Skrillex Is Making Music With Members Of The Doors! We Speak With Him And Robby Krieger About It

Brian Nevins

Skrillex (center) with Ray Manzarek (l) and Robby Krieger (r)

Skrillex's earliest musical memories revolve around The Doors. The groundbreaking electronic artist -- who appears on our cover next week -- says that the first song he remembers hearing is "Riders on the Storm." The first movie he can remember, meanwhile, is Oliver Stone's The Doors."I remember walking in on my parents watching it and seeing naked chicks running through the hallways," he says.

Now the 23-year-old producer and DJ is working with surviving members of the legendary L.A. rock band on a new track -- their first since An American Prayer was released in 1978. Tentatively called "Breakin' a Sweat," the song is part of something called Re:Generation, an innovative music documentary project directed by Amir Bar Lev (The Pat Tillman Story) and produced in connection with the Grammys.

Re:Generation takes top tier DJs and puts them in the studio with groups from different genres. Pretty Lights will shake up country music with Dr. Ralph Stanley and LeAnn Rimes. The Crystal Method is tackling R&B with Martha Reeves of the Vandellas and the Funk Brothers. Skrillex's collaboration with Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore of The Doors will represent the rock portion of the project.

Guitarist Krieger says that he hadn't heard of Skrillex before the project, but the teenage children of his friends quickly clued him in, telling him that Skrillex is "the best."

So far, the collaborators have had one session together. Krieger recalls walking into The Village recording studio in Los Angeles with Manzarek and seeing Skrillex "pulling up all these beats and sounds" on his computer.

"He seemed like a mad scientist," says Krieger, "but younger than most mad scientists."