Iggy Pop T-ShirTS

James Newell Osterberg, Jr. (born April 21, 1947), better known by his stage name Iggy Pop, is an American rock singer, songwriter, and occasional actor. Although he has had only limited commercial success, Iggy Pop is considered one of the most important innovators of punk rock and related styles. He is sometimes referred to by the nicknames "the Godfather of Punk" and "the Rock Iguana", and is widely acknowledged as one of the most dynamic stage performers of rock. His direct influence extends to the present day: a Cadillac ad in rotation in February, 2007 features Iggy Pop on the song "Punkrocker", recorded in 2006 with the Swedish band The Teddybears.

Iggy Pop was the lead singer of The Stooges, a late 1960s/early 1970s garage rock band who were influential in the development of the nascent heavy metal and punk rock. The Stooges became infamous for their live performances, during which it was not uncommon for Iggy Pop to leap off the stage (thus inventing the "stage dive"), flash his genitals, smear raw meat (and on one occasion peanut butter) over his chest and/or cut himself with broken bottles. Many subsequent performers have imitated Pop’s antics.

Although he would never revisit the primal vitality of his days with the Stooges, Iggy Pop has had varying degrees of success in his 25 years as a solo artist. His best-known songs include "Lust for Life", "I'm Bored", "Real Wild Child", "Search and Destroy", the Top 40 hit "Candy", and "The Passenger". A film about Iggy Pop's life and career titled The Passenger is currently in production.

Iggy Pop was born in Muskegon, Michigan to James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan, and Louella Christensen. His father, who was adopted by a Swedish American family, was of Irish and English descent, while his mother was of Danish and Norwegian ancestry.

Iggy Pop began his music career as a drummer in different high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One band was the Iguanas, where he acquired the name Iggy. After exploring local blues-style bands such as the Prime Movers (with brothers Dan and Philip Erlewine), he eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics and The MC5, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and called himself Iggy Pop. He got the name Pop because he once shaved his eyebrows for a show, after which he looked like a friend with the last name Popp who had recently undergone chemotherapy and was eyebrowless himself. The band was composed of Iggy Pop on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass. After almost two years they made their debut in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

One year after their debut, and now dubbed the Stooges, the band were signed to Elektra Records in 1968. The Stooges' first two albums, The Stooges, (on which Iggy was credited as Iggy Stooge) produced by John Cale, and Fun House, sold poorly, although they had a lasting influence on the burgeoning punk movement. Shortly after the new members joined, the group disbanded because of Iggy Pop's growing heroin addiction. Iggy Pop nearly replaced the deceased Jim Morrison in The Doors and even dyed his hair black in preparation, but this came to naught as the remaining trio decided against adding a new lead vocalist.

David Bowie salvaged Iggy Pop's career by producing an album with him in England. With James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Bowie were satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion, in that Dave Alexander would not play on the album. He had become a full-on alcoholic, unable to play on the record; he died in 1975. Also, Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the punk rock landmark Raw Power, in 1973. After its release Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Iggy Pop's drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O.. Drug abuse put his career on hold for a couple of years.


After the second breakup of the Stooges, Iggy Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these weren't released until 1977 (as Kill City, credited jointly to Iggy Pop and Williamson). Iggy was unable to control his various drug habits, however, and checked himself into a mental institution to try to clean up. Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support his friend and collaborator. In 1976, Bowie took him along as his companion on the Station to Station tour. This was Iggy Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.

Bowie and Iggy Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions. Iggy Pop signed with RCA and Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life (both 1977), Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Sales. Among songs they wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on (the last being recorded with different lyrics as "Red Money" on the album Lodger). Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye (1978). In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.

Iggy Pop was unhappy with RCA. He later admitted that he'd made TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract and moving on elsewhere. This was Arista Records, for which he released New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surprisingly, the album's style veered back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans -- some preferring it to the Bowie collaborations -- New Values was not a commercial success, despite some strong material including "I'm Bored" and "Five Foot One".

The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Iggy Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the ABC's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of "I'm Bored", Iggy Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was miming, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. Iggy Pop was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then Iggy Pop has often toured there. While visiting New Zealand, Iggy Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored", featuring him outside and inside The Beehive, part of the country's Parliament buildings. This was widely aired on New Zealand television.

During the recording of Soldier (1980), Iggy Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production - the latter apparently wanted a big, Phil Spector-type sound - and Williamson was fired. Bowie appeared on the song "Play it Safe" performing backing vocals with Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Iggy Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but remained.

In 1982, Iggy Pop released what would be his final album for some time, Zombie Birdhouse, on Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing. Commercially, the album was no improvement on his Arista works.

In 1983, Iggy Pop's fortunes changed. David Bowie recorded a cover of the song "China Girl', which had originally appeared on The Idiot, on his blockbuster Let's Dance album. Bowie's version was a worldwide hit single and as co-writer of the song, Iggy Pop received substantial royalties. On Tonight in 1984, Bowie recorded two more of their songs, this time from the Lust for Life album, "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat". Pop was for the first time financially secure, at least for the short term. Bowie's intention was to help his friend get out of the clutches of the IRS. This enabled Iggy Pop to take a three-year break, during which he overcame his heroin addiction, took acting classes and got married.

In 1985, Iggy Pop recorded some demos with guitarist Steve Jones, previously of the Sex Pistols. He played these demos to David Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Iggy Pop: 1986's New Wave-influenced Blah Blah Blah, featuring the single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "Wild One (Real Wild Child)", originally made popular by Australian rock'n'roll pioneer Johnny O'Keefe in 1959. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was also successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the ABC's late-night music video show Rage. It remains Iggy Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success. Blah Blah Blah was Iggy Pop's highest-charting album in the U.S. since The Idiot in 1977, peaking at #75 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

Also in 1985, the movie Rock & Rule was released featuring performances by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed for the character Mok. Iggy Pop's song in the film was Pain & Suffering from the final sequence of the film.

In 1987, Iggy Pop appeared (along with Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

The follow-up to Blah Blah Blah, Instinct (1988), was a turnaround in musical direction, however. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any his solo albums to date. Iggy Pop's record label, which had most likely been expecting another Blah Blah Blah, dropped him.


In 1990 Iggy Pop recorded Brick by Brick, produced by Don Was, with members of Guns N' Roses and The B-52s as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local Hollywood groups, some of whom would be recruited for his band to tour and perform on his "Kiss My Blood" video (1991), directed by world-famous director Tim Pope and filmed at the Olympia in Paris. The album was Iggy Pop's first Gold-certified album in the U.S. (denoting sales of over 500,000 copies) and featured his first Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy," a duet with B-52s singer Kate Pierson.

Also in 1990, Iggy Pop starred in the controversial opera The Manson Family by composer John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics, where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. That year he was also involved in the Red Hot + Blue project, singing a version of Well Did You Evah in a duet with Deborah Harry.

In 1991, Pop contributed the song "Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead)" to the soundtrack of the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. The song also plays over the end credits of the film, with a compilation of clips from the A Nightmare On Elm Street series running alongside the end credits.

In 1992, Iggy Pop collaborated with Goran Bregović on the soundtrack for the movie Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica. Iggy Pop sang four of the songs: "In the Deathcar", "TV Screen", "Get the Money", and "This is a Film".

Also in 1992, Iggy Pop collaborated with the NYC band White Zombie. He recorded spoken word vocals on the intro and outro of the song "Black Sunshine" as well as playing the character of a writer in the video shot for the song. Iggy Pop is singled out for special thanks in the liner notes of the band's album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1.

In 1995, Iggy Pop again found mainstream fame when his 1977 song "Lust for Life" was featured prominently in the film Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy Pop dancing with one of its stars, Ewen Bremner; an Iggy Pop concert was an important plot point, as it dissolved the relationship between Tommy and Lizzie. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports talk show.

Also in 1995, Iggy Pop released Naughty Little Doggie, with Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, and the single "I Wanna Live". He co-produced 1999's Avenue B with Don Was, releasing the single "Corruption", and produced 2001's Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to The Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.

In 1997 Iggy Pop remixed Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official 'rescue effort' mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Iggy Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red."

In the early to middle 1990s Iggy Pop would make several guest appearances on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father. He also appeared as a Vorta in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Magnificent Ferengi".

Iggy Pop supplied vocals for the 1999 Death in Vegas UK Top 10 hit single Aisha. He also supplied vocals on the song "Rolodex Propaganda" by At the Drive-In in 2000.

Pop's 2003 album, Skull Ring, featured collaborations with Sum 41, Green Day, Peaches, and The Trolls, as well as the Asheton brothers, reuniting the two surviving fouding members of Stooges for the first time since 1974. He made a guest appearance on electroclash artist Peaches's song "Kick It" as well as the video. Also in 2003, the first full-length biography of Iggy Pop was published by Omnibus Press. Gimme Danger - The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose. Iggy Pop did not collaborate on the biography or publicly endorse it.

Having enjoyed working with Ron and Scott Asheton on Skull Ring, Iggy Pop reformed the Stooges with bassist Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen) filling in for the late Dave Alexander, and Fun House saxophonist Steve MacKay rejoining the lineup. They have been touring regularly since 2004.

In 2004 Iggy Pop opened Madonna's Reinvention World Tour in Dublin.

In 2005 Iggy Pop appeared, along with Madonna, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, in an American TV commercial for the Motorola ROKR phone.

In early 2006, Iggy and the Stooges played in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out. They also began work on a new album, The Weirdness, which was released in March 2007. In August 2006 Iggy and the Stooges performed at the Lowlands pop festival in the Netherlands, Hodokvas in Slovakia and in the Sziget festival in Budapest.

Iggy and The Stooges played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2007, which led to Wellington Boot wearing crowd-surfers and a good natured riot as Iggy encouraged muddy festivalgoers to invade the stage. Their set included material from the 2007 album 'The Weirdness' and classics such as 'No fun' and 'I wanna be your dog'.

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