Quotes from John Densmore

We were not folk-rock. We would scare people.

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

Painters 'see' the world; musicians 'hear' it.

Many years ago, I spent 5k at a fundraiser to hang with another lame duck: Bill Clinton. I lobbied him to pardon Leonard Peltier, the Nelson Mandela of Native Americans.

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.

Every new generation seems to have to go through its Doors rite of passage.

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.

Everybody is a seeker to a degree.

Writing is looking for music between sentences.

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.

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

Certainly, we are all on the shoulders of those who fought for our country. But the first peoples of this land justifiably might feel bitterness.

Bass players and drummers are like brothers, working in the basement, cooking up the groove. If they don't lock together with the feel, the ensemble will suck.

President Obama should pardon Leonard Peltier, or at least commute his sentence, not just for humanitarian reasons, but also as a way of acknowledging the injustice suffered by Native Americans.

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.

Even though the white-haired politician has no colorful wardrobe, after he speaks... you want to hug him. Why? Because what Bernie Sanders says feels like the truth. The unbridled truth. And he says it loud.

I've hung out and performed with many Native American musicians, and my experience is that the first peoples of this land are incredibly open, warm and forgiving.

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

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.

Yes, the '60s went too far, but we were trying to find new ways, better ways, to do things. And great seeds were planted: civil rights, the peace movement, the environmental movement, feminism. They're big seeds. They take a long time to come to fruition. Please, let's stop fighting, and get out our water cans.

The End' eventually became the encore at all of our big concerts. We would play 'Light My Fire,' and there would be this incredible Summer Of Love '60s thing, and then we'd come out and bludgeon them with 'The End.'

I like myself being a survivor.

Ravi Shankar was an incredible teacher. I sat on stage with Robby Krieger and studied at his school of Indian music here in L.A., so at Royce Hall we were sitting next to him watching his hands bleed while he got possessed. This is the highest level you can get.

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.