robby Krieger
Jim Morrison was disintegrating, the studio bills were out of control and guitarist Robby Krieger hated the band’s new string-laden sound. But from the wreckage of The Soft Parade sessions came an album that lit The Doors’ fire once again…
The Doors were never a longterm bet. From the day the LA band came together in 1965, frontman Jim Morrison was the archetypal doomed rock star. Frazzled by LSD, dogged by obscenity charges and fast ballooning from the dashing young libertine of a thousand student posters to a bearded, bloated alcoholic, it was a shame – but not a surprise – to hear of his 1971 death from heart failure, aged 27, in a Paris bathtub.
But in the fleeting six years that Morrison, guitarist Robby Krieger, keys man Ray Manzarek and drummer John Densmore were together, they made magic. From drop-tuned Oedipal raga-rock like The End, through the flamenco ripple of Spanish Caravan, to the jazzy shuffle of Riders On The Storm, the band’s fearless musicality was at odds with their commercial clout. Few bands ventured further or sold more.
Even among the eclectic treasures of The Doors’ six-album catalogue during Morrison’s tenure, 1969’s The Soft Parade was the odd man out. With its strings, brass and commercial pop hooks on classics like Touch Me, this fourth album split fans, critics and even the band’s own members upon its release. Yet over the past half-century it has steadily grown to stone-cold classic status, and when we meet Krieger to hear his recollections, the guitarist is readying a new 50th anniversary Deluxe Edition featuring new ‘stripped-down’ versions of the songs.
The Background
“It wasn’t easy being in The Doors when we made The Soft Parade. Jim wasn’t in the greatest place. It was a bad time of his life, with the Miami trial hanging over his head [for allegedly exposing himself at a 1969 concert]. So he was drinking more than he should have – and he shouldn’t have been drinking at all. But the cool thing about The Doors was that we were always ready to experiment and try anything, and our sound was really changing on The Soft Parade. I don’t know why that change happened, it was just how the band was evolving. I thought it felt a bit like we were following The Beatles and The Stones. Y’know, Sgt Pepper had come out and then there was Their Satanic Majesties Request. At first, I didn’t think we should be following stuff like that. I thought it was a dumb idea to have The Doors – who are supposed to be this sorta ‘outside’ band – to do more commercialsounding stuff. But we did and a bunch of the songs on The Soft Parade turned out great.”
“We were always ready to experiment and our sound was really changing on ‘The Soft Parade’”