“I looked at the clock and realized I needed to throw down.”
It was 2014, around the time the then-sixty-six-year-old
godfather of punk, Iggy Pop, had declined an offer from
the AARP to appear on its magazine cover. His Social
Security benefits had recently kicked in.
Pop was reflecting on the ups and downs of his career.
From 2003 to 2013, he helped The Stooges win longoverdue respect and an induction into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame through a series of reunion shows that bled
raw power. But his solo oeuvre was still lacking recent
props due to a long line of uneven releases including
2012’s Après—an album rejected by his longtime label
Virgin Records.
“I made four records since 2007 and nothing was fitting,”
Pop admits.
Also on his brain was Queens of the Stone Age. He had
recently seen video of them performing in support of
their 2013 album, the chart-topping …Like Clockwork, and
was impressed by their musicianship. He recalled having
met QOTSA frontman Josh Homme briefly a few times,
including at an award show where Pop accepted a lifetime
achievement honor.
He had received that award nearly ten years earlier. And
yet there he was, living near Miami, not ready to retire—
certainly not with an album of French jazz that almost no
one had heard.
It may come as little surprise that Iggy Pop didn’t—and
still doesn’t—know how to send an e-mail. (In fact, he
only reads a few per month, with help from his wife.)
Fortunately, though, he did know how to send a text
message, and he had Homme’s number.