Babe Hill, Tony Funches and Jim Morrison (photographer unknown)

From the height of the Doors fame to their last outdoor concert, the Isle of Wight, Tony Funches was there. Much more than Jim Morrison’s bodyguard, he was also a friend, partner in crime, and all-round fixer of problems.

Tony is exactly the type of person you want for such a position. His imposing 6'5 height let’s you know he won’t take any crap. But it’s his surprisingly smooth Barry White baritone in contrast that conveys a gentle intelligence and trustworthy nature. To talk to him for a few minutes feels like you’ve known him forever and in the many years I’ve known him he has become a very good friend.

The kind of rough and tumble rock and roll lifestyle people associate with Jim Morrison, Tony lived and continues to live! Currently residing in Colorado, he has started several businesses, worked as an aircraft mechanic, gained a daughter and son and lost several ex-wives since leaving the music world.

He remembers the Doors family as ‘genuinely good people’ and looks back on this time fondly and luckily for us, in detail. Although Tony has been mentioned in several Morrison biographies, he had never been interviewed before our talk nor even contacted by any authors.

The following conversation took place through email over the course of a year way back in 2005. Tony’s distinctive and expressive writing style has been kept intact. If you like what you read stay tuned for his soon to be released autobiography The Ancestor’s Soundtrack.

Because Tony was also working for the Rolling Stones during the late 60s, he missed the Doors’ infamous Miami concert as well as their last performance in New Orleans. Unfortunate for Jim, as one gets the impression that things might have gone differently had Tony been there.

What were the sixties like for you?

Tony: Quick Answer: 1960- 8th grade and puberty. 1969- Viet Vet on tour with the Rolling Stones. What a difference a decade makes. I was in the 10th or 11th grade the day JFK was murdered by the Mob and the CIA. After high school I went to junior college at LA Trade Tech for commercial art, but that didn’t really do it for me; then I went to live in Pennsylvania to go to college there, but a traffic accident on an icy bridge lead me to enlist in the Air Force. The military experience requires a BOOK, so that’ll be enough of that.

How did your accident lead you to enlist in the Air Force?

Tony: Check with your dad or older family member my age; in those days it was common practice for judges encountering youthful and wild young men to recommend ‘service to your country’ as an alternative to incarceration. A LOT OF G.I.s of my generation were thus ‘encouraged’ to enlist by wise judges in local courts.

When you came back from serving in Vietnam, how drastic were the changes in music and the social climate?

Tony: October 1968 I returned home to LA and EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED! Marvin Gaye did “What’s Going On” from the same viewpoint; Black G.I. returning home from overseas. I almost immediately started to find myself being sought out for the developing rock and roll BUSINESS and was comfortable with that, although it was not my ambition or avocation at the time.

What were your ambitions prior to getting into the music business?

Tony: There really was no plan; I enrolled in WLAJC to study political science and thus understand how the disaster of Viet Nam came about so I (and others) could be on guard against the same kind of mess happening again. Dubya and Iraq? Hello?

Past that, I had no aspirations other than academia and thirsting for knowledge. I’ve always been adept at earning a decent income, so setting a specific ‘career goal’ was not on my mind. Politics was and still is my passion.

Could you relate to the music and politics of the emerging counter-culture?

Tony: White folks everywhere were finally starting to loosen up as my people’s culture had generations ago, so it wasn’t difficult to assimilate into a culture I had already been exposed to; Jazz and the attendant Beat culture were integral parts of the black experience when I was in high school. Hell, among my HS circle of friends/peers, the prevailing radio station we all listened to was KBCA, 24 hrs a day FM progressive Jazz. So, what were all these white folks really just suddenly discovering? A cultural freedom that had already existed for many generations prior.

How did you become Jim Morrison’s bodyguard?

Tony: After I got out of the Air Force, I started working at good paying jobs as a heavy equipment mechanic. I partied so hard, I had to hock my watch for gas money to get to work. The son-in-law of the pawn shop owner also promoted small, high school gym rock concerts and needed somebody to cover his back with a briefcase full of cash. I started with him, met others like him as LA became a rock and roll Mecca. Bill Siddons was a pal of his. I came to be around the band as they and I lived and worked in the same business and it just happened from there. I didn’t think Jim needed me, but since everybody else they tried BLEW IT, Bill finally talked me into it. I stayed till the end. I really miss the guy.

Is it true you were hired to keep Jim out of trouble and from drinking too much?

Tony: Keep him out of trouble? Yes. Drinking too much? No.

What do you mean by keeping him out of trouble? Was he hassled a lot or did he cause trouble himself?

Tony: (A) Yes.

Depends or where he/we were. In a top market Boss Jock setting where the Howard Sterns of the day held forth, “KATIE, BAR THE DOOR!” These moronic idiots would try to press every psychological button they could dream of. They didn’t prepare themselves for a truly superior intellect and Jim would devour their egos for breakfast and barely a burp when he was done. They got what they asked for and then some. Usually he just decimated them for being hostile opportunists in the first place. Jim had the truly uncanny ability to accurately read a person’s motives and then react accordingly. There were times I observed some hoity-toity schmuck (male and female) observe, “Oh! Jim Morrison! Do something WEIRD Jim” as in “thrill me you fool!” He would then ‘read’ them and regurgitate back to them that which they uniquely feared the most about themselves and/or the world they existed in. A truly magnificent guy, really. They took him for a lightweight because of the lyrics, press coverage and such. They SHOULD have looked closer and witnessed the genius. I did and I’m no Rhodes Scholar.

(B) No.

Again, depends on where and what; I never saw the guy start ANY shit with ANYBODY. He wasn’t so constantly wasted that he couldn’t stick up for himself. But in terms of everyday activities, he was extremely polite to everyone, soft spoken, shy, and incredibly generous. The man tipped RUDE service extravagantly. I witnessed this numerous times, especially on a road trip when he and I grabbed a couple of honeys and drove up the U.S. 1 route from LA to San Francisco to drop in on The Airplane and The Dead. But that’s another story. (They encountered a rude, bitter old waitress who didn’t approve of hippies or blacks. When Jim left an extravagant $50 tip, she came running out of the restaurant after them, demanding to know why. Jim replied, “For such great service.” Tony still chuckles when he thinks of the woman’s expression.)

Do you think he intentionally tried to provoke riots? Was he always drunk during concerts?

Tony: (A) Yes and (B) No.

Were you his bodyguard 24 hours a day or just for the shows?

Tony: Both. I was always available whenever he felt like it. He had to have time/privacy to himself; he required solitude at times. The rest of the time I usually would go find him or he would call me and say let’s meet up and do whatever. Of course, yes, I did all the shows after I finished with The Stones ’69 tour at Altamont. EVERY GIG I WORKED WITH THE DOORS WAS INCIDENT FREE. And Jim was never arrested for anything from the time I came on board full time. I am very good at what I do.

Did the other Doors have bodyguards or need them in their personal lives?

Tony: Nope.

How would you describe Morrison? Has he been portrayed accurately by the media?

Tony: Nice guy! Genuinely a HELLUVA NICE GUY! I can’t tell you how many times Jimbo would stop and talk, chat, shoot the breeze with every person he met; regular street people. The power brokers and BULLSHIT radio jocks set him off with their BULLSHIT, but he was the nicest guy on the planet with the faceless crowd. It would really take a book to tell that part. Has he been portrayed accurately by the media? F**k NO!

Was his personality any different off stage than on? Would you say his black leather Lizard King image was contrived or calculated?

Tony: Not really, other than the hatred of F***ING ASSHOLE AUTHORITY TYPES. By that I mean, I would see Jim chat and visit with regular cops and they would get along fine. But when another cop would bust his chops, the shit did hit the fan. The Lizard King bullshit was dreamed up by some idiot marketing f**khead. Jim never really subscribed to it but did allow others to see it that way if they wished. He was fascinated by the esoteric vision of what lizards conjure up within the human mind’s primeval power and mystery. It’s all really in the LYRICS of the song, give ‘em another look.

And bikers have been wearing black leather for YEARS before Jim got his leathers. I STILL wear mine. Again, much of that SEXGOD Image was contrived by others and Jim went along because they babbled that it was good for the band and record sales, etc. He couldn’t have given a shit about all that crap.

Tell us a little about his lifestyle? What was it typically like backstage before and after the concerts?

Tony: Lifestyle …the poor bastard lived like a bum! He had the house on Kings Road but preferred the Alta Cienega hotel room he always crashed at. It was walking distance to The Doors office across the street (8512 Santa Monica Blvd.); downstairs and two stumbles away was the Phone Booth strip club (where he and I were very ‘lucky with the ladies’) and Barney’s Beanery was a block away for food and drinks.

Quite often, Jim’s ‘poetry pals’ would pop up at the office and they/we would cruise around HollyWEIRD doing the eat and drink bit while they debated weighty issues of the day and different philosophies. Occasionally Jimbo would take a SHOWER…NOT OFTEN.

He was just a regular guy trying to be a decent person and suffering from his own genius at what the world and government had and would become. All that has happened since he left us are things he and I discussed and he saw it all coming. He was NOT pleased to have that vision. He was like Ray Milland in the film “The Man Who Could See Forever” in that sense.

Backstage? Normally it was quiet and calm. The band would be ready; Vince Treanor always had his act together and Leon Barnard sometimes traveled with us and was a neat guy to have around. The rest of the guys usually had their wives along, but we all dreaded Pamela attempting to show up. Fingernails on the blackboard. When she was around, Jim was NOT a person to be liked. She drove the guy up the wall and consequently the rest of us as well. ‘Needful high maintenance’ could be inserted here.

We always had top notch catering and whatever other refreshments — juices, fruit, booze — we wanted. Sometimes other rock ‘n’ rollers playing in the same towns would stop in to visit.

I didn’t know he had a house on Kings Road. Is this the bungalow he bought for Pam Courson, his girlfriend, in Topanga Canyon?

Tony: No, he stashed Pam there to get her out of his hair, I think. But even with that she still had his financial backing for a little boutique located, you guessed it, 100 feet from the office. Re: the exact address for King’s Road, sorry, but I could probably drive right up to it even to this day (Tony has since discovered that it was torn down when he tried to drive there during a recent visit to LA).

Jim learned that he should not drive after wrapping a Shelby Mustang King Cobra 428 around a telephone pole, and taxis are less than prompt even in the Hollywood Hills so it was just simpler to do the Alta Cienega bit. Unless he woke under some strange woman, which happened often.

Clearly Pam wasn’t his be-all, end-all although he did leave everything to her. Was it because he felt responsible for her?

Tony: Payoff for her self imposed misery. Besides, he didn’t really feel close to any other living human being, and she passed for whatever closeness his kind of loner could connect with. Pam was a ‘known quantity’ and he knew she really cared for Jimbo, the person. As much as his genius/intellect could fathom that recognition, he liked her. But people like Jim are not social beings; they are apart for lack of peers, with peers making available commonality of salient discourse. Diogenes felt the same way.

Much is made of the fact that Jim never had a home so it’s surprising to find out he did indeed own one. Please describe the neighborhood. Was it far from the studio and that’s why he rarely used it? Do you know when he bought it and was it furnished?

Tony: Strange, I thought EVERYBODY knew about the Kings Road place. It was above “The Strip,” not far from the Continental “Riot” (Hyatt) House. Kings Road, at that time, was a winding serpentine street. It traveled north, towards the (ugh!) San Fernando Valley, but was situated on the Hollywood side of “The Hill.” It was/still is a very beautiful street with well-kept homes and manicured lawns and landscaping. The bit, as I remember it, was really fueled by the other band members, assorted concerned friends and management/financial types (Bill Siddons and Bob Greene) that Jim needed the tax write-off, and Jim could benefit from having the security and comfort of a ‘home’ instead of the Alta Cienega room, which he allowed himself to be talked into.

The one time I was there with him to pick up some books he wanted before we went on a concert road trip, the place was virtually empty except for the usual ‘bachelor’ fruit crates, and a lamp here and there.

Put simply and bluntly, Jim liked living the life of an avant garde writer/poet, and the simplicity of the Alta Cienega provided that kind of “Beat Generation” atmosphere. The trappings of ‘a home’ such as Kings Road was not the atmosphere Jimbo saw for himself as a ‘serious writer.’ The possibility exists that he likewise may have enjoyed it as a ‘place of solitude’ when he wanted to be alone from everything and everybody. As I’ve said before, we both were essentially ‘loners’ and loners have to have solitude at times, by the nature of that kind of personality. The BS that went with Jim’s ‘fame’ often would cause him/us to just get lost in the everyman/everyday worlds and enjoy time apart from the music BUSINESS madness. We did that often enough to serve as a sanity tonic. In any case, he rarely visited the place, the mystery of Kings Road is planted in Paris, and he isn’t talkin’ on the subject.

Did he do mundane things like go to the grocery store or bank or was that taken care of for him?

Tony: Yes, he did do mundane things, but groceries? For what? He never ate at all unless we were in a restaurant or bar or someplace where somebody brings food to you, ready to eat. And banking was covered excellently by Bob Greene and Associates. Jim had his Amex and MasterCard. The Doors insisted that I ALWAYS have $X,000 in my pocket to accomplish ANYTHING I needed to do. Whenever I depleted any portion of that in the course of my assigned priorities, it was replenished A.S.A.P.

When he’d alternately grow a beard and then shave it, my GUESS is that he had a barbershop shave it because he was one hairy bastard when it came to the beard. The guy could grow a full size Russian beard in two days!

He wasn’t even a clotheshorse, and I’m pretty sure Pam bought whatever clothes he carted around with him. The guy surely did live very simply, period. He loved going shopping for books, of course, and whenever he did want to get/find/buy something, he was very comfortable going out into the world himself in person to obtain it. He liked the public, as expressed earlier; REAL People, REAL places where REAL people do REAL, everyday real things. It revitalized him and I would see, at those times, the guy being animated and ALIVE and enjoying himself. It really kinda saddened us both when he/we had to go ‘back to work with all the phony f***ers that permeate that landscape.

You mentioned his poetry pals. In his book Light My Fire Ray Manzarek described Babe Hill, Frank Lisciandro and Paul Ferrara as the faux Doors and implied that they encouraged his drinking while taking away from his creativity with the band. Would you say this is an accurate description?

Tony: No, but then again my perspective at the time was the same as Ray’s. I have liked and admired Ray; he could always take everyone’s view into account and soothe all concerned parties. He’s the glue that held the band together.

What were his relationships like with the other Doors?

Tony: John could barely tolerate anybody (he and I got along GREAT. I kept Jim out of trouble, NOBODY could keep him sober when he didn’t want to be); Robby is still the nicest, most decent man on the planet and Uncle Ray kept it all together.

Did he ever discuss how he felt about being famous? Was he comfortable with having a rock star image or is it true he was more interested in pursuing poetry/film?

Tony: Latter is true. He could not stand the media circus and phony assholes populating that hemisphere of indulgence.

Do you think his problem with alcoholism escalated because he had a hard time dealing with his success?

Tony: Yes and the fact he just liked to drink! Again, I repeat MANY of the sycophant assholes that crawled out from under the slime would cause extreme actions from ANYONE! That Jim’s genius allowed him to offend them so well is testament to how irritating they were in the first place.

Did anyone try to confront him about his excessive drinking?

Tony: You gotta be kiddin’! Ray, Bill (Doors’ manager), Pam, everybody and their brother and then they finally gave up. Never entered his ear, to exit the other side. The only reason he and I got along so well was because I could drink him under the table and still keep his ass outta jail. As long as I did that everyone was happy, including Jim.

Did Morrison ever discuss why he claimed to have no family? How did this estrangement with his parents affect him?

Tony: No, and I didn’t feel it was my place as a friend and/or employee to inquire further. When he did mention something related to that topic, it was obscure by design, ambiguous at best. All I knew for sure was that he had no warmth for his strictly authoritarian dad and was sad that his mom didn’t negotiate a lessening of that authoritarianism. His siblings were of the sentiment that you go along to get along, so they might secretly support his antics and avocation, but at great peril in the household of Adm. Morrison.

I did have the underlying sense that besides the above, he really didn’t want to cause them greater embarrassment and/or engage in further friction. Besides, he was aware of what the media could and would do with widespread knowledge of the identity of this family. All this at a time of great social upheaval, with a charged atmosphere of anarchy and the FBI assassinating and/or framing every last Black Panther party member they could find in the days of rage and the Chicago Seven. Why would he want to bring his family into it?

Do you think it would have been detrimental to the Doors’ career had it been revealed that Morrison’s father played a key role in the Vietnam War? Do you think that is why he claimed to be an orphan?

Tony: Certainly not. No one beefed that Robby’s dad ran The Rand Corporation! It would require a wide array of systemic morons to make that stretch. In fact, many of the rock and roll icons of the day were scions of wealthy and/or powerful families: Carly Simon (Simon and Schuster), Grace Slick went to Wesleyan College. In ANY case a lot of people knew it anyway.

Do you have any stories you want to share about Morrison interacting with fans or people on the street?

Tony: There are too many, but there are the witches in Boston and the poetry woman in Denver.

(A) The Witches of Boston —

OK, sit down, pour a stiff shot this is gonna grind some teeth for whoever reads it. We did the Boston gig and caught a REALLY GOOD band playing in the hotel lounge. The Doors (mostly Ray, Robby and Jim) decided to see if the bass player would be interested in laying down some tracks sometime on the next album (LA Woman). Jim invited me to ‘cruise’ with him. We found the ‘funky bohemian’ part of town (every city has its ‘hip/hippie’ neighborhoods) and off we went.

In the course of finding a bar/restaurant to drink/eat/chill in, we found ourselves charmingly fascinated with a pair of witches. They dressed the part, seemed sincere in their beliefs, and were not overtly stargazers and were also actually very attractive.

After drinks and whatever grub, the four of us cruised over to their place and climbed several floors of stairs. After we entered, we all just ‘paired off’ and went in different bedrooms and the usual sounds resulted. I had warned the darlin’ dear that “I DON”T DO CATS,” to which she said she’d put the particular cat (one of MANY in the apartment) that was trying to pick a fight with me, into another room.

After a number of minutes, I felt great pain as (cat) claws lacerated twin dangling parts of my anatomy as my ass waved around, and up and down, in the air. I grabbed the f***ing, doomed cat and threw it out a window. It sailed four (five?) floors, straight down. She screamed brand new profanities. I got up, washed the blood off with cold water, got my clothes, waltzed over to the closed door where Jimbo was, announced that we should probably be leaving since, by this time, BOTH of the witches were screaming bloody black Sabbath curses at the top of their pretty lungs. I ‘hastened’ Jimbo’s attempts to get dressed, threw a wad of cash at the honeys and waltzed myself and Jim right out of there and grabbed a cab. There! And that’s The Truth!

(B) The Poetry Lady in Denver —

When we did the Denver gig it was at the D.U. Arena, and as always, it was just an incredible show.

The rest of The Doors went back to LA early the next morning, but Jim wanted to cruise around Denver for a bit to relax. He mentioned that a lady had gotten a few pages of poetry to him and he wanted to get in contact with her and possibly meet and chat with her.

We headed over to the home of the lady in question. I went up to the door with him just in case and when she answered the door and I felt there was no threat, I told him to go ahead, I’d be waiting in the car.

They spent hours in there and I could see them in the living room through the open drapes/window. It was so very peaceful and serene compared to the glare of the usual media circus of a lot of gigs; this was who the man really was. This was the Jim Morrison I knew. When they had finished their conversation they came out; she thanked me for being so patient (actually, I was stoned-zoned on some killer herb: What is time?) and we headed to the airport rental car return.

Her home was in the Park Hill neighborhood, big lawn, two story, looked to have been built in the 30s or so, immaculately maintained and very quiet. Jim enjoyed the encounter with her. I did not get an inkling of romantic interest being displayed by either of them for each other, just a couple of intellects that appeared to have traded observations on common topics. Almost scholarly is how I’d put it.

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