Punk pioneer Iggy Pop has told ClashMusic that he was voted ‘Most Likely To Succeed’ at High School.
Think of Iggy Pop and you immediately think of rock’s most debauched frontman, someone who would think nothing of stripping naked onstage and smearing himself with peanut butter.
Breaking boundaries, his music with The Stooges would give punk its template and fire up a young Jack White. Speaking to ClashMusic, however, Iggy Pop revealed that his years at High School were somewhat different.
“In Junior High, about the same year I was voted Most Likely To Succeed, I played my first gig on drums” he recalled. “I already loved music and was pretty nuts about doing it around the house all the time, and in the school orchestra.”
“My dad loaned me the money to buy a kit, and I had a friend who had a guitar and an amplifier. We learned some Sandy Nelson and Ray Charles songs and we played as a two-piece in a talent show, and right away my life changed: people liked me better! (Laughs) I think, to be honest, that had a lot to do with it, but mainly, for the first time, something that I loved emotionally started to look a little more possible.”
Iggy Pop began life as a drummer, playing with local Ann Arbor combos such as The Iguanas – from whom he derived his name. Recalling his time as a drummer, the punk icon revealed that he owes a lot to his spell on the drums.
“When school music came in to my rural area, they offered a half programme, and the drums was the only cool thing they offered, from what I knew. I couldn’t see myself blowing a trumpet or a clarinet or anything. If they’d have offered me a piano I might have taken it, and God knows, if somebody had given me a guitar when I was twelve, I would have gone crazy. But the drums was the best thing they had, so I went for that. I’m kinda glad I did, because I learned certain fundamentals sitting back there.”
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