THE DOORS UNHINGED

The drummer for the Doors recounts his legal battle to preserve the band’s legacy.

Densmore, along with singer and lyricist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and guitarist Robby Krieger, founded the Doors in Los Angeles in 1965. During the group’s early days, Morrison proposed that the four members would be equal partners, sharing in all proceeds, and each member would have a veto over any decision affecting the band. That clause came into play when they wanted to let Buick use “Light My Fire” for a commercial in 1968, and Morrison vigorously objected (“Tell them I’m gonna smash a Buick with a sledgehammer onstage!”). This led to a policy of refusing to license the Doors’ music for advertising purposes. Also, recognizing Morrison’s central role, the remaining members stopped calling themselves “The Doors”—until 2002, when Manzarek and Krieger began touring with a different drummer and singer, calling themselves “The Doors of the 21st Century,” with ads featuring the band’s original logo. They asked Densmore to approve a lucrative deal with Cadillac to use “Break on Through” for a commercial. When he took them to court to stop them from using the old band name, they countersued him for blocking the deal. Densmore’s text is mainly a blow-by-blow account of the court proceedings on the two issues, spiced with the drummer’s insightful reflections on the Doors’ history and his encounters with other musicians. Fans looking for anecdotes about the band’s glory days will be disappointed, but Densmore’s concerns about his band’s legacy and its meaning in today’s society are thought-provoking and worth pondering. Also impressive is his continued respect for his former bandmates’ creativity and musicianship, despite the in-fighting, philosophical differences, and court battles.

Not a typical rock memoir, but something more interesting to those who want to look past the hit songs and off-stage antics.