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It varies. On some of the tracks, the rhythm section
is Dennis Davis and George Murray. On others, it was a French bassist who
also engineered the album. One of the drummers was in a Celt rock band
from England ... most of the guitar work was done by Ray Davies nephew,
who I can't remember his name except that it was Phil.
Was Ricky Gardner, who played on Lust for Life
and was on tour for The Idiot with Hunt, Tony, and David, on it?
No. He was just on that tour you mentioned as well as Lust For Life.
A rare inner-view
The following interview was conducted by Danny
Sugarman (hi Danny!) and appeared in his cool, but very limited-circulation
fanzine Heavy Metal Digest in 1974. Also present was Corel Starr, Ig's
"fiancee" at the time (and older sister of the more renowned groupie Sabel,
then with Johnny Thunders). In it, he talks about the songs that later
surfaced on our album Open Up and Bleed, and provides some insight into
what things were like in the final days of the Stooges.
DS: When can we expect the Stooges' next LP?
Iggy: I don't know man! (laughing)
DS: Any idea what the music will be like?
Iggy: Like shit.
DS: Good shit or bad shit?
Iggy: Oh, I don' t know. Just shit.
DS: What's the band been doing?
Iggy: You know damn well what we're doing! I don't know what the band's been doing. Last night I fell down. I drank a buncha Boones Farm and got really drunk and fell down and cut my cheek open, see?
DS: Did you get sick?
Iggy: I never get sick on alcohol.
DS: You're leaving for twenty gigs this afternoon through February, are you looking forward to the tour?
Iggy: Well, I better not be looking back! No, I rather go to the beach.
DS: What would you rather do, make music or go to the beach?
Iggy: Go to the beach.
DS: If you had everything to do over again, what would you do?
Iggy: Go to the beach and learn to be a lifeguard!
DS: Have you been writing any new songs?
Iggy: Yeah! Lots of new songs. We've got "I Got Nothing," "Rich Bitch," and... (to kid across the street) HEY, YA GOT ANY POT?!
DS: Ya got a joint?
Iggy: Any marijuana? No, okay, I don't smoke anyway. There's another song but I can't think of the title.
Corel: You liar, you didn't write any new songs.
Iggy: Yes, I did! I just can't remember the other title! Oh, yeah! "Wet My Bed!" That's it.
Corel: God Danny, it's too early to start drinking!
DS: It's never too early to start drinking. Can you recite some of the lyrical highlights?
Iggy: Of the champagne?
DS: No, asshole, your songs.
Iggy: Oh! "Rich Bitch": "When you're so big/they drive thru you with a truck/And everybody knows you already been fucked/Daddy ain't 'round to pay your bills/Nobody wants to buy your pills/Ya hardhitter/keep your, keep your, keep your hands off me!"
DS: Your next album, when and if...
Iggy: See, I don't know about the next album cause there are all these different companies and I don't know who to deal with. We're off of Columbia due to, ummm, differences.
DS: Is there any truth to the rumor that the Stooges have gone musical?
Iggy: Yeah, yeah! That's true! We've gone harmonies and the whole bit. Even some acoustic guitar.
DS: What's your relationship with Elton John?
Iggy: (backbending on the floor): I don't know.
Corel: He's hot for Jim's bod
Iggy: He's not either! Qell, maybe but I don't now. He's a nice man and so am I.
DS: He gonna produce you?
Corel: He's gonna let you produce him!
DS: Me?!
Iggy: Yeah, you. That's what I told someone last night in an interview. I told them Danny Sugarman was going to produce my next album.
DS: Okay.
Corel: Yeah, he was even saying it in his sleep!
DS: You went on record as saying you never were a punk.
Iggy: Who did I tell that to?
DS: Gomper.
Iggy: Who? Oh yeah, I get it, well I ain't. I never was a punk. It's just that I'm so smart that people just don't know, you know? I'm just way over other people's heads. You know what I mean. There are so many people who wanted so bad to be literate but I was literate when I was five years old so I got past that.
Corel: (laughing) Sure Jim
Iggy: It's true. When I was five years old, man. I had a bigger vocabulary than you do today!
DS: It must be awfully difficult finding a female mate who can match your extra superior intelligence.
Iggy: Yeah, especially when I eat my toe-nails
Corel: Oh Jim, how gross.
DS: Where are you putting them?
Iggy: Wherever I want. Don't worry, they're not going on yer floor. I got this girl but I don't know about her.
DS: Why?
Iggy: She hates my music. She just likes me. I like that.
DS: It doesn't frustrate you?
Iggy: Ummmahhhoooono! I expect it. I figure any girl I really liked wouldn't like anything about me. You know. Because all those girls who like my music I don't like. I literally can't touch them.
Corel: Quit it, that's disgusting! Don't eat your toenails.
Iggy: I'm chewing on them. There's a difference.
DS: Some say you're bent on death?
Iggy: Ah, what do they know. I'm going to see 80! Everybody is saying he's going to die in two days, but they're wrong! No, uh uh, not this boy, I'm okay.
Corel: If you were meant to die, you would've died a long time ago.
Iggy: Yeah, that's right. I've come close but close is a lot, LOT different than that same thing. It'll take a lot to kill me. A helluva lot.
DS: Do you ever see your old friends?
Iggy: Outside of you, all my friends are either dead, in jail, or they look like Leee Childers! (laughter)
DS: What's your favorite Doors song?
Iggy: All of 'em. Especially "The Spy" whatever the official title is and "The End." They're all great.
DS: Are you enjoying being a Stooge?
Iggy: Yeah! Hell yeah! Damn straight! Well NO! Besides, I'm Iggy Pop, they're the Stooges. (laughter)
DS: Okay, do you still like being Iggy Pop?
Iggy: I might as well, I'm stuck with it. I didn't make up the name.
Corel: You still want them to be the Psychedelic Stooges.
Iggy: No, that's not true, hon. You see, the music we used to play was like a cross between ELP and ELO. No kidding. Really, it was. The majesties, not the instruments. I was on organ. It's the truth. It was before we ever went on stage. It was after I went out and saw all these trashy bands that I said, well, people like the trashy bands, they don't like the good bands so I might as well be trashy. I decided to outdo all those kinda guys I hated at their own game, and I did. And I won. And I liked it!
DS: The Stooges' problem has always been being ahead of their time.
Iggy: Yeah, exactly, right. That's cause we're so smart.
DS: But you're still making the same music, basically, that you were four years ago. You're not making music ahead of its time now. I mean, I don't live in the future. Maybe rock is going to make a turn-about and come back and we're the only ones that know that trash rock will be the big thing in 1980.
Iggy: EXACTLY! We're still ahead of our time. Cause we're so smart. Even Scott Asheton (drums). He's a stone genius, he knows it. He might not be able to spell or talk (laughter), you know what I mean? But he's a stone genius! I do at least ten dumb things a day, but that don't slight me. I don't know why I do 'em, but I'm still a genius. I can think things and say things nobody understands. I don't know, you sometimes understand me and it scares me a bit. We're too smart for our own good, that's all. Too honest.
DS: Thanks. Since it's always nice to let the star have the last word...
Iggy: Ummm, I called a nigger a nigger in Mass. last week. That's pretty bold. You know what I mean? You just don't say that sort of stuff in front of 3,000 people. But he really was, I mean he was niggering. Niggering out, grabbing at my leg and microphone cord. I said "stop that you damn nigger!!" and that takes guts!
DS: Don't you believe in being appreciative towards the people who pay to see you?
Iggy: I don't spit at anybody I don't aim at. And the only people I spit at are people who are beng assholes.
DS: Audiences are afraid of you.
Iggy: I didn't know that! I think if they are
it's only when I come off the stage which I haven't been doing. I just
wasn't in the mood. It's not good to let them begin to expect that from
you. I'm getting all these guts from nowhere. Like a performer usually
thinks, "Oh God, I better do what I'm expected," and like all of a sudden
I'm doing what I wnt to and fuck what I'm expected to do. A lot of that
has to do with this girl I know who told me I'd be better off that way.
with Sabel and Corel, 1974
(photo by J Fortune, courtesy Michael Ochs Archives)
What ever happened to him?
He's raising potatoes in Wales. His wife is an
artist and they send me giant art projects from time to time plus many
thanks every time they get a royalty check for "The Passenger." That one
song has enabled him to raise potatoes which is what he wanted to do.
What ever happened with that much talked about
Stooges reunion? First there was the rumor that you were gonna reform for
Oliver Stone's The Doors. Then, there was talk of you playing on Lollapalooza.
People have asked me and basically I just tell
them the truth and then they tend to take it farther with their own imagination.
The truth is I have a great affection for both Ron and Scott Ashetons,
I'd loved to do something with them. I also have a great affection for
this part of the country. It's a nice thought that if I were to have the
time and space to do something musical with those guys that was new and
if we had something to say to each other on that basis, then I'd love to
do something. But do I want to go out and play our old hits? No. I have
no interest in doing that whatsoever. It wouldn't serve me or them. And
furthermore, I don't have to.
Well, then what's the difference between that
and doing Stooges songs year after year after year as a solo artist? Isn't
that a contradiction of why you won't reform the Stooges?
When I do them solo, they're included with stuff
from my first solo album, The Idiot. It's certainly different than going
out and trying to recreate what made the Stooges special. It wouldn't serve
the band well. It would be a big mistake.
Moving on to tampering with history ... I read
in last month's MOJO that you remixed Raw Power because the record company
was going to do it with or without you so you gave it a go.
That was true, but the record needed a remix and
the CD was even worse. I was pretty hopeful and after hearing the first
track, I knew it was going to be a motherfucker. To my ears, it really,
really an awful lot of stuff that's come out, that came out at the time
since or contemporary stuff. It killed all the top neo-punk and grunge.
A few years ago I read a quote from you that with
exception of the gawd awful Big Chief, where you said, "Detroit is full
of a bunch of has-been losers who stay up all night trying to be the New
York Dolls." Well, now you're on tour with Sponge, who have gotten pretty
successful outside of Michigan. Still feel that way?
(Laughs) Since then, I've had some good gigs with
the (Demolition) Doll Rods (local Detroit band). I enjoyed that. I don't
have a clue about what's happening hear right now.
Well, legendary producer Kim Fowley is coming
here in two weeks to record an album. He's actually staying at my house.
Well, there must be something going on if he's
sniffing around. There's probably some kid sitting in his rec room right
now in Livonia (Detroit suburb; also name of 4AD band His Name is Alive's
first album) thinking up something cool that no one has heard yet.
Why R.O.A.R.? It seems the antithesis of what
you're about.
It has always been to my regret that I've never
had the opportunity to play places like Pittsburgh, Davenport, Milwaukee,
Huntsville on a good stage with good sound. I've never had that chance
and I wanted to show people what I do before I can't do it anymore. My
last 12 years in America touring has been up `til now has been pretty much
the same 12 theaters in the same 12 towns unless I was supporting some
gawd awful media band.
Like the '87 tour with The Pretenders?
Well, whatever. At least she can sing.
The general consensus among people is that The
Idiot and Lust for Life are your best solo works. Any chances, plans or
interests in working with Tony Visconti or David Bowie again?
I have no plans. Never plan. Just do it.
Anything different on the next Iggy Pop album?
Standards like Sinatra. Standards.
--Colin C. McDonald