Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg, Jr. (born on
April 21,
1947 in
Muskegon, Michigan), better known by his
stage name Iggy Pop, is an
American punk rock singer and occasional actor. Although he has had only limited commercial success, Pop is considered one of the most important innovators of
punk rock and related styles. He is sometimes referred to by the nicknames "the Godfather of Punk" and "the Rock Iguana", and is widely acknowledged as one of the most dynamic stage performers of rock. Pop was the lead singer of
The Stooges, a late
1960s/early
1970s band that was highly influential in the development of
hard rock. The Stooges became infamous for their live performances in which Pop leapt off the stage (thus inventing the "
stage dive"), smeared raw meat and on one occasion peanut butter over his chest and cut himself with broken bottles. Many subsequent performers have imitated Pop's antics.
Although he would never regain the vitality of his days with the Stooges, Pop has had varying degrees of success in his 25 years as a solo artist. His best-known songs include "
Lust for Life", "
I'm Bored" and "
The Passenger" (the latter based on a poem written by
Jim Morrison).
A
film about Pop's life and career titled
The Passenger is currently in production.
1947 to 1967: early career
Born in
Muskegon, Michigan, he began his musical career as a
drummer in different
high school bands in
Ypsilanti, Michigan. One band was
the Iguanas, where he acquired the name Iggy. After exploring local
blues-style bands he eventually dropped out of the
University of Michigan and moved to
Chicago to learn more about blues. Inspired by
Chicago blues as well as bands like
The Doors, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and called himself Iggy Pop. He got the name Pop because he once shaved his eyebrows for a show, after which he looked like a friend with the last name Pop who had recently undergone
chemotherapy and was eyebrowless himself. The band was composed of Pop on
vocals,
Ron Asheton on
guitar, Asheton's brother
Scott on
drums, and
Dave Alexander on
bass. After almost two years they made their debut in
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1968 to 1975: The Stooges era
One year after their debut, and now dubbed the Stooges, the band were signed to
Elektra Records in
1968. The Stooges' first two albums,
The Stooges and
Fun House, sold poorly, although they had a lasting influence on the burgeoning
punk movement. Shortly after the new members joined the band broke up because of Pop's growing
heroin addiction.
David Bowie salvaged Pop's career by producing an album with him in England. With
James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a
rhythm section. However, since neither Iggy nor Bowie were satisfied with any players in
England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion, in that Dave Alexander would not play on the album. He had become a full-on
alcoholic, unable to play on the record; he died in
1975. Also, Ron Asheton was grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the punk rock landmark
Raw Power, in
1973. After its release
Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Pop's
drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of
bikers, documented on the album
Metallic K.O.. Drug abuse put his career on hold for a couple of years.
1976 to 1978: Bowie and Berlin
After the second breakup of the Stooges, Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these weren't released until 1977 (as
Kill City). The record was credited jointly to Pop and Williamson. Pop was unable to control his various drug habits, however, and checked himself into a mental institution to try and clean up. David Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support Pop. In 1976, "when I wasn't doing much" as Pop euphemistically put it, Bowie took Pop along as his companion on the
Station to Station tour. This was Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.
Bowie and Pop relocated to
Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions (Bowie was existing solely on milk, cocaine, and peppers). Pop signed to
RCA and Bowie helped write and produce
The Idiot and
Lust For Life (both 1977), Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and
Tony Sales. Among songs they wrote together were "
China Girl" and "Tonight", both of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on. Bowie also played
keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album
TV Eye (1978), and helped Pop focus on his career. Pop offered backing vocals on Bowie's
Low1979 to 1981: the Arista albums
Pop was unhappy with RCA, however. He later admitted that he'd made
TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his RCA contract and moving on elsewhere. This was
Arista Records for which he released
New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge
Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surpisingly, the album's style veered back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans
New Values was not a success, despite some strong material including "I'm Bored" and "Five Foot One".
The album was moderately successful in
Australia, however, and this led to Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, Iggy made a memorable appearance on the
ABC's nationwide pop show
Countdown. During his anarchic performance of "I'm Bored", Iggy made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was miming, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. An obviously 'wired' Iggy was also interviewed by host
Ian Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by Iggy jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock
Australian accent. Iggy's
Countdown appearance is widely considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there.
While in Australia Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the
Ten Network. Iggy's wit and intelligence and his articulate manner confounded the panel of journalists, whose main purpose was asking about his drug use. It is not known whether a recording of this interview exists but the famous
Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.
During the recording of
Soldier (1980), Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production - the latter, apparently wanted a big,
Phil Spector-type sound - and Williamson was fired.
David Bowie appeared on the song
Play It Safe on backing vocals with
Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up
Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but remained.
The 1980s
In
1982, Pop released what would be his final album for some time,
Zombie Birdhouse, on
Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing. Commercially, the album was no improvement on his Arista works.
In
1983, Pop's fortunes changed.
David Bowie recorded a version of the song "China Girl', which had originally appeared on
The Idiot. Bowie's version was a worldwide hit single and as co-writer of the song, Pop received substantial
royalties. In
1984, Bowie recorded another old Pop-Bowie song,
Tonight, bringing more royalty money to Pop, who for the first time was financially secure, at least for the short term. Bowie's intention was to help his friend get out of the clutches from the
IRS by including co-writer credits to Pop on tracks from his blockbuster "Let's Dance" album and the less successful follow-up "Tonight". This enabled Pop to take a three-year break, during which he overcame his heroin addiction, took acting classes and got married.
In
1985, Pop recorded some demos with guitarist
Steve Jones, previously of the
Sex Pistols. He played these demos to
David Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Pop:
1986's
New Wave-influenced
Blah Blah Blah, featuring the
single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "Wild One (Real Wild Child)", originally co-written and recorded by Australian rock'n'roll pioneer
Johnny O'Keefe in 1959. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was also successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the
ABC's late-night music video show
Rage. It remains Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success.
In 1987, Pop appeared (along with
Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album by Japanese composer
Ryuichi Sakamoto.
The follow-up,
Instinct (
1988), was a complete turn around in musical direction, however. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any Pop solo album to date. His record label, which had most likely been expecting another
Blah Blah Blah, dropped him.
The 1990s
In
1990 Pop recorded
Brick by Brick, produced by
Don Was, with members of
Guns N' Roses and
The B-52s appearing as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local
Hollywood groups, some of whom would be recruited for his band to tour and perform on his "Kiss My Blood" video (1991).
Also in 1990, Pop starred in the controversial opera "The Manson Family" by composer
John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi.
In 1995, Pop found himself famous again when his 1977 song "
Lust For Life" was featured prominently in the film
Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy dancing with one of its stars,
Ewen Bremner. Also, an Iggy Pop concert is an important plot point, as it dissolves the relationship between Tommy and Lizzie. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to
The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports
talk show.
In 1995 he also released
Naughty Little Doggie with
Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, releasing the single "I Wanna Live". He co-produced
1999's
Avenue B with Don Was releasing the single "Corruption", and produced
2001's
Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to
the Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.
In 1997 he
remixed
Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official "rescue effort" mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red."
In the early to middle nineties Iggy Pop made several guest appearances on the
Nickelodeon show
The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father.
Recent career
Pop supplied the memorable vocals to the
1999 Death in Vegas UK top 10 hit single
Aisha.
Pop's latest album,
2003's
Skull Ring, features collaborations with
Sum 41,
Green Day and
the Trolls, as well as the Asheton brothers, reuniting the surviving
Stooges for the first time since 1974. He also made a guest appearance in
electroclash artist
Peaches's song "Kick It."
Pop also appeared as a guest vocalist on the track "Rolodex Propaganda" by
At The Drive-In.
Also in 2003, having enjoyed working with Ron and Scott Asheton on
Skull Ring, Iggy reformed the Stooges with bassist
Mike Watt (formerly of
the Minutemen) filling in for the late
Dave Alexander, and
Fun House saxophonist
Steve MacKay rejoining the lineup. They have been touring regularly since
2004 and are reported to be planning a new studio album with
Steve Albini producing.
In 2003 the first full-length biography of Iggy was published by Omnibus Press.
Gimme Danger - The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose. Pop didn't collaborate on the biography, or publicly endorse it. In
2005, Iggy appeared, along with
Madonna,
Little Richard,
Bootsy Collins, and
The Roots'
?uestlove, in an American TV commercial for the
Motorola ROKR phone.
In early
2006, Iggy and the Stooges headlined Australia's
Big Day Out. The Stooges are currently at work on a new album, tentatively due out in
2007. It will feature tracks produced by
Steve Albini and
Jack White of the
White Stripes.[
1]
Pop has had a limited career as an actor. He has appeared in sixteen
movies (mostly in smaller roles), including
Sid and Nancy,
The Color of Money,
Hardware (voice only),
The Crow: City of Angels,
The Rugrats Movie,
Snow Day,
Coffee and Cigarettes,
Somewhere in California,
Cry-Baby,
Dead Man and
Atolladero, a Spanish
science fiction Western in which he also sings the main theme.
He has been featured in five
television series, including
Miami Vice,
Tales from the Crypt,
The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which he played
Yelgrun in "
The Magnificent Ferengi" episode.
Although Pop had nothing to do with the movie, Ewan McGregor's sexually ambiguous, drug-fuelled character in Velvet Goldmine is considered by most critics to be modelled on him. Likewise, the character of Rock Head in the
Sid and Nancy (in which Pop plays a different character) is thought by some to be based on Pop. He had a walk on appearance in the film as a prospective tenant at The
Chelsea Hotel.
Pop has been profiled in four
rockumentaries and has had songs on eighteen
soundtracks, including
Crocodile Dundee and
Trainspotting.
A bio-pic of Pop is in the works with
Elijah Wood taking on the major role. The film has a working title of
The Passenger and is due to begin filming in late 2006.
Pop earned a place in punk rock history by popularizing many of the stage routines that are now commonplace among musicians: he was among the first to
stage dive and "crowd walk," for example. Some of his stage antics have yet to have been topped by even the most "outrageous" of contemporary bands: among other things, in his prime he was known to cut himself and roll around in
peanut butter on stage, and is rumoured to have once received
oral sex from a fan in front of an audience.
Although Pop has never had a
Top 10 album or best-selling single, his impact on rock music is widely acknowledged; among the famous musicians who have claimed him as an influence are
The Sex Pistols,
The Ramones and
Nirvana.
The song "Punk Rock" on the album
Come On Die Young by
Mogwai is also a tribute to Pop, as it samples a speech that Pop gave on
punk rock from an interview on CBC.
During that interview, Peter Gzowski asked Iggy to clarify music labeled as "punk rock." Iggy, as some have now dubbed "the Grandfather of Punk," sat upright in his chair, to emphasize the points he made below, as the basis for his opinion of the term used to describe his music, in what some could view as a defiant response, respectful of the interviewer, before "punk rock" became a well-known genre.
Pop ended his speech (or tirade) in indignant repose, after which he defended the use of "punk" to describe those who use such a term to describe music, and the fan base behind the movement. He praised punk artists, including himself, whose music fall into that genre.
In the following, he describes the use of the term by those who attempt to label "punk" with a common disaffected brush, attempting to appeal to the interviewer, while providing a definition.
I'll tell you about punk rock: punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and, uh... and, uh... heartless manipulators, about music... that takes up the energies, and the bodies, and the hearts and the souls and the time and the minds, of young men, who give what they have to it, and give everything they have to it. And it's a... it's a term that's based on contempt; it's a term that's based on fashion, style, elitism,
satanism, and, everything that's rotten about
rock 'n' roll.
I don't know
Johnny Rotten... but I'm sure, I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as
Sigmund Freud did. You see, what, what sounds to you like a big load of trashy old noise... is in fact... the brilliant music of a genius... myself. And that music is so powerful, that it's quite beyond my control. And, ah... when I'm in the grips of it, I don't feel pleasure and I don't feel pain, either physically or emotionally. Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you ever, have you ever felt like that? When you just, when you just, you couldn't feel anything, and you didn't want to either. You know, like that? Do you understand what I'm saying, sir?
The
Iggy and the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" was covered by the
Red Hot Chili Peppers and appeared as a B-side of "By The Way" and on the compilation
The Beavis and Butthead Experience album, and by the band
Emanuel for the
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland soundtrack; the song "Raw Power" was covered by
Guns N' Roses for the ill-fated
The Spaghetti Incident? album.
David Bowie covered the song "China Girl" for
Let's Dance album, "Tonight" and "Neighbourhood Threat" for
Tonight album and "Bang Bang" for
Never Let Me Down album. "
The Passenger" was covered by
Siouxsie & the Banshees on their album
Through The Looking Glass, and by
INXS's
Michael Hutchence on the
Batman Forever soundtrack.
The Stooges song "1969" was covered by cult gothic band
The Sisters of Mercy (included on their singles collection
Some Girls Wander By Mistake) and by
Joey Ramone on his solo album
Don't Worry About Me. "1970" was covered by
Charged GBH on their
City Baby's Revenge album under the alternate title of "I Feel Alright". Iggy's solo album
The Idiot is the landmark for
post-punk as genre. David Bowie's 'The Jean Genie' is about an 'Iggy Pop' like character. Nike used the Iggy and the Stooges' song 'Search and Destroy' in their 1996 Olympics promotion.
Nick Cave has been quoted as saying that the Stooges' Funhouse LP was 'the greatest rock record ever made'. That's probably the reason why he and the Birthday Party once did a 45 minute set of only Stooges songs back in the early 1980's under the name of 'The Cave Men'. One of the most popular bands of
former Yugoslavia,
Azra, recorded a song entitled "Iggy Pop" on their first album, that was published in
1980.
With The Stooges
Image:StoogesStooges.jpg|The Stooges August, 1969Image:StoogesFunHouse.jpg|Fun House
July, 1970Image:StoogesRawPower.jpg|Raw Power
February, 1973Solo
Image:IggyPopKillCity.jpeg|Kill City November, 1977Image:IggyPopTheIdiot.jpg|The Idiot
March 18, 1977Image:IggyPopLustForLife.jpg|Lust For Life
September 9, 1977Image:Iggy_Pop-New_Values_(album_cover).jpg|New Values
April, 1979Image:IggyPopSoldier.jpg|Soldier
January, 1980Image:IggyPopParty.jpg|Party
June, 1981Image:IggyPopZombieBirdhouse.jpg|Zombie Birdhouse
September, 1982Image:IggyPopBlahBlahBlah.jpg|Blah Blah Blah
October, 1986Image:Iggy_Pop_Instinct.jpg|Instinct
July, 1988Image:Iggy_Pop_Brick_by_Brick.jpg|Brick by Brick
June, 1990Image:IggyPopAmericanCaesar.jpg|American Caesar
September, 1993Image:IggyPopNaughtyLittleDoggie.jpg|Naughty Little Doggie
February, 1996Image:IggyPopAvenueB.jpg|Avenue B
September 20, 1999Image:IggyPopBeatEmUp.jpg|Beat 'Em Up
June 18, 2001Image:IggyPopSkullRing.jpg|Skull Ring
September 30, 2003*
The Stooges On Elektra 1969 - 1970*
Essays by Iggy's biographer, Joe Ambrose, on Iggy, Chelsea Hotel, Punk Rock, William Burroughs*
Iggy Pop discography*
Iggy Pop homepage*
*
Iggy Pop Lyrics*
Rare Iggy Pop I'm Bored Video - live on Countdown, Australia.
