Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Red Light Management and Live Nation
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images for Red Light Management and Live NationDoors drummer John Densmore recently took part in a video fan Q&A that’s been posted on the band’s YouTube channel and social media pages. Among the revelations the 75-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer shared was some new information about the memoir on which he’s been working in recent years.
Densmore says the book is titled Meetings with Remarkable Musicians, it will be “out in the fall,” and it will include a chapter about late Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek.
While acknowledging that he and Ray, who died of cancer in 2013 at age 74, had “our struggles” in reference to the legal battles they fought over usage of the Doors name, Densmore delivers high praise for Manzarek’s musicianship in the video.
“[T]here’s absolutely no way there would be Doors without Ray’s left hand playing those bass lines and his right hand playing those beautiful, catchy…circle of fifths [from ‘Light My Fire’],” Densmore declares, “or the solo in ‘Riders [on the Storm]’ just etched on your brain.”
Among the other fan-submitted questions John answers for the Q&A are what were his favorite Doors song and album cover, and which musician influenced him the most.
Densmore chooses “When the Music’s Over” as his favorite song, noting, “[It] was really an epic, interesting thing with all kinds of silences and big drama.”
He says his favorite album cover was Strange Days, recalled that singer Jim Morrison had said, “‘I don’t want to be on the cover again,’ and so we had these carnival freaks.”
Densmore’s most influential musician was legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane‘s drummer Elvin Jones.
“I copied his drumming, and I watched the way he played with Coltrane,” John explains. “And I played with Jim kind of influenced by that.”
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