Strokes’ frontman and solo artist Julian Casablancas had the unique opportunity of chatting with Doors members Robby Rieger (guitar) and Ray Manzarek (organist/keys) for the upcoming documentary Mojo Risin: The Making of L.A. Woman. Casablancas cites The Doors as the reason he chose music as his life path. Their unique and masterful music as well as the atmosphere and intensity they created had a tremendous impact on Casablancas growing up. Due to the gravity of the situation he said that his interview style was Chris Farley-like- basically over-excited to hear them talk about anything. Below is an exerpt from their conversation, the full interview can be found at complex.

Julian Casablancas: I’ve always loved the song “Universal Mind”. Did you guys ever record an album version of that song or is that just something you did live?

Robby Krieger: I think we (originally) did it as part of “Celebration of Lizard”, is that right Ray?

Ray Manzarek: Fuck, I don’t know man. I don’t remember that stuff. How obscure…

RK: No, we recorded it for an album but it never made it on an album. Why does it sound like a live cut rather than an album cut?

JC: Yeah, it’s live. I just always thought it was a really wonderful song.

RK: It really wasn’t a finished song so we [tried to] put it into a larger piece, “Celebration of a Lizard”. But I agree, it’s a good song, coulda been a hit single…

RM: Noooo! [Laughs] You can’t say “Universal Mind” on American Radio! That would be blasphemy. Although I must say my mother, a good Catholic girl, loved that song. That was like one of her favorite Doors songs. She’d sing it to me on the phone. Here’s what she would do: “I was doing time in the Universal Mind, I was feeling…all right!” that was her little twist…

JC: I thought you couldn’t remember! That’s awesome

RM: Remember the words….I can remember all the words as a kind of memory test?

JC: I don’t even know the words to my songs

RM: In the Doors, we knew all the words. This is a band that wasn’t just playing chord changes, we were listening to Jim. I was listening to Robbie, and feeling John, and then listening to Jim’s words. We all knew when it was an improvisation and when it wasn’t. Nobody was just blasting; we were always listening to each other. Perhapse that’s one of the secrets of The Doors, I don’t know. We always knew what everyone else was doing.

JC: Would there ever be times when, with chords underneath, you’d suggest a certain note for Jim to sing here and there?

RK: It was pretty hard to tell Jim what to sing, man. He knew what he wanted to sing. Our job was to make the music fit what he sang- which wasn’t always that easy.

RM: He had a great sense of measure, you know, how many measures to allow to go by before he would come back in singing again. Allowing space for music to be played, for a little line to be played on the guitar or on the keyboard, then he would come back in where he was supposed to come back in.
RK: And on some of the songs that I wrote I would sing it to him and tell him how to sing it. And he would never do it how I told him, but it would always come out better.

JC: That’s nice of you to say

RK: Do you play guitar or what?

JC: Yeah, and I play piano probably as good as Jim Morrison did

RK: How old were you when you heard the Doors?

JC: I was fourteen. My stepdad gave me a tape of The Best of The Doors, back when there were still cassette tapes happening, and that was the first music that I heard where I felt like I could decipher all the intertwining parts clearly. And that’s when I wanted to play music. I read a book about The Doors, and knew every song and all that-I don’t want to bore you with my fandom.

RK: that’s cool

RM: What’s great is that in music each new generation comes along and draws from the past. Robbie was listening to a lot of country blues and I grew up in Chicago so I was influenced by Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reid and John Lee Hooker. I heard the Bo Diddley beat on the radio in Chicago and I thought Holy Christ, what tribe is this? Right here in Chicago playing that incredible beat. That’s all I wanted to do. I heard that and I was hooked.