Gary James' Interview With The Author Of The Doors Book Wonderland Avenue
Danny Sugarman



Danny Sugerman saw his first Rock concert at the age of 12. That concert featured The Doors. Fascinated by The Doors' lead singer, Jim Morrison, Danny's obsession with the group and their music led him to a job in their office. He handled their fan mail and organized the group's press scrapbook. Danny has written what has to be the most detailed account yet of life with The Doors. And more than that, it's Danny Sugerman's story, his ups, his downs, his triumphs, his tragedies. Titled Wonderland Avenue, this is the closest look at the inner workings of Rock that we've seen in a long time.

Q - You've written a great book, Danny. It's very hard to put Wonderland Avenue down once you start reading it.

A - That's just wonderful for me to hear. I don't think you have any idea of what that means to me. I worked on this book incredibly hard. It's the book I wanted to do before No One Here Gets Out Alive, but was too strung out to do, had no objectivity and was in no position to outline my life at that point. (Laughs). Jim's I could do. Mine, I didn't even want to look at. This book is my bid to be taken seriously as a writer, and to do books that don't relate to Jim Morrison. Now isn't that a novel idea?

Q - Your account of drug use is so graphic that it's hard to imagine how anyone would go near the stuff after reading your book. Yet, in a recent magazine interview, Axl Rose of Guns 'n Roses comes as close to anybody in endorsing and glamorizing drug use. He said, "My advice is not to get a habit. Do things in moderation and be careful. I learned what's safe and what's not, how to get it, how to do it properly. I did heroin for three weeks straight and had one of the greatest times in my life." Danny, what do you make of this?

A - This guy has no sense that he's a role model. I gotta say this, if Axl Rose can do that, good for him. I think he should keep his comments to himself. It was important to me to write about the honeymoon period, the tolerance building, the bottoming out, the trying to quit, the going back, and the hell it becomes. I wanted to write about the whole process of drug use. Axl probably has to do another $2 1/2 million worth of drugs before he bottoms out. He's still at the point obviously where he thinks he can control this, which obviously I did for the first year and a half. I kept saying, "Hey, no problem." The only problem is if I can't get it. I took the same attitude he did. I know exactly where he's at. Give him another two or three years and see if his tune doesn't change. I predict it will, if he lives long enough.

Q - You're on the road these days to promote Wonderland Avenue, but how do you support yourself the rest of the time?

A - I manage The Doors, plus Ray Manzarek's solo career. Ray's very, very active producing. Their band is making movies. The Doors have a very lucrative catalog, compact discs have given us a third life. I worked with The Doors and made the deals and was involved in the production of Dance On Fire and Live At The Hollywood Bowl, both Platinum award-winning videos. I've just produced a new video, The Doors In Europe, aired on Cinemax, and in the Fall coming out on HBO Home Video. That, in combination with a six-hour radio show on The Doors shot sales up 500% for the Christmas season. And we have a Doors box set coming up this Christmas, with an "American Prayer" as well as the live material on CD for the first time, as well as the sixth studio album and a CD containing some never-before-released material.

Q - How were you able to recall all of the conversations in such detail? Did you keep a diary?

A - I made a lot of notes. When a lot of this stuff was going down, I was writing about it. I knew someday I hoped to use them in a book. If you were to ask me to tell you everything Jim Morrison told me, in order, word for word, I couldn't have done it. Sitting down at the typewriter, getting his character to live on paper, once he was alive in this story, he spoke. I could see him, I could hear him. I knew what he would say and I knew what he did say. Once the spirit of him was alive, the words just came. I learned more about my mind in the creative process in the writing of this book. I really feel like a writer now. I know to trust the process, and when I'm inspired to write.

Q -You're having a conversation with Jim, and he says, "I might not ever come back from Paris, and you gotta be prepared for that man." He later says, "Well listen, there's probably nothing to worry about. I'm just going on vacation and everything will be fine." It almost sounds like he's setting you up in one instance, and putting you on the next.

A - I'm aware of that discrepancy and I left it in on purpose. That was Jim. Jim was an incredibly complex individual. On one hand he bought the myth, the live fast, die young ethic. He believed that. And he didn't see it as being a Rock 'n' Roll cliche. Jim invented, and by dying defined that cliche. When Jim was doing it, it was in the tradition of Hemingway, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Rimbaud, and their drinking relationship. It wasn't in the tradition of Keith Richards and Jim Morrison. It wasn't a '70s Rock cliche when Jim was on his way to Paris. He was making it up as he went along. Knowing Jim, it makes perfect sense.

Q - You quote DJ B. Mitchell Reid or BMK as he was known, announcing Morrison's death on July 4, 1971. That cannot be right, since news of his death was not released until six days after he died, or July 9, at least according to U.P.I. reports.

A - You caught that. Good for you. You're right. They announced it three days later. What it was, was I got it four days later on the radio. I ran to the office and Bill (Siddons - Doors' road manager) had just gotten back from Paris. That was one of the things that didn't get caught in the galleys. I had a little tension with the publisher on correcting the galleys. When I was three-quarters full, they said, "No more changes." Unfortunately, that was one of the things that didn't get in.

Q - There's this mystery that surrounds Jim's death. In an interview I did with John Densmore (Doors' drummer) he assumes Jim is dead because he saw him bloat up at the end of his life. Just because someone bloats up doesn't mean they're going to die.

A - It was obvious that Jim was doing incredible damage to his body. My intention with No One Here Gets Out Alive, consciously at least, was not to have people conclude that you can live like Jim Morrison and then stage your own death, run away and hide, and collect royalties for the rest of your life. The book was called No One Here Gets Out Alive. I really didn't think people would conclude Jim was alive. I didn't make up that rumor as I've been accused. All I was doing was reporting.

Q - The amazing revelation in this book is when Jim's girlfriend Pam (Courson) admits that she gave him the heroin that led to this death. But then you state, "With Pamela, reality and fiction were blurring with a rapidly developing consistency." So how do we know if what Pam told you is true?

A - She was so devastated and felt so guilty about it. At the same time, it was a hell of an admission. Pamela had gotten extremely spacey lately. When she told me that, her behavior made sense, I don't think she'd say something that wasn't true. At the same time I thought it was important for me to hedge that little bit. It would've been remiss of me not to point that out. I mean, Pamela spoke about Jim in the present tense too, "My old man, he'd be so happy we were together!" Like he wasn't dead at all. That's what I meant when I said fiction and reality were blurring.

Q - Isn't it true that Pamela Courson was not Jim Morrison's wife, but his live-in girlfriend, his common law wife?

A - Right, but his will said I leave everything to my wife Pamela. It was one line and that's what it said. Jim was not someone who gave a lot of credibility to society's rules and regulations.

Q -Jim left behind a mother, a father, brother, and sister. When Jim dies, Pam gets the royalties. When she dies, Pam's father gets the royalties. Where's Jim's family when all of his is going on?

A - Good question. Here's what happened. They dug out a receipt of Jim and Pam spending a night together in a hotel in Nevada as Mr. and Mrs. Morrison. The judge said this is the only evidence and the judge was about to decide on it when the Morrisons threatened to sue to get control of the will. The Morrisons and Coursons got together amongst themselves and decided to split everything, four ways. Probably because Jim's father had enough guilt about it. Jim wrote to his father and said, "I can't get a job with this diploma. I'm starting a Rock 'n' Roll band." And his father said, "After I paid for four years of college education. Never write me again." Now his father is suddenly making a very good living off his son's music. His father absolved himself of some of the guilt by splitting it with the Coursons, who were trying to justify their daughter's death by proving she wasn't some while trash groupie. She married a dignified poet. So that's how I interpret the psychological dynamics and ramifications of that event.

Q - You say that Jim Morrison never found what he was looking for. Yet, in an interview he gave Sally Stevenson, he was asked if he would have done anything different, and he replied, "I think I would have gone more for the quiet, an undemonstrative little artist plodding away in his own garden trip." So maybe he did find what he was looking for.

A - Well no, 'cause he also told Sally in the same interview that he hoped to live till 120 and die in bed. And he told Ray (Manzarek) he wanted to be like a shooting star, now you see him, now you don't. He told me he was like a cat with nine lives. He told Malcolm Forbes that when death came, he wanted to experience it. He didn't want to go in a car crash or O.D. So, Jim talked a lot about death, and gave many different answers at many different times. He was a very complex, contradictory, unpredictable man.

Q -I picked up on a comment Dr. Pullman made to you; "You picked a crazy hero." How crazy could Jim Morrison have been? He did work. He toured. He wrote. He rehearsed. He recorded.

A - If Jim had a reputation for anything besides being loaded, it was being crazy. He was so uncontrollable onstage, he got a whole tour canceled because of his drunken behavior. They could go out for weekend shows, but if they went out for longer, Morrison would get tired. He would stay up and keep on going all night with the hangers-on and groupies. Jim Morrison was real. What you saw was what you got. This guy did not put leather pants on in the dressing room to go onstage like Billy Idol or Jon Bon Jovi. This guy wore his leather pants twenty-four hours a day, and all that represents, and all the baggage that went with those leather pants. Jim Morrison walked it like he talked it. He was crazy. Had Jim not had the power of being a Rock star in the 1960s, he would've been thrown in an asylum.

Q - Who were the friends that attended services for Jim?

A - Herve Muller, Alan Roney, Agnes Varda, Bill Siddons. Now, here's a strange one, Marianne Faithfull.

Q - Why didn't Bill ask to see Jim's body?

A - Because Bill had his father die when he was at a young, impressionable age, I think 13, 14. It was an open casket. It was evidently a very shattering experience for him. It simply did not occur to him to ask for Jim's casket to be opened. He believes because of the horror he had experienced with his father, and of course, Jim was a father figure to Bill, too. So, that's what Bill believes. I give that 50% credence. I think the other 50% is Bill just isn't a very smart human being. He's a lovely, charming man, and he's sharp as a whip, but he's not that smart.

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