BC: Even now, the way he would confront the audience seems startling. It’s hard to imagine any band today doing this.
PT: I guess I've seen plenty of bands out on the edge, with the sense that it could all fall apart at any moment – that’s what makes music exciting. But these days, it seems like it’s simply a career that’s at stake; in Iggy’s prime, it seemed like it was his life that was at stake.
BC: Many times Iggy Pop seemed on the verge of mainstream success, both with The Stooges and later as a solo artist, yet it eluded him. What do you think were the major factors that contributed to this?
PT: They say pioneers get all the arrows. I think that’s true. It’s generally the band who put a gloss on something new who clean up in the charts. But it’s always the pioneers that are remembered, a decade or two on. Today, who remembers that Pat Boone had more pop hits than Little Richard?
BC: The drug use documented in the book is pretty staggering, and it’s been suggested that The Stooges’ music would have sounded far different without chemical assistance.
PT: A lot of their inspiration came from drugs – they certainly wouldn’t have sounded the same, and likely wouldn’t have sounded as good, without it. But it was a Faustian pact that left two bassists dead, plus plenty of other friends.
BC: David Bowie’s motives in hooking up with Iggy Pop have been questioned for years. What’s your take?
PT: The quick answer is that, first time around, their friendship benefited David, and that second time around, it benefited Iggy. But it’s more complex than that. I think Iggy’s own description of David, when he first met him, is pretty apposite. He called him “a not unkind person.”
BC: Has the Stooges’ limited recorded output somehow enhanced their legacy? Music fans sometimes find the idea of a band that releases a few brilliant albums, lives like complete lunatics for a while, and then flames out quickly quite romantic.
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