AUTHOR: JOE BOSSO
PUBLISHED: 23 OCTOBER 2014
AVAILABLE: MusicRadar
"Marrying music and visuals – that really appealed to us"
“People always ask me, ‘If Jim Morrison were live today, what would you be doing now?’ says Doors drummer John Densmore. "And I think we’d be doing films. Jim and Ray were both way into film, so I think we would have moved in that direction, incorporating film with music, maybe even doing soundtracks to big Hollywood movies. I know we would have gone that way had Jim lived.”
In the summer of 1968, The Doors were already making their first foray into film by self-financing a documentary directed by Paul Ferrara called Feast Of Friends. The project was never finished and was ultimately shelved when the financing ran out due to Jim Morrison's legal problems following his arrest for allegedly exposing himself to a concert audience in Miami. Since that time, the film has acquired mythic status among Doors fans, who have for years circulated poor-quality bootlegs on just about every format imaginable.
Forty-six years after it was shot, Feast Of Friends, which offers Doors fans a fascinating, behind-the-scenes cinéma vérité look at the band both off stage and in the studio, is getting a proper release on Blu-ray and DVD thru Eagle Rock Entertainment on November 11. Boasting remastered audio and video, the package also includes a spruced-up version of the 1968 British documentary The Doors Are Open, which focuses on the band's concert at London's Roundhouse theatre. Additionally, the set also features the The End, which captures the band performing their iconic song in Toronto, Canada, in August 1967, as well as interviews with Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, Densmore and longtime Doors manager Danny Sugerman.
The Doors' Feast Of Friends can be pre-ordered at The Doors' official website or on Amazon. In the following interview, Densmore discusses the band's interest in cinema, their subdued backstage routines and what he considers to be the group's finest performance on film.
MusicRadar: What was the idea going in to Feast Of Friends? In one part of the film, Jim calls it a "fictional documentary." Was that a term you guys actually threw around?
John Densmore: I don’t know what Jim meant by that, actually. [Laughs] Ray and Jim went to film school, and we had some friends who were filmmakers – guys like Paul Ferrara. We just thought, "We should document what we’re doing here. It’ll be fun and maybe be good for the future." That was really the thought going into it: "Let’s fool around making films with our friends."
