When I first started playing guitar, everyone was playing Chuck Berry and B.B. King licks. I decided I was going to find other avenues of expression.

The fact that we represented freedom, you know. We talked about that in the songs and I think that the parents, like all parents, they want their kids to be in line and not go crazy or do anything too weird (laughs). And for some reason, I think, people identified The Doors as representing just being able to do whatever you wanted to do.

We were all kind of freaked out recording the first album because we didn't know what it would be like.

All the songs on the first album were like skeletons of how we really played them. It was just a combination of not having any studio experience and having to do everything so fast. I also think that studios are, by nature, limiting. You cannot get the sound of five big amplifiers on a little piece of tape.

The chords in 'Light My Fire' are based on [John] Coltrane's version of this song. He just solos over A minor and B minor, which is exactly what we did. Coltrane had played with Miles on Kind of Blue and took the idea of modal soloing over one or two chords farther out than anybody. He was a real pioneer - he just kept evolving, going where no one had ever gone. He could always attain this state of ecstasy when he played. Live, there was so much energy, you couldn't believe it. He would play for hours. It was indescribable.

I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.

When I first started playing guitar, everyone was playing Chuck Berry and B.B. King licks. I decided I was going to find other avenues of expression.