ASSOCIATED PRESS

Robby Krieger of The Doors

For Krieger, The Doors remain wide open

In rock 'n' roll, it's rare that a band remains culturally relevant even just a few years after its first hit. To do so 40 years later is a phenomenal feat.

That The Doors have managed to achieve this alongside such giants as The Beatles and Bob Dylan is made all the more amazing given that it only released six albums before the death of lead vocalist Jim Morrison in 1971.

Yet, The Doors have been embraced by three generations with equal fervor. Every year, the band sells more than 1 million CDs; a compilation, "The Best of The Doors," recently occupied the No. 1 spot on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart.

Late last year, The Doors got a head start on celebrating the 40th anniversary of the release of its 1967 debut with "Perception," a boxed-set reissue of its first six albums (including never-before-released demos and outtakes), and a companion coffee-table book in the style of The Beatles' "Anthology" that consists of new interviews with surviving band members and archival interviews with Morrison.

This year, the surviving members plan to release a career-spanning DVD compilation, open a Doors-themed exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, receive a star on Hollywood Boulevard, and make parts of their catalog available in ringtone format.

Keyboard player Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger also are planning to tour as Riders on the Storm (formerly The Doors of the 21st Century) with Ian Astbury of The Cult on vocals -- a move that has alienated drummer John Densmore since 2003 and has resulted in an ongoing legal battle over use of The Doors' name and material.

In a recent phone interview from his Los Angeles home, Krieger spoke about the anniversary, the rift with Densmore, and The Doors' enduring popularity in the 21st century.

Q: Whose idea was it to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Doors with the book and a boxed set?

A: I guess it was our managers Jeff Jampol and Cory (Lashever). They're pretty good at thinking these things up. (Chuckles.) But a lot of people have been saying, "Hey, it's the 40th anniversary of 'Light My Fire,'" so it was kind of hard to miss.

Q: As far as the boxed set is concerned, was the remastering handled solely by Bruce Botnick (engineer on the original sessions and executive producer on "Perception")? Was there input from yourself, Ray and John?

A: He does everything himself. I went up and helped him in his studio ... That was a lot of fun, remixing those things. He put a lot of work into it, I tell you. Y'know, with all the Pro Tools and all that stuff nowadays, there's a lot of stuff you can do to make it feel better without screwing around with it too much.

Q: Listening to the first song on the first album (on the box set), "Break on Through (To the Other Side)," I was very surprised to hear something I'd never heard before -- Jim singing, "She gets high."

A: I don't know why we copped out and took that out in those days. "Higher" was a dirty word back in those days. On Ed Sullivan, we did "Light My Fire," and they wouldn't let us sing "Girl, we couldn't get much higher."

Q: Jim sang it anyway, didn't he?

A: Yeah. We never played Ed Sullivan again. It's kind of neat to hear that on the record, isn't it? You never noticed it, it was so obviously a cut-out, but when you hear the actual version, you say, "Ah, they cut that out." But nobody knew it back then, it was just "She gets ..." whatever the hell that means.

Q: In listening to the playbacks of the remastered tracks, were there certain things you had forgotten about, or certain things you couldn't hear before that just jumped out at you?

A: Oh, yeah, quite a few things. Especially mixing them in surround sound, where you can really separate everything, I heard a lot of stuff I'd never heard before ... Also, we put quite a few outtakes on those surround-sound mixes. Like, for instance, there's about five takes of "Roadhouse Blues," and you can really hear how the song evolved in the studio, from one take to the next. So that's pretty neat.

Q: Was it fun to revisit The Doors' heyday while you were remastering the songs and compiling the book?

A: It was, because I really hadn't -- you know, I'm not the type who sits around and listens to my own albums very much. Going back and remixing those things, it was really kind of a treat to hear what we had done, to go back and start from scratch. The biggest difference, I think, is the drum sound. Check out the drums on the original albums and then hear the remastered versions -- boy, they're just a lot better. In those days, people didn't mix drums up very much. You know, drums were kind of in the background, more or less. And as time went on, drums got louder and became more of the forefront. So Bruce kind of did that this time, he mixed the drums up, and he enhanced them, too. Boy, they really sound good.

Q: Would all three surviving members listen to the playbacks at the same time?

A: No, we all came at different times. We obviously couldn't all be there all the time. Bruce wanted someone there most of the time when he was mixing, so he could have an extra pair of ears. So we divided it up.

Q: Is it true you and Ray are still on the outs with John regarding The Doors of the 21st Century, which was renamed Riders on the Storm?

A: It is true. We've had a lawsuit going for quite a while now. But I think it's all going to be resolved pretty soon, hopefully early (this) year. Because it's not doing anybody any good, you know?

Q: I saw The Doors of the 21st Century when it first started touring, and caught a show in Tampa in 2003. What prompted you to start touring again as The Doors?

A: I'd been touring with my own band, The Robby Krieger Band, and more and more people would ask, "Hey, when are you guys going to get back together and play as The Doors?" So I knew there was a big audience there for it, so I called Ray up one day, and I kind of talked him into doing it. We had an offer from Harley-Davidson, they were doing their 100th anniversary ... and they wanted The Doors to open up their show. They had one in L.A. and one in Toronto, and one in Dallas, so I said, "Look, we can do this." Unfortunately, John didn't want to do it, because his ears were messed up at the time, so we got Stewart Copeland (of The Police) and Ian. And we had a great time, y'know? And it kind of just kept going from there.

Q: Who's going to be playing drums on the next tour?

A: Ty Dennis, who probably was with us in Tampa. And we have Phil Chenn on bass. He's from Jamaica, and he's a great bass player; he played on Jeff Beck's album, "Blow By Blow." He's been a buddy of mine for like 30 years.

Q: You played one new song in Tampa, "Cops Talk." Are there any plans on recording it, along with other new material?

A: Actually, we have recorded four or five things. We're just kind of waiting for this lawsuit thing to get over with before we get that stuff together. But it will be happening. We've got some good stuff.

Q: Any hope that John will rejoin?

A: Yeah, I'm sure he will at some point. You know, we owe it to the fans, because they really want to see that. And I think once he realizes that, he'll come around.

Q: What do you think Jim would say?

A: I think he'd say, "Do it, man." He was such a positive guy, he never said "No" to anything. And he's not here, so what are we supposed to do? I'm sure he would be all for it.

Q: He did say "No" to that Buick commercial back in the '60s. (Buick wanted to use "Light My Fire" in a TV commercial in 1967; Morrison threatened to destroy a Buick with a sledgehammer on TV if the deal was approved.)

A: Yeah, he did do that. But that was because he wasn't around at the time that we decided to do it. We couldn't find him. So I think he was all pissed that we didn't ask him. It was his own fault, because he was incommunicado for weeks on end. So I think more than having something against Buick, I think it was just that he wasn't part of the loop.

Q: Was Jim being incommunicado a regular occurrence?

A: Sometimes. I mean, if there was recording to do or gigs or something like that, he was always going to be there. But if we weren't doing much, he would kind of hide a lot, because people were after him all the time. So it wasn't really his fault.

Q: I've always viewed Morrison as a Dylanesque type of character, in that people looked to him to provide mystical answers, and it freaked him out a little bit.

A: It might have gotten to him, but then again, he liked to be in that position, too. (Laughs). He liked to be the guru and the shaman, as he called it. He kind of set himself up for that. But then, you're right, he would get tired of it and run the other way at times.

Q: Since Morrison's death, he's been built up, especially with new generations, as a mythical figure. Does that seem strange to you, someone who saw him as a bandmate and a friend?

A: Yeah, that is kind of weird. But then again, he was a far-out guy. I mean, I'd never met anybody like him before or since, and I can see why people thought of him that way. I didn't, because I knew him every day. But he was definitely different. He was like a genius, but he had definite problems, like he had the world on his shoulders. It wasn't easy being Jim Morrison.

Q: The Doors had a reputation for going off on tangents live, and doing it well. Was it the same in the studio, or was it more of a controlled atmosphere?

A: The studio was a more controlled atmosphere, I'd have to say, except for certain things. Like when we did "The End," it was very uncontrollable. (Laughs.) Jim was on a lot of acid, and -- well, we were lucky to get two takes of "The End." We actually cut them together to make one take. The first album ("The Doors," 1967), we didn't really have time in the studio to mess around that much ... so it was really more like playing live in the studio, and that was pretty neat.

Q: Contrast that with the last album with Jim, "L.A. Woman" (1971). The liner notes to the boxed set indicate that it was a somewhat freeing experience after the difficult sessions of "The Soft Parade" (1969) and "Morrison Hotel" (1970).

A: Right. And actually, "L.A. Woman" was the first time we produced it ourselves, without Paul Rothchild. Paul, even though he was a great producer -- I mean, let's face it, he did those five albums -- he was very controlling, a perfectionist. So we always ended up doing a lot of takes. Like, you'll hear on the boxed set, on "Roadhouse Blues," (he'll say), "Take 55," or something like that. So on the "L.A. Woman" album, we did it ourselves, and it was kind of fun, because it was more like doing the first album. We just kind of did everything live, and just did a couple of takes, and that was good enough. We didn't have to be perfectionists.

Q: Were there any plans to tour behind "L.A. Woman"?

A: Well, we did tour a little bit, but Jim was under the gun of the court thing that was happening in Miami, so we didn't do a lot of touring. (In 1969, Morrison was charged with indecent exposure during a concert at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium.) But we did do a couple of things in New Orleans and Texas. I'm sure we would have done more, had he come back from Paris.

Q: Did Morrison quit the band at that time? There have been conflicting reports.

A: No, he never quit the band. When Jim left for Paris (in 1971), the three of us kept writing stuff. We fully expected him to come back. We had a lot of songs ready for the next album, which we ended up doing on our own after Jim died ("Other Voices," 1971).

Q: What do you attribute to The Doors' longevity, especially given that it keeps getting rediscovered by new generations?

A: Well, it's the music, you know. That's all I can say. It's just good music, and well recorded. We didn't use a lot of tricks in the studio or a lot of stuff that would date the song. We always tried to be universal in writing the lyrics -- and I think good music lasts. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that all the books and movies and stuff like that let people know about The Doors, even though it might be the wrong thing. If Jim had lived, who knows what would have happened -- whether we would have been the legend, if it would have come out the same or not?