In the aftermath of Jim Morrisonโs death in 1971, the surviving members of the Doors tried all sorts of ways to carry on. They initially attempted to soldier forward as a trio with keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger sharing lead vocals, but they gave that up after just two underwhelming albums. In 2002, Krieger and Manzarek rebooted the band (minus drummer John Densmore and plus singer Ian Astbury) as the Doors of the 21st Century. That project petered out, too, due to a nasty legal battle with Densmore over the use of the Doors name, and Astburyโs commitments to his main band, the Cult....
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In the aftermath of Jim Morrisonโs death in 1971, the surviving members of the Doors tried all sorts of ways to carry on. They initially attempted to soldier forward as a trio with keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger sharing lead vocals, but they gave that up after just two underwhelming albums. In 2002, Krieger and Manzarek rebooted the band (minus drummer John Densmore and plus singer Ian Astbury) as the Doors of the 21st Century. That project petered out, too, due to a nasty legal battle with Densmore over the use of the Doors name, and Astburyโs commitments to his main band, the Cult.
Fuelโs Brett Scallions and Steelheartโs Miljenko Matijevic both had brief runs fronting the band after Astbury left, but Krieger and Manzarek didnโt settle on a winning formula until 2010, when they brought in Dave Brock, lead singer of the long-running Doors tribute band Wild Child. โWeโve always been kind of afraid to ask him to play with us, because people say, โOh, youโre using a tribute singer. Now youโre your own tribute band,'โ Krieger told Billboard in 2011.
โBut then Journey got a karaoke singer [Arnel Pineda] and everyone loved it,โ he continued. โWe said, โIf they can do that, we can use David.โโฆ. When people come to see Ray and I, they want to see us do the Doors music as it should be done, so why not use a guy who really is an expert? He knows the songs better than we do, really.โ
Brock grew up in San Francisco and loved groups like Steppenwolf, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, and Led Zeppelin as a kid. His first concert was Sammy Hagar, and he followed it up with 1978โs Day on the Green featuring AC/DC, Van Halen, Foreigner, and Aerosmith. But a career in music wasnโt much of a thought when he finished high school and enrolled at Long Beach State.
โOne of my motherโs last wishes was that I follow business administration,โ Brock tells Rolling Stone on the phone from his home in Huntington Beach, California. โShe passed away when I was just out of high school. I majored in marketing. I gotta say, it probably did me some good in the career that Iโm in.โ
During his time at school, he heard a commercial on the radio that Gazzarriโs on the Sunset Strip was going to stage a rock opera dedicated to the life of Jim Morrison.
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