The Doors Drummer John Densmore Said This Decision Put Him and His Bandmates “Out of Our Singer’s Respect”

The Doors frontman Jim Morrison’s legacy lives on long past his tragic death in 1971, and that legacy hung over the heads of his surviving bandmates, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and (until 2013) Ray Manzarek, in the decades that followed. In a world that looked entirely different from when the Doors were first rising to stardom, Densmore and Krieger found themselves asking, ‘What would Jim do?’

Then, they do that. Manzarek had his own ideas of what the Doors, not their late frontman, should do. And that, Densmore argued in a fairly scathing article in The Nation in 2002, is what put him and his colleagues “out of our singer’s respect.”

Doors Drummer John Densmore On The Concept Of “Selling Out”

To sell out or not to sell out is seemingly the ultimate crux of every massive superstar, and The Doors drummer John Densmore has planted himself firmly in the latter camp whenever possible. In his 2002 article for The Nation, he argued that the band’s iconic frontman, Jim Morrison, didn’t make his art for its commercial value. Thus, selling those songs to major corporations for advertisement would go against his wishes.

“It all started in 1967 when Buick proffered $75,000 to use “Light My Fire” to hawk its new hot little offering—the Opel,” Densmore wrote. “Ray, Robby, and John (that’s me) OK’d it while Jim was out of town. He came back and went nuts. In retrospect, his calling up Buick and saying that if they aired the ad, he’d smash an Opel on television with a sledgehammer was fantastic! I guess that’s one of the reasons I miss the guy.”

From cars to computers to cigarettes and plenty else in between, Densmore made a point to turn down every offer to use a Doors track for an advertisement. Krieger often followed suit. Manzarek would argue, “Jim’s dead!” Densmore recalled. “That,” he wrote in his piece, “is precisely why we should resist. I am now adamant that three commercials, and we’re out of our singer’s respect.”

The Musician Called Out Fellow Rockstars (And Gave His Reasons, Too)

The Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek was not the only target of drummer John Densmore’s biting 2002 piece-slash-rant. Densmore also took time to call out his fellow rockstars: “Pete Townshend keeps fooling us again, selling Who songs to yuppies hungry for SUVs. I hope Sting has given those Shaman chiefs he hangs out with from the rainforest a ride in the back of that Jag he’s advertising.”

To Densmore, the decision not to license Doors songs for corporate financial gain is more than just honoring the legacy of their late frontman. He recalled a moment where Krieger summarized their beliefs to Manzarek. “Many kids have said to me that “Light My Fire,” for example, was playing when they first made love or were fighting in Nam or got high—pivotal moments in their lives. When I heard from one fan that our songs saved him from committing suicide, I realized, that’s it. We can’t sell off these songs.”

Denmore’s hard stance against “selling out” has caused the surviving Doors members to miss out on millions of dollars, but he doesn’t seem concerned. “I’ve had people say kids died in Vietnam listening to this music,” he once argued. “On stage, when we played these songs, they felt mysterious and magic. That’s not for rent.”

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