John Densmore

Pete Townshend keeps fooling us again, selling Who songs to yuppies hungry for SUVs.

I don't like totally free jazz, unless it's done by somebody like Coltrane, who did bebop and cool jazz, so he was allowed to go out there.

You know, another jazz drummer, Ed Thigpen, who played with Oscar Peterson way back - it was the first time I ever heard rivets in a cymbal. And then I heard that Chico Hamilton had them too, and I went, 'Oh, that's it. I'm taking that for my sound.' And it worked well on 'Riders On The Storm,' so that's one thing.

When I do a press roll, I use the traditional grip. Sometimes I flip it around; for a louder crack on the two and four, I use the new grip.

Well, I've discovered that I really like writing, and I feel that I'm good at it.

If you surrender to the communal vision, sometimes, certainly in our case, you become more than the sum of your parts.

In the '60s, the Sunset Strip became insane. The sidewalks and the traffic were jammed. It was a renaissance.

I had no clue of Hollywood until I became a teenager. Then I got a fake ID in Tijuana and discovered Shelly's Manne-Hole, on Cahuenga and Selma, where I saw John Coltrane and his piano player, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones, the drummer - my idol.

In the '50s, West L.A. was like Kansas.

I had the first XJ6 and then they became real popular with lawyers so I had to move on. The only problem with Jaguar is that you have to go to the gas station every couple blocks, and a mechanic once told me that if you don't have the right attitude when you walk up to a Jag, it won't start.

When I was in my 20s I went through my testosterone phase and had a Mercedes to show that I'm rich, and they used to call me 'Jaguar John.' I'm older now, and I'm concerned about the environment and... appreciate a car that doesn't pollute.

If somebody makes a really wonderful, ecological car, I'm down, no matter where it comes from.

I like driving at least a part-time electric car because there's nothing coming out of the tailpipe. That's very important to me.

Sometimes I'll be in an elevator and I'll hear a corny instrumental version of 'Light My Fire.'

If I had been the drummer for the Grassroots, it probably wouldn't have cut me to the core when I heard John Lennon's 'Revolution' selling tennis shoes... and Nikes, to boot! That song was the soundtrack to part of my youth, when the streets were filled with passionate citizens expressing their First Amendment right to free speech.

We used to build our cities and towns around churches. Now banks are at the centers of our densely populated areas.

The whole world is hopefully heading toward democracy.

I got Cs in English at school. I hated it. But now I want to be a writer and I'm voracious for new vocabulary and new ideas.

I remember thinking: 'Why is Jim's face so big?' on the cover of our first album, 'The Doors.' Probably because it wouldn't have sold a lot of copies if it were my face!

I like connecting new synapses. Like Jim Morrison did.

Money is like fertiliser. When spread around, things grow; when it's hoarded, it stinks.

The one constant thread through my life so far is that I have been constantly fed and nourished by music.

Wouldn't it be nice if human nature could learn stuff before we get to the brink? It seems we have to experience it first.

I used to say, if Jim were alive today he'd never be clean and sober but I'm changing that answer because Eminem - angry, creative, just like Jim; a real talent - and Clapton, of course. It's a different time so he would have learned something, I think, but I don't protect what he did.

Creativity and self-destruction sometimes come in the same package.

One has to be always be on guard, because mega-success comes up behind you when you're high from all the attention, and sucks the vitality out of one's creativity.

For us, anyone can record our songs. Anyone can cover our songs.

We all liked Elektra because it was a boutique label. 'Oh, my God, we can be on the same label as Paul Butterfield!'

I still think that if one of Jim's masterpieces were downgraded to sell crap, I would get sick.

I grew up listening to my parents' albums. Many of them were either classical - Bach, Beethoven and Brahms - or easy listening, like Mantovani. I loved the spectrum of emotions in classical music, from fortissimo to pianissimo. My early passion for classical made my drumming more musical later on.

My mom, Peggy, was a free spirit. She loved music and liked to paint. She had received her degree from Chouinard Art Institute in L.A.

When I was 15, we settled in Santa Monica, in a beige suburban ranch house. By then, my father, Ray, was an architect at Welton Becket's firm. He was handy with a pencil and pen. His figurative drawings were very good, and his talent was intimidating.

Echo & the Bunnymen just copied 'People Are Strange,' which is cool, we made some money, thanks. But when an artist finds a new interpretation of one of your songs, that's great. It turns your head around.

Jim had melodies as well as words. He didn't know how to play a chord on any instrument, but he had melodies in his head. To remember the lyrics he would think of melodies and then they would stay in his head. He had melodies and lyrics in his head, and he would sing them a cappella, and we would eke out the arrangements.

Robby had a flamenco and folk music background. I was so enamored with watching Robby's fingers crawl across the flamenco guitar strings like a crab.

Ray grew up in Chicago so he had the blues, Muddy Waters and all that. He also had classical training. That was pretty cool. That was invoked in the intro to 'Light My Fire,' which was very kind of Bach-like.

Jim was Dionysus, but it took three Apollos to balance that Dionysian energy. He was a force.

Jim Morrison wrote the words for 'Hello, I Love You' when we were still in a band called Rick & the Ravens.

I'm not against a new band doing commercials to pay the rent.

We knew we were tight and good, but we didn't know we were going to be the band to help each generation cut its umbilical cord.

You hear a Willie Nelson solo, he doesn't play real fast, but it's so melodic and beautiful. It's kind of, to be human is to have space and not show all your stuff all the time.

I'm not the fastest drummer in the world, but I'm very into dynamics and knowing that there's space in between the notes and you got to breathe.

In my old age, I've learned that if I put the right cymbal crash in the very right spot, exactly, it can be as powerful as all my showoff drum rolls in my 20s.

It's your inner life that's the most important.

Everybody is a seeker to a degree.

When rock loses integrity it's time for renewal.

Everyone is so desperate to get attention for their project, they will do almost anything, and the corporate world has always encouraged this.

At the risk of sounding grandiose, I will say that, to me, rock 'n' roll is sacred.

Most of what is said by candidates on the right is half-baked truths and fabrications coated in 'patriotism or family values.'

In the 1950s, my family first lived in West Los Angeles. Dad was studying architecture at USC and we didn't have a lot of money. He'd buy crumbling fixer-uppers, make repairs and sell them for a small profit. Then we'd move on. My early childhood image of him is standing on a ladder and sanding the front door.