After a brief attempt to persevere without the poet-singer-shaman, the surviving members moved on with their lives and, despite endless other rock 'n' roll reunions, left the Doors legacy intact.

That is, until the VH1 "Storytellers" special in which keyboardist and co-founder Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robbie Krieger and drummer John Densmore had the likes of Scott Stapp (Creed), Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), Pat Monahan (Train) and Ian Astbury (The Cult) step into Morrison's shoes.

It was a short leap to The Doors 21st Century, a new breakthrough with Astbury, Manzarek and Krieger joined by bassist Angelo Barbera and drummer Ty Dennis filling in for Densmore -- who declined, then filed a suit (still pending) to disallow the use of the name -- and former Police drummer Stewart Copeland, who was the second choice, but didn't turn out to be musically compatible.

Manzarek, 63, is a former UCLA film student whose post-Doors career includes a handful of solo records and producing credit on X's classic "Los Angeles." Earlier this week, he talked about the new Doors in a voice that can rise like an excited FM DJ and then go soft and spooky -- kind of like the narrator on "The Twilight Zone."

So, how are the shows going?

The shows are going fabulous. Robbie starts the show with the riff of "Roadhouse Blues" and people stand up and stay standing for the entire show. I'm shocked. Halfway through, I want to say, "Sit down, take a little rest, we've got a lot more to go."

How does it feel to play these songs again?

It feels great, really invigorating, like I'm back in 1968 again. You're playing "Light My Fire." What could be more fun? Playing the songs live is always fun, because it's full of improvisation. Even the 20th-century Doors, Jim would take a break and leave the stage, drink a beer or something. We're doing the same thing now.

After all these years, what made you decide to do this now?

I don't know. The 21st century came along, and there's a psychic need for Doors songs to be played one more time into the atmosphere of America.

Were you concerned about tampering with the legacy, about how it would be received?

Of course. "There's no Jim Morrison. How could they go out and play as the Doors?!"

Is that what held you back?

The times didn't rotate into the right place. There is a time to do things and a time not to do things. The 20th century was not the right time. Now this century has come along and we're in a rewind of the '60s with war and despoiling of the environment and bad economics and people enslaved by their religions, and it's time for a reworking of Doors songs to offer another avenue. People need another way of looking at reality. The psychedelic mindset is needed now more than ever, but I don't know if America has the [guts] to embrace the psychedelic. It's very dangerous, yet very liberating.

Technically, how did the Doors come about doing this? Because of the VH1 special. [laughs]

What did you like about Ian Astbury?

His shamanic quality. He comes from the same psychic space that Jim Morrison occupied. Celtic Christian. Native American spirituality. Buddhism. He's into all of that, just as Jim Morrison was.

I understand that John Densmore wanted David Bowie to do it.

He did. And I thought, that's an odd combination. David Bowie and the Doors. David Bowie singing "Light My Fire"? Do we play "Fashion"? [starts singing it]

Bowie's not the first guy I think of. Or even the 50th.

Right, right. I said to John, "Excuse me, David Bowie?" And he said, "How about Sting?" I said Sting's busy, too, doing his own stuff. And he's not coming from that shamanic space. Neither is Bowie.

What about Stewart Copeland. Was he not the right kind of drummer?

No. Too busy. [We were looking for] something darker, more mysterious.

Now, why did you want a bass player? You always played it on the keyboards.

What a joy. I never wanted to play the piano bass in the first place. [laughs] We always wanted a bass player. We always used one in the recording studio. Now to have one on the road is really great. I can just float over their foundation.

Are you saying that, lead singer aside, the core group sounds better than back in the day?

The sound is monster. People have said to me, "You sound better than the first time around." My wife has seen lots of Doors gigs. Every gig at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go. She was around before the beginning. After the gig in Los Angeles, she said, "That's one of the best Doors concerts I've ever seen." I thought, "Whoa! Honey! Love ya."

Are you seeing this as something more than a one-time thing?

Oh, yeah. We're going to make some new music. The point of it is to make new music. We're going to write new Doors songs. We're using poets, American poets: Jim Carroll, Michael McClure (who was Jim Morrison's poetry mentor), John Doe from X.

You knew him. How do you feel about the way Jim Morrison is remembered, the way he's glorified and mystified?

Right, made into some iconographic, Dionysian figure of -- I-don't-know-what -- ultimate debauchery? For me, Jim is my buddy who slept on the floor of our little three-room house. We dropped acid and were students together. For me, Jim Morrison is poet, first and foremost. The reason the Doors got together in the first place was poetry and rock 'n' roll. Like the beatniks did with poetry and jazz. Jim's lyrics were poetry. For him to become this persona is a little more than I can take. Jim was the fourth guy in the band. He was not the leader of the band. The band had no leader. Jim's job was lead sax -- like John Coltrane.

Did you see him as a tragic figure all along, or a normal guy?

No, I saw him as a tragic figure. When we talked about life and death, there was a sense of brevity to his life. He once asked me out of nowhere on the beach, before John and Robbie were even in the band, he said, out of the blue, "How long do you think you're going to live?" [laughs] I said, "Off the top of my head, 87." He said, "Whoa, not me, man. I see my life like a shooting star. Everybody looks up and says, 'Wow, look at that, amaaazing.' " OK, on to the next subject, Jim.

I never understand how this kind of angst comes out of L.A., this place with sunshine and beautiful beaches.

It does, man. Raymond Chandler. Nathaniel West. "Day of the Locust." The punk bands. Charles Bukowski. [dropping his voice] There's a hunger in the city ... for fame. It's the center of show business, where maybe you could be a movie star or, if you're a girl, you can get a rock star. There's a deep hunger for fame, and that hunger once realized, it can drive you mad. And if you don't satisfy that hunger, you're also going to go mad. The punks are watching and saying, "How the hell did we get stuck in this?"

It seems like teen-age boys from every generation go through a Doors phase. To what to do you owe that fascination?

The sense of freedom. They pick up on the Doors' freedom and certainly Morrison's rebellion against authority, which is very Freudian, the rebellion against the military authority that he grew up in. That rebellion and that search for freedom, you add that to the music, that almost hypnotic kind of "Light My Fire," going on and on. Those solos. A-minor to B-minor for like 5 minutes -- in a pop song? There's a hypnotic quality that puts you in a semi-trance state and a search for freedom that's very appealing for teen-age boys in that phase just as they're entering manhood. At some point, they're going to have to put the yoke on. This is their last gasp of freedom before they put on the yoke of society -- which we all do.

And there's that presence of death in the music.

Yes, it's always there. And as a teenager you become aware of your mortality. Kids don't think about it. But at some point, [dropping his voice to a spooky whisper] you're in your room, alone, or smoking a doob with friends, and you think, "What happens after you die? What do you think happens after you die?" And the Doors are out there exploring the scenario.

At that point, I tell him, that's enough, I'm getting goosebumps, and we close out the conversation talking about his interest in electronica, his son's band, AI, and his somber advice that hallucinogens, if used at all, be used sparingly and in a calm, beautiful setting.