Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and renowned Doors guitarist Robby Krieger reportedly began his record-breaking career at a very young age, and quite literally. According to his official bio, as a child, his first introduction to music was listening to “Peter and the Wolf” — a record he subsequently sat on and broke.

Coming of age in 1950s Los Angeles, it didn’t take long for Krieger to switch from classical to popular music of the day, like Fats Domino, Elvis, and The Platters.

In an exclusive chat with The Newtown Bee ahead of his April 8 concert at the Ridgefield Playhouse, Krieger said by the time he got turned on to those early rock and roll pioneers, he had advanced from trumpet lessons and self-taught piano to making that fateful, or perhaps inspired, transition to guitar, beginning his now-storied career on a gut string Flamenco model.

A Billboard Magazine feature tracked Krieger’s rise to the current slot he holds in the rock and roll history books:

Studying physics and Indian music at UCLA, Krieger played in bands with friends, and eventually bumped into a drummer he’d met a few years before, John Densmore, the article relates. The two began jamming on blues together, while Krieger’s interest in Indian music and culture continued to flourish, as he began dabbling with sitars (studying at the Kinnara School, which was founded by Ravi Shankar) and attending meditation classes.

It was at one of these meditation classes that Krieger met keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Manzarek eventually convinced Krieger to come down and rehearse with a poet/singer he’d been working with, Jim Morrison.

Their first rehearsal supposedly resulted in the penning of “Moonlight Drive,” and after playing several gigs, Krieger convinced his pal Densmore to join on as well, resulting in the birth of the Doors.

Today, as one of two surviving Doors members, he is heading out on the road celebrating the group’s 50th anniversary by showcasing mostly familiar Doors tunes with his current band featuring his son, Waylon, on guitar and vocals.

In his interview with The Bee — 50 years after that history-making session with Morrison,  Manzarek and Densmore — Krieger talked about The Doors collaborative songwriting process, revealed why he settled on the Gibson SG as his long preferred choice of guitar, discussed the final stages of building an all-analog recording studio at his home, and what the Playhouse audience will be in for during his upcoming Ridgefield show.

Newtown Bee: I want to talk a bit about The Doors, but let’s work our way backwards to that subject by starting off on what you’re doing lately.

Robby Krieger: Well, mainly I’m building a studio out here in Glendale. I’m pretty excited about that — it’s all old school. We’ve got two control rooms and it’s all about analog. We’ve already done a couple of projects out there and we’re looking forward to doing a lot more cool stuff in the future.

Newtown Bee: Has technology arrived at the point where there is a digital means to make analog sound more authentic if it’s being listened to on a digital playing source?

Robby Krieger: I’m pretty saddened by the state of the music business, and a lot of it has to do with the whole digital music revolution. It means basically anybody with a computer can go on it and make music of one kind or another. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there hasn’t really been a great song put out in awhile. My idea is to have people start playing instruments again and to try and get back to real songwriting and playing together instead of one guy doing a drum loop in Indianapolis and another guy doing the guitar part in New York and shipping them around on the Internet and putting it together.

So if you start looking at all the new plug-ins for Protools and other recording technology — they’re all trying to get back to making an analog sound. So why go digital in the first place? At my studios I have all the original machines we used to use to make echo, reverb, and chorus effects, and it sounds real. My theory is digital files are not natural to the human brain — it’s all ones and twos, not waveforms. Your brain is meant to understand that. Digital is just a bad copy, and it’s bad for your brain.

Newtown Bee: How about on the contemporary performance stage? Are there any songs you are currently performing — either your own or less popular Doors numbers — that are getting really great crowd reactions?

Robby Krieger: I have my latest band, called Robby Krieger’s Jam Kitchen — and I’ve got three guys from Frank Zappa’s band. We really like playing together, we like making good music and we just hope the audience appreciates it. There’s some stuff we just recorded that seems to get a great response — there’s some instrumentals, and some with vocals, too. It’s kind of Zappa-esque in a way. If you listen you wouldn’t say it’s Doors, and you wouldn’t say Zappa — it’s a meeting in-between.

Newtown Bee: It’s coincidence that you mention Zappa, who was another one of those rare artists who chose a Gibson SG. There were a lot of other artists going for Fender Starts, and Les Pauls, but what made you settle on the SG?

Robby Krieger: To be honest, for about ten years I was using [Gibson] 355s, but I went back to the SG. So in the beginning, one day I went to see Chuck Berry play. It was my first rock and roll show. And I said, ‘Wow, he’s got that red guitar.’ So I got out of there and went to the hock shop and told the guy, ‘I want one of those Chuck Berry guitars.’ But it was too expensive. But he brought an SG Melody Maker — that was $120, and I loved it. It just seemed to fit me. Over the years that one got stolen, and I just picked up a new one with Humbucker [pickups] — I kind of like that one. In those days, guitars were more like tools, not collectible [instruments] so it was like, you use what you can get and if it sounds good, you keep using it.

Newtown Bee: I saw you a few years ago on the Experience Hendrix Tour. Was it kind of freeing to basically be ordered not to play Doors material for an entire tour?

Robby Krieger: Definitely. I always loved Jimi Hendrix. I had always played a couple of his songs in my solo sets. I mean, what guitar player doesn’t love Hendrix, right?

Newtown Bee: I guess having you, Billy Cox, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, and Mitch Mitchell there were just a smattering of artists who were alive when Jimmy was around?

Robby Krieger: I didn’t know Jimi that well. I only hung out with him a few times. At the time he was just one of the guys — I didn’t look at him as a guitar god at the time, but I’ve since come to know he was. It was different back then. There was no competition for who could play faster or louder. Jimi was one of the greats. There is certain music, like Doors music, which is just fun to play. Jimi’s music was the same way, and that’s why I’m still playing it.

Newtown Bee: Let’s drill deeper into your love of the blues. Were you one of those guys who became exposed to blues through second generation artists’ covers, or did you seek out the original records of folks like Robert Johnson and other originators of the genre?

Robby Krieger: When I was in junior high, I hadn’t really started playing electric guitar. And a lot of my buddies were getting into the blues, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson, and we were attempting to play those songs.

Newtown Bee: Then what was your impression of particularly the British artists, who came over re-interpreting the blues as imported pop music?

Robby Krieger: At first I thought it was kind of a rip-off — taking our boys and using them for their own thing. Then The Animals came out with “House of the Rising Sun,” and I said wow, these guys are studying this stuff, they love it and they’re really good. The Stones did too, with “Little Red Rooster,” and a few others. It was kind of weird at first hearing that material with a British accent trying to sound like a 60-year-old blues singer, but I really appreciated them.

Newtown Bee: Listening to The Doors, and observing how particular especially Manzarek seemed to be, did you ever bring a part of, or an entire song to the band that they ended up refining or changing so drastically that it didn’t really resemble your original idea?

Robby Krieger: Jim especially was really cool that way. He never disliked anything I brought in, or if he did, he didn’t say anything. He always tried to work with it and he always made it better. That’s how a good group works. Each one brings in material and together you make it not only better, but exponentially better.

Newtown Bee: Was one song you wrote together so great that you all thought it would be The Doors defining hit, but the record company and the public didn’t really see it that way?

Robby Krieger: Well obviously “Break on Through,” which was our first single — but we all knew “Light My Fire” was the best song. It was just too long to get it on the radio. So we said what’s the next best? And somehow “Break On Through” made it out as the single, which I didn’t really agree with. I thought “Whiskey Bar” could have been a giant hit, also “20th Century Fox,” and “Roadhouse Blues,” which was never really considered to be a hit record. “Break On Through” I think was our only song that came out as a single that didn’t do too much; I think it got to number 40 on the charts. I can see why, because it’s a great song, it wasn’t really danceable. These last few shows I’m doing with my son Waylon singing. We open the show with “Break On Through.”

Newtown Bee: How did your son come into the picture?

Robby Krieger: I was playing with my son a few years ago in the Robby Krieger Band. We did some Doors stuff mixed with my own jazz-rock material. He was playing guitar with us then, he wasn’t much of a singer. But more recently he’s been interested in acting, doing acting classes and videos. I think that may have brought out the lead singer in him. It was really surprising and he’s doing really good. I think the acting has drawn out the front man in him.

Newtown Bee: There have been about a dozen Doors projects — videos, movies, documentaries, and concert films. Is there one that captures best the spirit of what you were trying to do?

Robby Krieger: I think When You’re Strange, which came out a few years ago. Johnny Depp narrates it and it really captures the spirit of the band pretty good. You know the Oliver Stone movie didn’t capture the dynamic of the group at all — it was really about Jim. It was kind of a stupid movie except for the music — because I was the music director. But as far as showing how the band related to each other, When You’re Strange is a really good documentary.

Newtown Bee: How about philanthropy; are you supporting any interesting causes?

Robby Krieger: For about five years I’ve been helping with a golf tournament and show for the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It’s a really great cause. I do a lot of fundraisers for a lot of other charities as well. Mostly tied to golf tournaments. It’s a nice way to raise money and have some fun while you’re doing it.

Check out Robby and Waylon Krieger and Jam Kitchen on The Door's "Light My Fire"

Robby Krieger's Jam Kitchen performs "The End" in Chicago.

For tickets to the Robby Krieger show April 8 in Ridgefield, visit ridgefieldplayhouse.org.