Iggy Pop – "I Can Take a Punch"

There are die-hard totemic musicians, and there's Iggy Pop, so reflective of rock's primal urges and irrepressible energies he could write the book and supply most of the images. His "ribald ruffian" of a new album, Every Loser, shows an artist still willing to take risks and not succumb, aged 75, to notions of growing old gracefully. Five decades since Raw Power, The World's Greatest Living Rock'N'Roll Star (TM) talks about that feral classic, working with Bowie then and, four years later, in Berlin, his surprise visit from Robert Plant, the nature of addiction, inventing punk, the impermanence of existence, oh, and his beloved cockatoo... "At certain points there are flare-ups," he warns Chris Roberts

- By Chris Roberts

Iggy will later confirm he was “pretty deranged” when recording 1973’s Raw Power, and “all over the place” when he made 1975’s Kill City. In 2023, though, to adapt one of his Stooges refrains, he feels alright. Today he’s cheerful, upbeat, that smile audibly crinkling. “This is a good connection,” he decides, after we’ve tried a few temperamental phone lines. “Old-school works the best.” The last time I interviewed him was during the final knockings of the 20th century, around the Don Was-produced album Avenue B. “Ah, well,” chortles Iggy, who has the grace to affect to remember that chat, “this is a different animal.”

There is no animal quite like Iggy Pop, whose louche life of extraordinary highs and lows has taken in Grade-A rock’n’roll debauchery, tumbling and stage-diving into proto-punk with The Stooges (who “wanted to transcend” while rolling around in broken glass). He fought addiction and spent time in a psychiatric ward and caused David Bowie to scribble down his name and put a Z in front of it, thus (as at least Mick Ronson’s version of the legend went) inspiring Ziggy Stardust. He moved to Berlin with Bowie and discharged two of the all-time great artrock works in The Idiot and Lust For Life, then bounced through Stooges reunions and a stream of diverse (sometimes visceral, sometimes pensive) solo albums, including, in 2016, his highest chart success in both the US and the UK, Post-Pop Depression.

Reluctant to wear shirts, he's also acted in many cult films, hosts a weekly radio show on BBC 6 Music and has been called a genius by just about every artist you like.