BC: You suggest that maintaining this persona eventually began to take its toll on Osterberg’s mental state.
PT: Well, eventually the man had what was essentially a mental breakdown, and became a forlorn, pathetic figure. But I think it wasn’t so much maintaining the persona that caused the breakdown, as coping with his own apparent failure. Because Jim Osterberg was a very ambitious guy.
BC: This persona is one of the most infamous in music history. In the various interviews and research you conducted for the book, how difficult was it to sort the facts from the myths?
PT: After a while, you develop a nose for the stories that aren’t true, and of course there was endless cross-checking. I felt horrendously guilty about going back to people again and again to refine a story – but did it nonetheless. That said, there were events where different people’s accounts were simply incompatible, so I’d simply choose one person’s version and construct my account from that, mentioning this in the notes. Along the way, I had to drop a lot of juicy stories that turned out to be fictitious – but then I found just as many juicy new ones, including Iggy’s bizarre involvement with voodoo practitioners in Haiti!
BC: The book offers an overall sympathetic depiction of the musician, yet there are still plenty of unflattering moments included.
PT: Of course I felt a duty to be honest, to illustrate a man who was, in terms of dealing with other people, almost entirely selfish. But his gift to other people, to all of us, was his music – and, of course, the person who suffered most in the making of it was himself.
BC: What was the most thrilling or memorable thing about seeing Iggy Pop perform? What was the atmosphere like?
PT: Those who saw him in the '60s and '70s describe a visceral thrill and excitement – and also fear, that sense that anything could happen. Even today, you get a sense of that. I found it absolutely inspiring how he’s still borne along on the music, how this 60-year old gentleman with a bad limp becomes a carefree child, skipping onto the stage like a spring lamb.
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