He started taking classes there in January of 1964, and finished in May of 1965. During the summer that followed, Jim spent most of his time writing songs in Venice, the alternative section of Los Angeles. That was the beginning of his ambition to become a rock star. (8-12) .
Jim took all the songs he had written that summer, and joined forces with a fellow cinematography student, Ray Manzarek, who played keyboards in a band with his brothers Jim and Rick Manzarek, called Rick and the Ravens. Morrison moved in with Ray and his girlfriend, in their apartment in Ocean Park, as their band started to get together. (15).
Their need for a drummer was filled when Ray suggested a percussionist from his transcendental meditation class, John Densmore, who had been playing drums from the age of 12. Densmore had dropped out of San Fernando State to pursue is dreams of becoming a musician. His jazz obsessed and "stream-of-conciousness" style was a perfect fit for the music Jim and Ray wanted to create. (17) .
Then Ray's brothers quit, something he warned them against, saying that "the band was going to be big." How right he was. But the void was quickly filled by another member of Ray's meditation class: the shy, electric guitar playing Robby Krieger, formerly of the Psychedelic Rangers. His blues techniques, intermingled with both folk and flamenco styles completely blew the rest of the band away. The Doors were now complete. (18).
The name The Doors was chosen by Jim. He wanted the band to represent the "doors between the known and the unknown," a belief he derived from the Aldous Huxley book about drugs, called The Doors of Perception, which had taken its title from William Blake, who once said, "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." (13).
At the start of their career, The Doors played many clubs on the Sunset Strip, which gained them a large underground following.
