Illustration by Ana Mouriño
Raw Power. It’s the title of the 1973 third album by Iggy and the Stooges. And it describes Iggy Pop to a T.
An extreme heroin addict, Iggy Pop is a punk icon. He was a punk even before there was something called “punk.”
Pop was notorious for reckless performance antics — indecent exposure, rolling around shirtless in broken glass (he always performs shirtless) — and vomiting on the audience. He invented the stage dive.
Pop says he was inspired by Jim Morrison of the Doors, who was quite the rebel himself. Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity in 1970 after a concert in Florida in which he ran amok.
On Raw Power, there is incoherent screaming alá Kurt Cobain. You can definitely hear an influence on Nirvana.
The album features the quintessential “Search and Destroy,” which is not only a Guitar Hero anthem — if you’re obsessed with that video game, like I am — but a bona fide triumph of a song as well. It was named 468th on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Pop’s other hits have included “Lust for Life,” “No Fun,” “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “The Passenger,” “Real Wild Child,” “Nightclubbing,” “Candy,” and “China Girl” (famously re-recorded by David Bowie).
At age 68, Iggy Pop remains one of the most animated performers on stage today. I saw him perform this year at Riot Fest in Chicago and he was a scene-stealer — one of the highlights of the entire festival.
The opening sequence to the 1996 film Trainspotting features Ewan McGregor running through the streets of Glasgow with Pop’s explosive hit “Lust for Life” blasting underneath a now-classic monologue: “Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers… Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth… Choose your future.
Choose life.” That song also features the line “beating my brains with liquor and drugs.”
Pop definitely did plenty of that. Around 1969-1970, The Stooges lived in a house outside Detroit that they called “The Fun House.” Pop and his bandmates would write and record music there, but there was also lots and lots of drugs. They would shoot up heroin and then, with the blood left in the syringes, squirt it on the walls, creating a Jackson-Pollock-like mural of dried blood, according to the book Everybody Must Get Stoned.
An article in Rolling Stone says that Iggy Pop was notorious for passing out in bathrooms, spike still in vein. Not to mention shooting heroin — and OD’ing —onstage. In 19XX, he shot up just before a show at the Whisky in LA only to collapse of an overdose onstage without singing a single note. He would intentionally cut his face and body with broken glass, only to require stitches post-show. He used to expose his penis to the audience, and once received oral sex on stage.
Pop met David Bowie at Max’s Kansas City, a New York club, and the two became friends and eventual tourmates and collaborators. Bowie produced Raw Power in 1972.
Bowie was addicted to cocaine, and he and Iggy decided to move to Berlin to wean themselves off of their respective drugs of choice.
The Stooges’ last show was in 1974, ending in a fight with a group of bikers.
In 1977 — the year punk broke with The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash — Pop signed with RCA, and Bowie helped write and produce two albums, The Idiot and Lust For Life.
Pop knew he had a problem. He checked himself into a mental hospital— UCLA’s neuropsychiatric institute — in 1976, in an attempt to get sober. Bowie visited him frequently. The two had developed a strong friendship, and he even scored coke from him while in the hospital, says the Rolling Stone article.
In 1980, Pop published an autobiography with a foreword by Andy Warhol, in which the one pop artist said about the other,
Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, Pop continued to record and release albums, including the new wave Blah Blah Blah and the Stooges-sounding Instinct.
The Stooges reunited in 2003 with the Skull Ring album, which featured Green Day, Peaches, Sum-41, and The Trolls. Collaborators throughout Pop’s career have also included Lou Reed, Bootsy Collins, Slash, Deborah Harry, White Zombie, and At the Drive-In, among others.
There was a feeling in the music industry that the Stooges should be inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. They had been eligible and on the ballot for six years but were passed up every time. Madonna was inducted in 2008, and as a protest, she had Iggy and the Stooges perform in her place. They did raucous renditions of “Burning Up” and “Ray of Light.”
The Stooges would go on to be inducted in 2010.
So what’s life like now for the godfather of punk?
Iggy Pop. Yes, that Iggy Pop. The one who had oral sex on stage and bled all over the place during shows — lives in Miami Beach, Florida, and watches C-Span and the History Channel for fun. He drives a Rolls-Royce and wears Versace t-shirts. The last time he did heroin was 1983. The last time he smoked weed was 1999. He hasn’t smoked a cigarette since 1998. He drinks one glass of red wine every night and gallons of strong Cuban coffee every day.
And he couldn’t be more punk rock.
