Introduction
Iggy Pop was born James Newell Osterberg Jr. on 21 April 1947 in Muskegon, Michigan, and was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, just outside the university town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. (Against this lower-middle-class background setting, the 'trailer trash' insults he endured as a kid actually helped Iggy in the long run, making him extremely competitive and instilling that thirst for success, etc.) The young Osterberg was apparently around nine years of age when he first became fascinated by the sound of 'industrial hum'. Indeed, any kind of machinery and its sound fascinated the young boy, so it was no surprise then when the youngster began playing drums at school.
Subsequently, at age 14, the young Osterberg got his first drum kit when his interest in music was well and truly sparked in the early 1960s by the sounds of Duane Eddy, Ray Charles and Chuck Berry. In 1962, the young Osterberg initiated his own musical endeavour when he formed a musical duo with a school friend, The Megaton Two, in which he, of course, played the drums.
This duo later expanded into the group The Iguanas circa 1964. Over the course of the next year or two, The Iguanas subsequently became a very popular local rock 'n' roll band, playing gigs at local high schools and frat parties at the University of Michigan, where they specialised in the à la mode British Invasion sounds of the day (including lots of Beatles tunes).
In July 1965, Osterberg graduated from high school and carried on playing with The Iguanas, who, by this time, were now playing clubs and periodically backing visiting musicians like The Shangri-Las. The band also managed to release a single, a cover of Bo Diddley's 'Mona'. In September 1965, Osterberg enrolled at the University of Michigan to study anthropology but dropped out after only one term. In November 1965, he decided to quit The Iguanas and instead joined local blues band The Prime Movers. It was around this time that the young Osterberg acquired the nickname 'Iggy', a slightly derisory sobriquet courtesy of his new bandmates, who couldn't resist a little dig at Osterberg's previous band.
Around the autumn of 1966, now aged 19, Iggy decided to quit not only The Prime Movers but also the entire Ann Arbor area, feeling that he had squeezed everything he could out of Ann Arbor. He, therefore, embarked on a trip of discovery to Chicago, whereupon he set about investigating the blues by hanging out and playing with some real authentic bluesmen. Iggy subsequently learned a lot during his brief time there and, upon his return to Ann Arbor, was determined to utilise his recent Chicago experience to help birth his own truly original music aspirations. He now knew that he no longer wanted to be a drummer, and he also realised that he was not destined to be a true blues player either, but he had been instilled with an urge to form his own band and a desire to create something entirely new, original and unique. He now just needed to find some like-minded guys.
Ron Asheton was born on 17 July 1948 in Washington DC and moved to Ann Arbor late in 1963 (after the passing of his father) with the rest of his family, including slightly younger brother Scott (born on 16 August 1949). Ron's musical ambitions started early when, at the age of five, he had taken accordion lessons. Later, at the age of ten, he started guitar lessons. The youngster's musical interests subsequently waned a little, but the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Yardbirds later reignited his interest in guitar playing. At this time, he developed a minimal playing style based on three- chord simplicity. Brother Scott also knew from an early age that he wanted to be involved in the music biz. He was around ten years old when he fell in love with the radio and listening to music. Since his older brother had snagged the guitar, Scott decided to pursue the drums and subsequently started by playing the snare drum at school. At around 14 years old, he started borrowing drum sets from other guys as he could not afford one.
At some point, Scott became good friends with another local lad, Dave Alexander (born 3 June 1947), although Dave later gravitated more naturally to older brother Ron because of their shared love of British rock music. So much so that, around mid-1965, both Dave and Ron ended up selling their motorcycles in order to fund a visit to England, with Ron ditching school.
They rather naively thought that they would see the likes of The Beatles and The Stones simply wandering around the streets! Obviously, this did not happen, but they did end up meeting local bands (in London and Liverpool) and also got to see the likes of The Who in concert. They were only there for about a month before they returned to Ann Arbor. Ron attempted to go back to school, but he just could not cope since his mind was now well and truly set on a career playing music.
Ron attempted to form a band with his brother Scott, Dave Alexander and another local lad, Bill Cheatham. This project was entitled The Dirty Shames, but it was more of a conceptual band than an actual functioning band - they did not really play at all, but they apparently looked very cool! Ron also briefly played in The Prime Movers, where he crossed paths with their drummer, a certain Mr. 'Iggy' Osterberg. However, Ron's tenure as an actual player in this band was very short due to his limited bass-playing ability at that time! Ron then subsequently played with The Chosen Few as their bassist. Interestingly, future Stooge James Williamson had been a founding member of The Chosen Few (circa the mid-1960s), although his tenure in the band was brief. Some sources say there was a slight membership overlap with Ron despite James saying not (insisting that he met both Iggy and Ron slightly later in 1966).
It was actually after Ron's trip to England that he first became acquainted with Iggy (whilst Iggy was still with The Iguanas). Iggy has often mentioned in interviews that he first became aware of Ron, Scott and Dave when they used to hang around outside the record store (Discount Records) he used to work at in Ann Arbor in the mid-1960s (where he supplemented his respective Iguanas and Prime Movers income). However, Iggy and Ron's paths crossed musically around this time, too, given their shared Prime Movers membership. Regardless of when they actually first met, the relationship between Ron and Iggy developed steadily into a real friendship over time, and at some point around this juncture, Iggy also became a drum mentor to Ron's aspiring drummer brother, Scott.
So, when Iggy returned from his Chicago expedition, he knew exactly who to call on . and so it was that, in 1967, Ron, Scott and Dave eventually hooked up with Iggy to form a band, all of them with a like-minded quest to create something truly new and original. Initially, they spent a lot of time listening to music and chatting about music - whilst the entire band were keen on artists such as The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones and John Lee Hooker, Dave was also a Love fan, whilst Ron was also inspired by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Pretty Things and Pete Townshend. Iggy was keen on The Doors and Van Morrison but also more avant-garde stuff, like Harry Partch and John Cage, which he had been exposed to back in Ann Arbor.
Other left-field influences on the band at this early stage also included the likes of Ravi Shankar and Gregorian chants.
Ultimately, the band decided that their strategy would be to ignore more conventional music form and structure. However, there were several months where nothing much actually happened, as confirmed by Iggy himself (in his 1982 biography, I Need More):
We formed a band and did nothing but talk bullshit for months and months. I actually provoked the fellows into practising by, mainly, scoring a quantity of grass or hash - I was very serious about rehearsal. I was very ambitious, you know. I never wanted to be anything but at the top, the most noticed or the most famous . But these were the laziest juvenile delinquent sort of pig snobs ever born. Really spoiled rotten and babied by their mothers.
Indeed, early rehearsals (at the Asheton family house) were sorely lacking in motivation, and Iggy found himself having to dangle the cannabis carrot in front of his bandmates to solicit some work from them! Fuelled by marijuana and LSD and with a wide variety of musical influences floating around them, the band were eventually inspired to create some unique and experimental music. Heavily improvised and rather primitive in nature (the band members were barely technically proficient musicians at this early stage), the free-form music also incorporated a fair number of unusual homemade instruments (the band did not really have any proper songs, rather just improvised jams incorporating various sound effects plus a few riffs, with Iggy grunting over the music!). According to Ron Asheton, they started out with Iggy getting a Farfisa organ (before slightly later moving on to Hawaiian guitar), with Scott using timbales, a snare drum and oil drums. Ron would use the bass guitar with a fuzz tone and a wah-wah pedal. The homemade instrumental inventions/experiments included putting a mic against the lip of a blender with water in it, Iggy dancing on a washboard (and/or sheet metal) with spiked golf shoes on, the use of a mic and funnel/cone to help create weird feedback sounds and a vacuum cleaner was also apparently incorporated into things in some...
