Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr., known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor who was the lead vocalist of the proto-punk band the Stooges. Regarded as the "Godfather of Punk", he is noted for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics, poetic lyrics, and unique voice. He was named one of the 50 Great Voices by NPR, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Stooges in 2010, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020 for his solo career.
Initially playing a raw, primitive style of rock and roll, the Stooges sold few records in their original incarnation and gained a reputation for their confrontational performances, which sometimes involved acts of self-mutilation by Pop. He had a long collaborative relationship and friendship with David Bowie over the course of his career, beginning with the Stooges' album Raw Power in 1973. Both musicians went to West Berlin to wean themselves off their respective drug addictions and Pop began his solo career by collaborating with Bowie on the 1977 albums The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop usually contributing the lyrics. He was one of the first performers to do a stage-dive and popularized the activity. Pop, who traditionally performs bare-chested, also performed such stage theatrics as rolling around in broken glass.
Though his popularity has fluctuated, many of Pop's songs have become well known, including "Search and Destroy" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by the Stooges, and his solo hits "Lust for Life", "The Passenger" and "Real Wild Child ". In 1990, he recorded his only Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy", a duet with the B-52s' singer Kate Pierson. Pop's song "China Girl" became more widely known when it was re-recorded by co-writer Bowie, who released it as the second single from his most commercially successful album, Let's Dance. Bowie re-recorded and performed many of Pop's songs throughout his career.
Although Pop has had limited commercial success, he has remained a cultural icon and a significant influence on a wide range of musicians in numerous genres. His music has encompassed a number of styles over the course of his career, including garage rock, punk rock, hard rock, heavy metal, art rock, new wave, grunge, jazz, blues and electronic. His vocal stylings ranged from "baritone croons unhinged shrieks". The Stooges' album Raw Power has proved an influence on artists such as Sex Pistols, the Smiths, and Nirvana. His solo album The Idiot has been cited as a major influence on a number of post-punk, electronic and industrial artists including Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and Joy Division, and was described by Siouxsie Sioux as a "re-affirmation that our suspicions were true: the man is a genius."
Early life
James Newell Osterberg Jr. was born in Muskegon, Michigan, on April 21, 1947, the son of Louella and James Newell Osterberg, an English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. He is of English, German, and Irish descent on his father's side, and Danish and Norwegian ancestry on his mother's side. His father was adopted by a Swedish-American nurse surnamed Osterberg. The family lived in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan.He attended Tappan Junior High School, now Tappan Middle School. Ron Asheton later described him as having been a conventional teenager: "He hung out with the popular kids that wore chinos, cashmere sweaters, and penny loafers. Iggy didn't smoke cigarettes, didn't get high, didn't drink."Osterberg began to play drums in the fifth grade, first starting with rubber pads glued to plywood, before his parents bought him a drum set. In a 2007 Rolling Stone interview, he explained his relationship with his parents and their contribution to his music:
Music career
1960s
Osterberg began his music career as a drummer in various high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan, including the Iguanas, who covered several records such as Bo Diddley's "Mona" in 1965. He then began exploring local blues-style bands such as the Prime Movers, which he joined at 18 years old. The Prime Movers gave him the nickname "Iggy" for having played in the Iguanas. According to biographer Jim Ambrose, the two years he spent in the band made him aware of "art, politics, and experimentation".Osterberg eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. While in Chicago, he played drums in blues clubs, helped by Sam Lay who shared his connections with Pop. Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like the Sonics, MC5 and the Doors, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges. The band was composed of Osterberg on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass. Their first show was played at a Halloween party at a house in Detroit, Michigan. Members of the MC5 were also in attendance. Osterberg became interested in Ron Asheton after seeing him perform in the Chosen Few, believing "I've never met a convincing musician that didn't look kind of ill and kind of dirty, and Ron had those two things covered!" The three nicknamed Osterberg "Pop" after a local character named Jim Popp, who he was said to have resembled after shaving his eyebrows.
The seeds of Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw the Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison. Morrison's extreme behavior, while performing in a popular band, inspired the young Pop to push the boundaries of stage performance. Other influences on Pop's vocals and persona were Mick Jagger and James Brown:
In addition to Jim Morrison and the Doors' influence on the band, Pop also attributes the Stooges getting jump-started after seeing an all-girl rock band from Princeton, New Jersey, called the Untouchable. In a 1995 interview with Bust, he relates:
In 1968, one year after their live debut and now dubbed the Psychedelic Stooges, the band signed with Elektra Records, again following in the footsteps of the Doors, who were Elektra's biggest act at the time. In the 2016 Jim Jarmusch documentary film about the Stooges, Gimme Danger, Pop tells of guitarist Ron Asheton calling Moe Howard to see if it was all right to call the band "The Stooges", to which Howard responded by merely saying "I don't care what they call themselves, as long as they're not The Three Stooges!" and hung up the phone.
The Stooges' first album The Stooges was produced by John Cale in New York in 1969, but sold poorly.
1970s
The Stooges and the follow-up, Fun House, produced by Don Gallucci in Los Angeles in 1970, sold poorly. Though the release of Fun House did not receive the recognition expected, it was later ranked No. 191 in Rolling Stone's '500 Greatest Albums of All Time' in 2003. Shortly after the release of Fun House, the group disbanded because of Pop's worsening heroin addiction.In 1971, without a record deal, the Stooges kept performing in small clubs with a five-piece lineup that included both Ron Asheton and James Williamson on guitars and Jimmy Recca on bass, Pop having fired Dave Alexander the previous year when he turned up for a gig unable to play because of his chronic alcoholism. That year Pop and David Bowie met at Max's Kansas City, a nightclub and restaurant in New York City. Pop's career received a boost from his relationship with Bowie when Bowie decided in 1972 to produce an album with him in England. With Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Williamson were satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite the Stooges. Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass. The recording sessions produced the rock landmark Raw Power. 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 in 1974 ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O. Drug abuse stalled Pop's career again for several years.
After the Stooges' second breakup, Pop made recordings with James Williamson, but these were not released until 1977. Pop was unable to control his drug use and checked himself into a mental institution, the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, to try to clean up. Bowie was one of his few visitors, continuing to support his friend and collaborator. In 1976, Bowie took Pop 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 ethic. Following a March 21, 1976, show, Bowie and Pop were arrested together for marijuana possession in Rochester, New York, although charges were later dropped.
Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their respective drug addictions. "Living in a Berlin apartment with Bowie and his friends was interesting…" Pop recalled. "The big event of the week was Thursday night. Anyone who was still alive and able to crawl to the sofa would watch Starsky & Hutch."
In 1977, Pop signed with RCA Records. Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter featuring one of his best-known songs, "The Passenger". Lust for Life featured another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Fox Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales. Among the songs Bowie and Pop wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later. Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye Live in 1978. In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.
"Artistically, I really like those two records, The Idiot and Lust for Life," Pop said. "But I was personally just miserable… David was a really good friend to me in many ways, but… he had his whole thing going on and a whole apparatus of people around him, and problems that he had to face. For more than a year, I lived in the room next door, and I had a good friendship, but it wasn't the same as being in a band."
Pop had grown dissatisfied with RCA, later admitting that he had made TV Eye Live as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract. He moved to Arista Records, under whose banner 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 surprisingly, the album's style harkened back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. New Values was not a commercial success in the U.S. but has since been highly regarded by critics.
The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's nationwide show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of "I'm Bored", Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was lip-synching, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. He was also interviewed by host Molly Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally 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 visiting New Zealand, Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored" and attended a record company function where he appeared to slap a woman and throw wine over a photographer. While in Australia, Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the Ten Network. The Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.