Iggy Pop recruited an all-star cast of featured musicians on his latest album Every Loser. In an interview with Classic Rock, the punk icon recalled how he already had relationships with his collaborators and admitted that Jane's Addiction "absolutely destroyed" him every night when he brought them with him on tour in the late '80s.
He noted how Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith was a Stooges fan. “I jammed with him when Dave [Navarro] was on guitar with the Peppers,” he explained.
“Dave and Eric Avery I’ve known from when they were really little kids," Iggy added. "They’d just started Jane’s Addiction, didn’t have a record out, but they played at a semilegal club called Scream that was owned by a friend of mine. They were like, ‘Can you help us out?’ So I took them on their first tour, and they absolutely destroyed me every night.”
During the interview, he also told the wild story of how he got to know Guns N' Roses' Slash and Duff McKagan. “I’ve known Duff since he was in his early 20s,” Iggy said. “I used to go over to Duff’s house – at the time he was trying to decide between the Playboy model he was dating and the weather girl – and rehearse. One time Slash was three hours late because, he said, ‘I’m sorry, but my snake escaped into the wall.’”
“Before we set to work, they said, ‘We’ll have to have a discussion before we start,’" he continued. "So they arrived with a gallon of vodka and a bowl of blow and, as a result of living through that, I got to know them pretty well.”
As for if fans can expect any shows with his album band, Iggy had this to say: “There will be some gigs with the album’s core band, but I just can’t talk about it.”