fancy. Right. I mean, we love blues, but we didn't want to be a blues band, especially. What do you think you guys would have gotten into musically if it hadn't sort of trended towards the blues there at the end? Well, I definitely think it would have gone a lot into the blues

because that's where Jim wanted to go. But, you know, if you listen to those last two albums without Jim, you can tell kind of... Okay, I have to be. go back and listen from that perspective. That's interesting. When a band makes a commitment to a certain path and you guys, whatever you committed to at the end, let's call it, you got more bluesy, right? If that's fair. I'm making my own thing. I want you to correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's fascinating when great bands commit to a certain lane. They're able to create songs that somehow rise above the idiom.

So, L.A. woman, is bluesy, but somehow it's only the doors could do that. Does it make a sense what I'm after? Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying. There's a signature moment that's... Yeah, I mean, every blues song we ever did was not just a blues. That's what I'm after. That's such a testament to your guy's disability. Yeah. Because, you know, we all work in idiomatic, you know, we're doing the Raga here, and we're doing the blues thing here. You know, at some point, you've got to rise above and write a song that's worthy of your rep, right? Otherwise, you just sound like everybody else. Sure.

Yeah. And LA Woman album, there was probably more blues on that than any other album. Okay. We're bringing it to the gentle ending here. And we'll get to my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my door's cover. So, 80s, here comes the mythology of the doors, right? You know, there's a lot of energy around you guys. Was your guys relationship good at that?

point or did you have to kind of reevaluate your relationships in light of this renewed interest in the band? Between Ray and John and I? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would say a little bit. Like you guys got hot again and then there was the apocalypse now, which was that incredible use of the end in the scene with the bombs going. I mean, it's like, talk about a movie immortality. Yeah, I love that. It's beautiful. I remember when that came out, I went to see it at the Cinerama Dome, sat in the first row. And the first thing you hear is my guitar with the helicopters going by.

Here's how crazy that is. I can remember the first time I saw that. I was in somebody's basement, and they had, I don't know, VHS or something. And they said, do you want to watch this movie? And I thought, I don't really want to watch this movie. and they put it on anyway. And that scene comes on, and it's like, it's a moment frozen in my mind because it was such the perfect use of music with film.

It's like seal, like, it's the ultimate music video, you know? It's almost like you guys wrote the song for the film, but it's not. That's pretty cool. That's jealousy that I'm expressing. So, okay, just real quick, we don't have to get too deep on it. But what was the relationship like in the 80s? you know, your 20 years or so past, you know, whatever it was, I don't do math. But now you have to kind of reevaluate your relationship in light of this new information.

There's suddenly a bunch of kids like me in basements want to listen to your band. Well, okay, here's an easy one. Who ran the business at that point? Are we collective a business or was there one band member that was sort of more business person? That's a good question. That's a good question. Because somebody's got to approve the T-shirts and, you know the new wave well we still had Bill Siddens who was doing that kind of stuff and I would say John was totally out of the doors

no interest in really anything until his book came out he he did some you know a lot of sure signings and and he had his book being used for the movie. Okay. And in fact, he is in the movie. Okay. If you remember, he's in the first scene of the movie. He plays the, he plays John Haney, who was the engineer when Jim was doing his poetry.

Okay. Remember that scene? I do remember the scene. I don't remember John. Yeah, John was at the microphone. So, you know, other than that, John really had no interest in playing or doing any. Did you guys talk about getting back together?

No. Not really. Not until 1990, I guess it was. There was a show where... VH1 Storytellers was the end of the... 1999? Yeah. All right, so that was the first time that we all got back together and played. Okay.

You don't remember, but you guys called me once in a studio to ask me to be involved in that. Oh, you didn't do that? Well, I hope you don't get mad at me all over again. They called me and said, you know, would you like to do this thing where the doors are going to play the old songs and you'll be one of the singers? And I was very honored that you guys called and I said, I would love to do it, but I want to write a new song with them. And you and John called me on the phone in the studio. I was at Village Recorder here in Los Angeles. And we had about a 20-minute conversation

where I tried to convince you guys to do a new song with me. And you guys said no. So I didn't end up doing it. And I kind of regret it because I would have loved to play with you guys. But I got it in my head, as you know, pig-headed artists. I got it in my mind. I want to write a new song with you guys. I think what it was is ultimately it was an insecurity

because I thought I can't do Jim better than Jim. And I didn't want to try to do that. Yeah, I can see that. You know what I mean? So I thought if I could write something with you guys, we could sort of make some new music together. Because if you really think about it, it's how much respect I have for you guys as musicians

because I just know you guys like, I guess what I wanted to say, and I'd say it to you now is, I know if I threw you guys in the deep end of the pool, you guys would deliver. Because I know how good you guys are. Because I was such a fan, I knew all of it. So.

But you guys were on that trajectory. It's like there was a lot of interest. It's the movie. And somebody record label. in the whole thing. So it wasn't my business to get involved in, but that was my word on that thing. So that was after the movie. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that was a pretty good album, really. You're happy with it? Yeah. Yeah. I need to go back and listen to it. Yeah. I mean, some of it wasn't that great, but, well, some of them were better than others. Yeah. Like the guy that

the end. What was his name? Marco. We just need Marco here the whole time for reference. Anyway, that was pretty good. As long as you felt good about the whole thing. And then you guys went to this whole period

where you started touring again, right? Ray and I did. Days of the New. Remember that? I remember the name of the band, yeah. Yeah, he was pretty, he was good. We did it in 3-4. That's the fourth. Really?

Yeah. I need to go and check that. See that. That was... I didn't really listen to when it came out because I still was hurt that I didn't get to work with you. But again, I blame that on me, not on you. Oh, wow.

I know we talked briefly about you being married to your wife since 1972, but as you know, like having a partner with you through this whole journey must be an incredible thing for both of you, right? I mean, am I projecting, but it seems pretty self-evident that she was there with you through of this incredible. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Sometimes I think she doesn't really appreciate it, but...

Which part doesn't you think she appreciates? The parts up and the parts after we got married. Well, God bless her. I'm kidding. God bless her. Okay, let's, here's a place to end. So in 1980s when my band really started, and I was just starting to learn how to really write songs. I wrote songs, okay, but there was, and I remember it at a practice saying, I wish we could get the doors vibe, that spooky vibe.

Because I didn't know how to write like that. Like when Ray would write those weird, baby you wrote them, but those weird kind of passing chords, you know, this kind of Kurt Vile, Bertel Brecht. you know, I don't know who was right in those chords. It was probably you for all I know. Which songs? Crystal Ship was the song. Crystal Ship. You know, it starts like C-sharp minor

before you slip into. Beautiful chords. Like, you know, almost like Bach modal. I always assumed it was Ray. That was Ray. Yeah, because I assume because it has a bockish kind of thing. So I thought a nice place to end is, so literally my early,

gigs with the band and maybe even from the first gig on we were doing crystal ship. Really? Yeah. Because it, because it captured something that I wanted for my band that I didn't know how to do. So bringing you guys into it was a way of me saying, I want to understand what this is because it's so beautiful to me when I listen, so evocative. So I wanted to stop here because it's, it's really a tribute to you guys. So you tried to write a song like Crystal Ship? I think I've tried to write 20 songs like this show. Which one came closest? That's a good question.

I'd have to think about that. But we certainly, we did a lot of stuff that was sort of modal because of the end. This idea of kind of jamming in Open D-ish. But in our case, we, you know, we blow them through marshals at full volume. That was part of what we learned how to do. So there's a lot of doors in the pumpkin's DNA. But I wanted to stop here because it struck me, because obviously I knew we were going to talk about Jim

and this whole journey you're on. And I think it's such a beautiful thing because you think about, like even when you said, when you heard that Jim was gone, you weren't even sure he was really gone. And of course, we've heard the 8,000 rumors and the National Enquirer version. And, you know, in our generation,

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

So I thought it would be interesting because I, you know, literally, from the first gigs of my band, I was singing these lyrics. So I think it's a nice way to bring our conversation. Before you slip into unconsciousness, I'd like to have another kiss, another flashing chance at bliss, another kiss, another kiss. The days are bright and filled with pain

and close me in your gentle rain. The time you ran was too insane. We'll meet again, we'll meet again. So I think the beautiful thing is in loss, whether it's family or generational in your case, your bandmate, that once we get sort of far enough from the pain, we can sort of really, really appreciate, like, what they left us. And so in that case, I do appreciate him. Yeah, that's cool. Well, thanks, man. Thank you. Thank you, Robbie. Appreciate you.