Celebrating 60 years since their formation, THE DOORS unveil Night Divides The Day, a whopping 344-page slab of text and photographs, many unseen, reflecting every stage of their career. Affording MOJO a sneak peek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger offer their thoughts. “We want people to feel how it really was,” they tell DANNY ECCLESTON.

Photograph by BILL HARVEY

Bill Harvey

THE WEST IS THE BEST

From left: Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, John Densmore at the beach house, Venice, 1966

ROBBY KRIEGER: “Somehow, Ray talked us all into paying for this beach house where he and his wife Dorothy lived, and that was really where we started rehearsing. Jim especially didn’t appreciate that deal too much. One time Jim and I took some acid, and we brought these two girls over there in the middle of the night, just to get back at Ray.”

JOHN DENSMORE: “The rent thing used to annoy the shit out of me. But from there, we could see planes taking off at LAX. And I’d never been on a plane. I thought, God, someday, maybe, we’ll go see the world and play music.”

George Rodriguez, David Dutkowski (2), Jam Inc: Nettie Pena

DOUBLE MORRISON!

The Doors and Them, Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles, June 1966

JD: “When we were the house band at the Whisky we would play Gloria, so when they played the club we took it out of our set out of respect. Them were our idols.”

RK: “We played a few shows with Them and the last night we talked Van into letting us come on so there were two bands on-stage playing Gloria. That night, after the show, we had a party at somebody’s house near the club. Van had brought his guitar, and he just started singing Brown Eyed Girl. We’d never heard it. Nobody had ever heard it.”

THE RENOWNED CONDUCTOR GUSTAVO Dudamel, currently of the Los Angeles Philharmonic but slated in 2026 to take over the New York Philharmonic, has some pretty extraordinary things to say about The Doors.

“The Doors,” he writes in an endpiece for new book, Night Divides The Day, “will go on to become the Mozart, Beethoven and Stravinsky of their time.”

Doors drummer John Densmore, notoriously chary of hyperbole (especially if uttered by late, loquacious Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek), was understandably blown away by this. “It filled my skull full of helium,” he admits, still reeling slightly. “I mean, wow.”