January 12, 2004
Iggy Pop: The Godfather of Punk
from: www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/
By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun
"If I had the choice, I'd rather sing than talk," the Godfather of Punk
says down the line from his Miami Beach home recently.
And yet, for the next 45 minutes, Iggy Pop chats away -- in an exclusive
Canadian newspaper interview with the Sun -- telling both highly
entertaining and informative tales in that unmistakable deep voice.
Topics range from seeing Jim Morrison for the first time -- the catalyst for
Pop forming seminal Detroit punk band The Stooges in 1967 -- to his apparent
invention of the stage dive and torn jeans, to reuniting with Stooges
bandmates Ron and Scott Asheton for the first time in 30 years on his latest
album, Skull Ring.
Not bad for a reluctant interview.
"I'm never going to be Maria Callas but I could imitate Jim Morrison pretty
well," Pop says of his reaction after catching The Lizard King at a
homecoming dance at the University of Michigan when he was just 19.
"He had a great sense of occasion. And the first night I saw him, his sense
of occasion was totally out of hand and he had no sense of anything else. He
was just LSD'd out of his mind and reeling like a drunk, singing like Betty
Boop, and refusing to be correct, basically. And I thought, 'This is great.
This is really great.' "
Given that anecdote alone, it's a shame Pop is doing fewer and fewer
interviews these days.
STARTLING PHYSIQUE
He's one of those rare rockers who has improved with age -- still a dynamo
in concert -- and he's articulate, blunt and funny in conversation.
"There's a lot of energy that flies out when you've got your mouth open,"
explains Pop, 56. "It's really true. Yogis and Tai Chi masters will tell you
that."
Which leads to how the famously toned rocker has maintained his incredible,
some might say startling, physique, despite early years of abuse, which
included cutting himself with broken glass during performances, and a couple
of battles with heroin addiction.
"Basically I've got a Tai Chi master," says Pop, whose biggest vices these
days are a nightly glass of red wine and Cuban coffee. "And I do about 40
minutes a day, if I'm not working in showbiz. And, if I am, then I do about
20 minutes or a half-hour a day. And that really does the trick. Other than
that, there's a little heredity, the luxury of being able to go to the beach
whenever I want to, and then ... I managed to figure out that what my mother
told me was good (adopts matronly tone): 'Eat three square meals and early
to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.' It works."
Pop -- shirtless, tanned, bleached-blond, barefoot and in tight jeans -- was
definitely a sight to behold as he hurled himself off the stage at one point
during a two-song set with Ajax pop-punk outfit Sum 41 at the Casby Awards
last November at Kool Haus bar in Toronto.
In fact, a recent Rolling Stone profile even suggested he invented the move.
"I think I did. I think so," says Pop. "How do you stake a claim?" he adds
with a chuckle. "The first one I did was in 1968, it was the second show I
ever did, and I was opening for Frank Zappa, for the Mothers of Invention.
And I couldn't think of another way to get attention and I did this thing --
ever seen how little boys sometimes when they want attention, they'll make
themselves perfectly stiff and then they'll just fall flat-faced on the
floor? -- I did that, except off a five-foot stage."
Pop says he was inspired by those who came before him.
"Obviously, I was a keen student of R&B and blues, gospel. And there is the
tradition in gospel, the preacher he'll get down from time to time, but I'd
also see the R&B singers rip their pants. They'd rip them, some of them,
during almost every performance. They'd just make sure they were really,
really tight sheer pants. And the first time I ripped mine, by accident, I
thought, 'This is cool. I want to go out with my pants ripped. Start from
there.' I think I was the first one to do that, too."
In Rolling Stone, Pop declared: "Today's rock is just embarrassing. It's
white men on MSG."
He jokes now: "I wondered if anybody would understand what MSG was."
Still, that assessment obviously doesn't extend to Toronto electro-rap
artist -- and fellow rock terrorist -- Peaches and Sum 41, who both appear
on Skull Ring.
'ART GHETTO'
"It was capital-R rock that I was talking about," Pop says. "Peaches is
funny because she's really good. But because she's adventurous or witty or
whatever it is, she ventures pretty far afield, she's kind of shoved over to
the art ghetto and she doesn't really want to be there, at least ghetto-ized
there."
Pop says Sum 41, who co-wrote and performed on the first single, Little Know
It All, came to his attention late in the recording of Skull Ring courtesy
of his label's A&R guy.
"And, in fact, I hadn't told anyone else this ... but I actually used them
before I did the last record," he says. "Beat 'Em Up (his 2001 release) was
a very heavy record and I wanted to hear what the skill level and the
recording technique level was for hard bands at that point. And I used them
as my kind of bar. I went out and got one of their (CDs). I didn't listen to
the songs. I didn't want be influenced. I just listened to the first 30
seconds. It was a little too good. The skill level is extremely high there.
It's really, really precise."
As for Peaches -- who has been known to disrobe and spit blood during her
manic performances -- he definitely sees himself in her.
"It happened accidentally," Pop says of his introduction to Peaches. "I
appeared at The Short List (ceremony) a year-and-a-half ago and some critics
were discussing her and I was eavesdropping and she sounded really immense,
in terms of what they thought she was doing. I thought, 'Oh this is
important.' And then I didn't think anything more about it. But she crashed
my dressing room that night and she's a real heathen, you know. I would have
thrown her out usually but I went, 'Oh, it's Peaches!' And she's wearing her
little pink suit and she was interesting. So I got her record the next day
and it was really good -- The Teaches of Peaches -- a really good piece of
work."
STOOGES REUNION
Finally then, and perhaps most significantly, there's Pop's long-awaited
reunion with The Stooges on Skull Ring on four songs.
It took 30 years to get Pop back with the Asheton brothers -- guitarist Ron
and drummer Scott -- after his label put up some resistance to him working
solely with his current band The Trolls.
Pop says his old bandmates had wanted to reunite for a long time but he
resisted "doing a reunion, oldies thing."
But, as they say, people change.
"They're more focused now than they were," he says. "They're hungry. They've
had a long time to wait for this and they're ravenous. Because of that,
they've managed to muster something that passes for maturity when we're
working. So they're very keyed in."
Pop has since performed eight shows with The Stooges this year and will play
with them in Toyko and Osaka for arena shows in the spring.
He says he's forsaking a traditional North American tour to support Skull
Ring in favour of diversification.
"I'm flexible and available, basically, if the situation is right," Pop
says. "So it's sort of like today's army. I have one set with The Stooges
that I can do that is still growing and I have another set that has
different material with The Trolls.
"And I can also do acoustic -- maybe if you're having a birthday party?" he
adds with a laugh.