5 Things You Might Not Know About Iggy Pop

While you and the rest of the vinyl-loving public were celebrating Record Store Day on Saturday, Iggy Pop was celebrating his birthday. Weâd like to formally apologize to Mr. Pop for not being in a position to post anything in honor of the day of his birth on that actual date, but now that weâre back in the office and in front of the computer again, we thought weâd celebrate by offering up 5 things you may not have known about our man Iggy.
1. The Stooges actually sought permission from Moe Howard to make sure he was cool with their name.
For years, it was rumored that Iggy himself was the one who called Moe to get the ostensible leader of The Three Stooges to okay the band calling themselves âThe Stooges.âIn fact, it was Iggyâs bandmate Ron Asheton who made the call. âMoe said, âYeah, [use the name] as long as you donât have a comedy group or something, â Iggy told Rolling Stone in 2016, adding that Asheton had actually interacted with two Stooges. âRon for quite awhile [also] visited Larry Fine, and he would bring Larry cigars and whiskey and stuff like that.â
2. He contributed backing vocals to âWhat in the World,â a track on David Bowieâs 1977 album, LOW.
Itâs well known that David Bowie was responsible for helping steer Iggy Pop into some of the best work of his solo career, thanks to the production work he did on THE IDIOT and LUST FOR LIFE, both of which were released in 1977. Whatâs less remembered, however, is that Iggy also popped up on a couple of Bowie tracks over the years, the first being âWhat in the World.â It would be another seven years before Iggy found his way onto a second Bowie track (âDancing with the Big Boys,â on 1984âs TONIGHT),
3. In the early â80s, he recorded a few songs with Tommy Boyce as his producer.
There canât possibly be anyone who frequents Rhino.com with any semblance of regularity who canât immediately identify Tommy Boyce as a songwriter who â with the assistance of his longtime collaborator Bobby Hart â wrote a bunch of hit singles for The Monkees. In this case, Boyceâs commercial instincts worked nicely for the song âBang Bang,â which Iggy had, in fact, written because he had promised Arista, his label at the time, a commercial album. Looking back, the album in question â 1981âs PARTY â is a really terrible attempt at commerciality, with the greatest case and point being the song âEggs on Plate,â but to give credit where credit is due, âBang Bangâ is actually a pretty great single.
4. He performed on American Idol in 2011.
No, no, he wasnât auditioning, and you know he couldnât possibly have done so, because people would still be talking about that to this day. Iggy did, however, take the stage of American Idol in 2011, where â at the age 64 and while wearing no shirt â he performed his classic â80s single âWild Oneâ to rapturous applause from seemingly everyone except for the contestants, who merely applauded politely and seemed mildly befuddled about the whole performance. These kids todayâ¦
5. Heâd been a musician â or at least a singer â for 30 years before scoring his first gold record.
Whether you want to call Iggyâs 1990 album BRICK BY BRICK a comeback LP or an unabashed attempt to sell out, the end result is the same: thanks to songs like âLivinâ on the Edge of the Nightâ and âCandy,â it proved to be the biggest selling album of his career. Having been rockinâ in some fashion or other since 1960, itâs fair to say that Iggy had earned it by then.