Getting a 67-year-old to DJ the weekend-starts-here slot doesn’t sound like 6 Music’s cleverest move. But not many 67-year-olds have performed in transparent trousers, sowed the dirty seeds of punk, metal and new wave... as well as given lectures and advertised insurance. Last week Iggy Pop was announced as the permanent host of the station’s Friday 7-9pm slot. Here are five reasons to love him…
He’s the greatest rock performer
Smearing his chest with peanut butter and raw steaks, rolling around in broken beer bottles, being a pioneer of diving into the crowd – there’s none more outrageous than Pop. Inspired as a teenager by Jim Morrison’s stage theatrics and how he would antagonise the audience, He would shake, rattle and yowl at early Stooges shows, and even now always performs topless.
He’s the frontman’s frontman
The Stooges were punk before punk. Pop’s influence on David Bowie was also immeasurable. Mick Ronson said Bowie created Ziggy Stardust after meeting Iggy, scribbling his name down and adding a Z; Pop and Bowie’s great friendship led to them producing each other’s records, and writing songs such as China Girl and Nightclubbing. He was also a massive influence on Ian Curtis, Nick Cave and Kurt Cobain, and has collaborated with a diverse range of artists, including Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamato, heavy metal band White Zombie, electroclash pioneer Peaches and American indie duo Best Coast. Fellow Michigan native Madonna also adores him, getting the Stooges to support her on the Dublin date of her 2004 Re-invention tour.
His wild years are long gone but his spirit’s still on fire
Pop could have easily become one of rock’s young casualties. Before the Stooges he spent years “watching television and sniffing glue”(it speaks volumes that the friend who inspired his rock-star surname, Jim Popp, sniffed so much glue he lost all his hair) and went on from there. “One time I took LSD and some really strong weed before a concert,” Pop recalled, “and it was like when the television goes vertical and doesn’t stop.” He became addicted to heroin, and things got so bad that it broke up the Stooges twice. But he checked himself into a psychiatric hospital in 1975, and moved with Bowie to Berlin a year later to try to get clean. His greatest albums, The Idiot and Lust for Life, were the result.
He loves his fans
Performing with the Stooges at Glastonbury 2007, Pop told fans: “Get the fuck up here!” He helped the security guards haul them up, then finished singing Real Cool Time, before launching into No Fun. Several hundred fans joined him, a feat Pop repeats regularly – he even encouraged people to dance with him at the much more genteel Royal Festival Hall. He also replies sweetly to fan letters, as the Letters of Note website recently revealed; a fan called Laurence had written to him about her problems, and Pop replied tenderly and warmly: “I want to see you take a deep breath and do whatever you must to survive and find something to be that you can love. Hang on, my love, and grow big and strong and take your hits and keep going.”
He’s so charming he even gets away with car insurance adverts
Pop fronted a TV ad campaign in 2009 for Swiftcover – and defended it in last year’s John Peel Lecture for BBC Music. “[Funding through alternative means] seems to be turning out better for me than the official rock’n’roll company albums I struggle through,” he sighed, leaning on the lectern, wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a plunge-necked black top. “Sorry. If I wanna make money, well, how about selling car insurance? At least I’m honest. It’s an ad and that’s all it is.” Some, obviously, called him a sell-out; everyone else melted.
