Iggy Pop describes what he learned from David Bowie in new tribute

Pop speaks of the pair's friendship and collaboration in new interview

Iggy Pop has again paid tribute to the late David Bowie, speaking in a new interview about what he learned from his close friend and collaborator.

Bowie passed away earlier this month (January 10) following an 18 month battle with cancer. Pop, who worked with the singer in the 1970s, previously described the icon as “the light of my life” and said that Bowie saved him from “annihilation”.

Now, speaking to Rolling Stone, Pop recalled how he first met Bowie after hearing that he liked his band The Stooges, which was “something not a lot of people would admit at the time”.

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“My impression was that he was very poised and very friendly, but not as friendly in that setting as when I got to know him in smaller groups,” Pop recalled.

On working together, Pop continued: “I could see that he had some ideas for me… I learned a lot from him. I first heard the Ramones, Kraftwerk and Tom Waits from him. He also had a certain rigour. If he saw something in another artist he admired, if they didn’t pick up that ball and run with it, he didn’t have any problem saying, ‘Well, if you’re not going to do it, I will. I’ll do this thing you should have done.’ And that was very valid.”

NMEAndy Willsher/NME

“We wrote more and came up with more sophisticated work [because of Bowie]. If we were going to be in his stable, he wanted us to do work of the very best quality… You can see what I learned from David as a performer”.

Pop also revealed the main thing he took away from their friendship: “David was not a person to waste a piece of music: Never waste an idea… That was another big thing I learned: Don’t throw stuff away.”

Bowie and Iggy Pop enjoyed a working relationship and toured together in 1976 on the ‘Station To Station’ tour.

The pair lived together in Berlin in 1977 with Bowie helping Pop write ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust For Life’, his first two solo albums following the end of The Stooges.

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Bowie also played keyboards in Pop’s live performances during that period while Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie’s ‘Low’.

Pop, meanwhile, will release new album ‘Post Pop Depression’ on March 18, which was recorded in secret last year with Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme (who also produced the album), Arctic Monkeys‘ drummer Matt Helders and Homme’s QOTSA colleague Dean Fertita.

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