The Doors Look Back At LA Woman

Keavin Wiggins | 12-05-2021

Rock Classics Radio episode promo courtesy BB Gun

The Doors' Robby Krieger and John Densmore recent spoke to Jenn on Rock Classics Radio on Apple Music Hits about their classic album "LA Woman" and special 50th Anniversary Deluxe reissue of the record. We were sent some excerpts of the chat.

Robbie Krieger said the energy within the band as they went in to make the album, "Well, it was, uh, it was kinda cool because, uh, it ended up that we, we were producing ourselves, uh, with Bruce Botnick who was our engineer and our, our normal producer, Paul Rothchild couldn't do it. So, uh, we, we decided to just, uh, let's just record it at our little studio that we had on Santa Monica Boulevard. And you didn't have pro tools or digital, anything back then, you know, so we had to do it for real, you know, turning the tape recorder on and that's what you get."

John Densmore said, "Bruce was our long time engineer sorta like the fifth Door. He brought in a remote portable equipment and he was right... we were so relaxed there. That's where we wrote songs. Then it would be a good place to do it. And it, you know, we did it in a couple of weeks. It's great. Maybe, maybe because we went through our Sgt. Pepper phase with a soft parade and horns and strings and the big production we got back to the blues, which was what we did in the garage where we started. And, uh, that kinda got back to our essence. Maybe it was the first punk album."

Densmore also spoke about the origins of the rain and thunder sounds on "Riders on the Storm" and the process of mixing the album. He said, "The process goes that after recording, you've got to mix everything. And, uh, that's when Jim went to Paris and the three of us loved mixing, you know, because that's like putting the final ingredients together forever in cement. And so you got to get real meticulous about that. And that's where, I don't know somebody got the idea to put rain and thunder on 'Riders on the Storm'... And that was real fun. Like playing God." Check out the full interview here.