My premise was, the Doors without Jim is ludicrous, just as ludicrous as The Police without Sting, the Stones without Mick.” “That’s when,” Densmore said, “I made the very difficult decision to sue my bandmates for running off with the name. (Scott Mitchell Photography / Courtesy photo) “He said ‘f-you’ to the rest of us, because we were considering ‘Come on Buick, Light my Fire.’ What does that say? That he cared about the whole catalog, all our songs, what we all represented.”

“Jim did not primarily write ‘Light My Fire.’ He only wrote a line or two,” said Densmore, now 74. (The band did allow their 1971 hit, “Riders on the Storm,” to be used in a British commercial for Parelli tires, the only time they did so, but donated the money they received to charity.) He accused his bandmates, who first jammed together in a garage in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, of selling out and threatened to smash a Buick, live onstage, in protest.Īshamed, the three agreed to uphold their famous “all for one, one for all” partnership, and abandoned the Buick deal. When Morrison, the personification of the Doors’ jazz-influenced, psychedelic, catchy and often political rock, found out, he was outraged. This, despite the fact that the members had previously agreed that allowing their music to be used to sell a product, any product, would be akin to making a deal with the devil.

This, despite band members’ unusual decision to share equal songwriting credit and make all decisions by consensus. Jim Morrison, legendary singer and poet of the Los Angeles rock band, the Doors, is out of town when his three bandmates, drummer John Densmore, guitarist Robbie Krieger and keyboardist Ray Manzarek, agree to a tentative deal allowing the use of their number-one-hit song, “Light My Fire,” in a television commercial for Buick cars. The Vietnam war is reaching its bloody crescendo and a hard-fought presidential campaign is underway. It’s 1968, one of the most pivotal years for America in the 21st century.

The doors unhinged by john densmore