Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar With the Doors

by Robby Krieger, Jeff Alulis (With)

Overview

In his tell-all, legendary Doors guitarist, Robby Krieger, one of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time," opens up about his band's meteoric career, his own darkest moments, and the most famous black eye in rock 'n' roll.

​Few bands are as shrouded in the murky haze of rock mythology as The Doors, and parsing fact from fiction has been a virtually impossible task. But now, after fifty years, The Doors' notoriously quiet guitarist is finally breaking his silence to set the record straight.

Through a series of vignettes, Robby Krieger takes readers back to where it all happened: the pawn shop where he bought his first guitar; the jail cell he was tossed into after a teenage drug bust; his parents' living room where his first songwriting sessions with Jim Morrison took place; the empty bars and backyard parties where The Doors played their first awkward gigs; the studios where their iconic songs were recorded; and the many concert venues that erupted into historic riots. Set the Night on Fire is packed with never-before-told stories from The Doors' most vital years, and offers a fresh perspective on the most infamous moments of the band's career.

Krieger also goes into heartbreaking detail about his life's most difficult struggles, ranging from drug addiction to cancer, but he balances out the sorrow with humorous anecdotes about run-ins with unstable fans, famous musicians, and one really angry monk.  Set the Night on Fire is at once an insightful time capsule of the '60s counterculture, a moving reflection on what it means to find oneself as a musician, and a touching tale of a life lived non-traditionally. It's not only a must-read for Doors fans, but an essential volume of American pop culture history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316243544
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	10/12/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	489,633
File size:	48 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Robby Krieger is the guitarist for the legendary rock band The Doors and the songwriter behind some of the band’s biggest hits, including “Love Me Two Times,” “Touch Me,” “Love Her Madly,” and their #1 smash, “Light My Fire.” The Doors have sold over a hundred million albums worldwide, inspired a major feature film, been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy®, and been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Robby, meanwhile, has also become a Grammy®-nominated solo artist, and was listed among the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” by Rolling Stone. He is also an accomplished painter and the co-founder of the annual Medlock-Krieger Rock & Roll Golf Classic & All-Star Concert.
Jeff Alulis is the co-author of the New York Times best-seller NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories. He holds an MFA from USC’s Graduate Screenwriting Program, he has directed several award-winning music-based documentaries, and he has toured as the vocalist for seminal punk bands Dead Kennedys and Reagan Youth. Aside from writing, film, and music he is an avid traveler, and he documents his journeys at TrueAdventureStories.com.
 

Table of Contents

The Henry Hudson Hotel 3

The Worst Hair in Rock 'n' Roll 7

Beware the Stare That Threatens All Mankind 13

Wicked Go the Doors 23

Send My Credentials to the House of Detention 29

The Living Room 35

The Riot Concert 41

Guitarras Ramírez 47

Three Words 55

Between Clark and Hilldale 63

Unknown Soldiers 73

A Quest for Enlightenment: Part I 81

Ronny 89

A Quest for Enlightenment: Part II 93

Eleven Minutes, Forty-One Seconds 99

Pain Is Something to Carry, Like a Radio 107

The First Album 111

Me and Willie 117

Love Street 119

1967 127

Let's Feed Ice Cream to the Rats 137

The Teenage Awards Music International Show 143

Strange Days 147

Lynn 153

Lifetime Achievement 163

Pam 169

A Really Big Shoe 173

Carry Me, Caravan, Take Me Away 179

Feast of the Resurrection 183

Waiting for the Sun 189

Ship of Fools 197

Time to Aim Your Arrows at the Sun 203

Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your Hands upon the Wheel 213

The Incident 217

The 27 Club 223

Chasing the Dragon 227

Waylon 243

The Soft Parade 251

The Black Eye 259

The Wings of Madness 267

The Trial 271

One Froggy Evening 277

Enough to Base a Movie On 285

Morrison Hotel 295

Blue Jacarandas 303

Immoral in Nature 309

The New Creatures 315

The Other Trial 323

L.A. Woman 341

In Tribute 351

Other Voices and Full Circle 355

The King 363

This Is the End 365

The Greatest Par Three Hole in America 371

An American Prayer 379

Occupation: Musician, Organist 385

Nirvana 391

Acknowledgments 399

Photo Credits 405

Index 407

Editorial Reviews

07/26/2021

Doors guitarist Krieger riffs melodiously through the discordant and harmonious measures of his life and times with the band in this galloping, episodic debut. He starts with his 1950s youth “in perpetually sunny Southern California,” where he discovered guitar and an abiding love of music. After laying eyes on Chuck Berry’s Gibson ES-335 at a show in 1965, Krieger swapped his acoustic guitar for a Gibson SG Special. In college, he reconnected with his old friend, John Densmore, who was playing drums with the Doors and invited Krieger to audition. While every year in the Doors was a strange one, he writes, 1967 set a whole new bar as the band went from “touring in a van as unproven unknowns... to headlining gigs as number one artists.” Krieger chronicles the notorious ups and downs of the band and its lead singer, Jim Morrison, whose antics onstage and off attracted zealous fans and police looking to make a bust. He also sets the record straight about discrepancies in Oliver Stone’s 1991 film The Doors—for one, “the Doors never did peyote in the desert.” His most insightful moments come in his reflections on songwriting, “a constant reminder that music is infinite.” Krieger’s engrossing stories are sure to be relished by fans. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Set the Night on Fire is always warm, often funny, and frequently revelatory…an intimate and honest look inside one of the most compelling outfits in music. It towers above the piles of other Doors documents as a powerful reminder that the truth can be more fascinating than the myth.” —People

“Doors guitarist Krieger riffs melodiously through the discordant and harmonious measures of his life and times with the band in this galloping, episodic debut.” —Publishers Weekly

“Krieger [is] just as compelling as a writer as he is with his vast carousel of Gibsons…But besides the treasure trove of new Doors anecdotes in his memoir, the guitarist and singer-songwriter candidly reveals many other personal stories about “living and dying.”—Vulture

“Set the Night on Fire is the best memoir by a band member of one of the era’s most unique—and mythologized—groups.”—Houston Press

"Krieger relays untold anecdotes and he's ribaldly funny...Everyone remotely connected to the Doors has written reminiscences of the Lizard Kingdom, but this is one of the very best."—MOJO

From the Publisher

10/08/2021

It's hard to fathom there could be anything new to discuss about the much-documented band the Doors, but this memoir by the group's guitarist/singer/songwriter Krieger puts a deeply personal and moving spin on life as a rock star. Some might assume that Krieger, having grown up in relative wealth, had nothing to rebel against, but in fact he found ways to push boundaries at a young age—particularly by shunning education and immersing himself in music, beginning with folk and jug bands. Influenced by Chuck Berry, he discovered electric guitars and found his future bandmembers, including the introverted Jim Morrison. Krieger discusses the creation of the Doors' iconic songs, including his "Light My Fire," which transformed the Doors from an unknown group to the most in-demand band in the United States. He attempts to lay to rest some of the rumors about the band that have been perpetuated in Oliver Stone's film The Doors, Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman's No One Here Gets Out Alive: The Biography of Jim Morrison, and his own bandmates' memoirs. Krieger casts himself as the peacemaker with no hidden agenda and writes openly about his own drug addiction, his twin brother's mental decline, and the difficulty of life without Morrison. VERDICT Krieger brings another perspective to the mythology of the Doors; music aficionados will devour his intimate memoir.—Lisa Henry, Kirkwood P.L., MO

Library Journal

2021-08-17
The Doors guitarist reminisces about music and life in the fast lane.

Krieger’s story of fragmented “moments” and “sensations” reads like it was dictated into a tape recorder. Regardless, rock fans will be looking for substance rather than style, and the author provides enough. A Southern California kid, he writes about dealing with poor eyesight, vandalism, and drugs. Then, bang, he supposes he should recount the “infamous” 1967 New Haven concert when a drunk, raucous Jim Morrison was arrested on stage, a “moment of double-edged mythmaking that affected everything from then on.” Then, abruptly, Krieger moves on with his life story. Trading his acoustic guitar for an electric “was a major turning point in my life.” When he first met the itinerant Morrison, a “shaky-voiced, corduroy-clad introvert,” Krieger was unimpressed. John Densmore said they were starting a band; they had a deal with Columbia Records (which fell through) and a few songs. They worked for months on “Light My Fire,” their first hit and by far the most lucrative. For “Love Me Two Times,” Krieger contributed words and music, which he borrowed from a John Koerner song. Morrison welcomed the collaboration, and early shows at the “always-packed, scene-making” Whiskey a Go Go gave the band a chance to jell and for Morrison to transform his shyness into a “complete, unflinching honesty.” Signing with Elektra in 1966 was their first step to success. Krieger capsulizes their first two albums as “fun and fast” and “experimental and exciting.” Waiting for the Sunwas a “chore,” andThe Soft Parade was recorded when Morrison’s “drinking was at its peak.” Throughout, the author chronicles Morrison’s alcoholism and drug problems. In 1971, L.A. Woman“showed that we still had something to offer.” Musicians will enjoy reading about Krieger’s composing process and will likely be unsurprised that he calls Oliver Stone’s Doors film “laughable as a historical artifact.”

Krieger’s dry, chatty, wistful memoir will appeal primarily to Doors’ aficionados.

Kirkus Reviews