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Today we take a look at the Doors Of the 21st Century Tour with Ian Astbury which became a legal landmine for the group.

Past Cult Videos
The Cult's Ceremony 1991 Lawsuit
   • Video  

The Cult's Beyond Good and Evil Disastrous Tour
   • Video  

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Ian Astbury would discover the Doors at age 10 and the Danny Sugarman book about the band titled No One Here Gets Out Here Alive and it would be a sort of bible for him. He would reveal in a 2003 interview "I probably first heard them when I was nine or 10, on my parents' transistor radio," "At the time I loved David Bowie and T. Rex. But I was drawn to The Doors they were so different, so much darker."

Astbury was such a fan of the Doors he almost got cast in Oliver Stone’s biopic about the doors in 1989 but the role went to Val Kilmer. That close call though got astbury on the radar of the surviving doors members of the band.
By the mid to late 90’s Astbury's world fell apart. The Cult had taken a hiatus as tensions with guitarist Billy Duffy reached new heights following the release of their commercially disappointing self titled album in 1994. On top of that his marriage at the time crumbled and he started abusing alcohol and was still reeling from a 61 million lawsuit brought by the family of a young American Indian boy who claimed his image had been used on an album cover of The Cult’s 1991 record Ceremony without permission. Side note I also did a video on that lawsuit and album. The Links are down below
Astbury would find “sanctuary in a "spiritual trip" to Tibet and a trip to the island of Cuba. When he returned home he left his wife and went into therapy. He would reveal. "I made big breakthroughs in therapy in 1998," "That was my big clearout year." he’d remember
The following year Astbury’s involvement with the surviving members of the Doors got started as he joined The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger during one of his solo gigs.
The Doors surviving members would reunite in 2000 to perform on the VH1's Storytellers TV Show. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks.
By 2002 the Doors were ready to hit the road with Astbury fronting the band. The reunited lineup plus Astbury would call themselves The Doors Of the 21st century. Surviving drummer John Densmore wasn’t able to be part of a reunion as his bandmates claimed he was suffering from a hearing condition known as tinnitus and would be replaced by the Police’s drummer Stewart Copeland. But Densmore contended by the time the tour started he had recovered fully and that he was fired by the band after reading an article in billboard magazine saying
And Copeland would be forced to withdraw from touring after he broke his arm following a biking accident. He would be replaced by Ty Dennis who played in Krieger’s solo band.
Interestingly, Astbury wasn't the band’s first choice to replace Jim Morrison on stage. Following his passing, the surviving members had talks with Joe Cocker and Audience singer Howard Werth, but neither came to fruition. And The Doors would play together again in 1993 at their induction into the rock and roll hall of fame, with Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder fronting the band
As the Doors of the 21st Century hit the road, they were slapped with lawsuit after lawsuit.
In April of 2003 it was reported that Jim Morrison’s parents had filed a lawsuit against the surviving members of the Doors and even Ian Astbury for misappropriating the band’s name claiming it isn’t the doors without their son. Also involved in the lawsuit were the parents of morrison’s girlfriend, Pamela Courson, who claimed she owned half of Morrison’s share in The Doors. To make matters worse in 2003 the band was hit with a lawsuit by original drummer John Densmore Densmore’s suit, which seeked unspecified damages, claims that written and oral agreements mandate that the Doors name and logo can be used only by the original band members and that “Doors of the 21st Century” and the Doors logo for the Astbury collaboration was a violation of their band’s agreement.
And The lawsuits didn’t end there as drummer Stewart Copeland filed his own lawsuit as well claiming he was dismissed without reason and not paid money owed to him, which amounted to about a million dollars.x. Copeland’s lawsuit was settled out of court in 2003.