Post by Admin on Jun 28, 2022 11:55:07 GMT -5
1970
RY: Robert, you have been described as the most important new sex symbol in pop since Morrison. Does this really get to you? Or do you take it lightheartedly?
RP: Yeah, well, don’t you think it’s the end of your life once you take it seriously, that sex symbol thing. If any musician goes on stage feeling that; I mean, you can take in all that applause at face value and it can turn you into a bad person, really it can.
Terrible Harm
All this sort of popularity can do you terrible harm and I really thought that it would do once we started getting off. I thought, “God. If this keeps going what the hell will happen to me?”
You can go right off your rocker and you can start to think—“Here I am and I’m the greatest singer in the world” and all that. But it’s not worth doing that because there’s always someone who can come along and will sing better than me and I fully realize that, so all you can be is honest and be yourself.
If there’s some nights when I don’t want to say anything to the audience then I don’t. But I don’t make it noticeable.
I don’t really know how people think about sex symbols. If they can see your pelvis then that must make you a sex symbol … because I’m the only one of us that doesn’t have a guitar or drums in the way of mine. I suppose I started with a bit more chance than anybody else in the band.
You can’t take it seriously simply because you read all these things about it. You just get into your music and the sexual bit isn’t an apparent thing. It’s not what we’re there for.
RY: Your stage act seems to be going through some changes as compared with the first couple of tours.
RP: Yeah. I think that what we’re doing now is what each one of us wants to do. I think people expect us to be a lot more arrogant than we are. A lot of people say “Yeah well they’re alright but what about all that laughing and jumping around they do.”
There seems to be a label that goes with music that’s intense. People are expected to stand there looking as though they’re out of their minds. If ever I was to go out of my mind, I’m sure I wouldn’t just stand there like that—so it’s like a big play act and we mustn’t play act otherwise we’ll run away with ourselves like Jim Morrison did.
RY: Do you think Morrison takes himself too seriously?
RP: Oh yeah. We only played with the Doors once in Seattle and it seemed like he was screwed up. He was giving the impression he was into really deep things like Skip Spence of Moby Grape. You can get into a trip of your own that you don’t really realise what’s going on in the outside world.
Morrison went on stage and said “F—you all” which didn’t really do anything except make a few girls scream. Then he hung on the side of the stage and nearly toppled into the audience and did all those things that I suppose were originally sexual things but as he got fatter and dirtier and more screwed up, they became bizarre.
RY: Robert, you have been described as the most important new sex symbol in pop since Morrison. Does this really get to you? Or do you take it lightheartedly?
RP: Yeah, well, don’t you think it’s the end of your life once you take it seriously, that sex symbol thing. If any musician goes on stage feeling that; I mean, you can take in all that applause at face value and it can turn you into a bad person, really it can.
Terrible Harm
All this sort of popularity can do you terrible harm and I really thought that it would do once we started getting off. I thought, “God. If this keeps going what the hell will happen to me?”
You can go right off your rocker and you can start to think—“Here I am and I’m the greatest singer in the world” and all that. But it’s not worth doing that because there’s always someone who can come along and will sing better than me and I fully realize that, so all you can be is honest and be yourself.
If there’s some nights when I don’t want to say anything to the audience then I don’t. But I don’t make it noticeable.
I don’t really know how people think about sex symbols. If they can see your pelvis then that must make you a sex symbol … because I’m the only one of us that doesn’t have a guitar or drums in the way of mine. I suppose I started with a bit more chance than anybody else in the band.
You can’t take it seriously simply because you read all these things about it. You just get into your music and the sexual bit isn’t an apparent thing. It’s not what we’re there for.
RY: Your stage act seems to be going through some changes as compared with the first couple of tours.
RP: Yeah. I think that what we’re doing now is what each one of us wants to do. I think people expect us to be a lot more arrogant than we are. A lot of people say “Yeah well they’re alright but what about all that laughing and jumping around they do.”
There seems to be a label that goes with music that’s intense. People are expected to stand there looking as though they’re out of their minds. If ever I was to go out of my mind, I’m sure I wouldn’t just stand there like that—so it’s like a big play act and we mustn’t play act otherwise we’ll run away with ourselves like Jim Morrison did.
RY: Do you think Morrison takes himself too seriously?
RP: Oh yeah. We only played with the Doors once in Seattle and it seemed like he was screwed up. He was giving the impression he was into really deep things like Skip Spence of Moby Grape. You can get into a trip of your own that you don’t really realise what’s going on in the outside world.
Morrison went on stage and said “F—you all” which didn’t really do anything except make a few girls scream. Then he hung on the side of the stage and nearly toppled into the audience and did all those things that I suppose were originally sexual things but as he got fatter and dirtier and more screwed up, they became bizarre.