Iggy Pop

Miami's not anybody's poor cousin. It's an inspiration to live in this town, not something you have to do to promote yourself like some of the larger cities.

Basically, I'm a musical vocalist, but I do voiceover stuff as a sideline, like plumbing or something.

I am the passenger, I stay under glass. I look through my window so bright, I see the stars come out tonight. I see the bright and hollow sky, over the city's ripped backsides and everything looks good tonight.

Miami's never been more than a spit from New York.

I never believed that U2 wanted to save the whales. I don't believe that The Beastie Boys are ready to lay it down for Tibet.

I'm a travel enthusiast.

Well, I don't use the toilet much to pee in. I almost always pee in the yard or the garden, because I like to pee on my estate.

Stages are getting higher and higher, and I'm getting older and older.

Something I like to do a lot is just sit by water when there's a current and just stare into the water. I don't fish, I don't hunt, I don't scuba, I don't spear, don't boat, don't play basketball or football - I excel at staring into space. I'm really good at that.

The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, 'We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too.'

When the 'godfather of punk' thing started floatin' around, it was, I was really, really embarrassed. I thought I should have a great, big rig and a cape and everything, and it was very embarrassing. And then after a while, you learn that if people call you anything, this is a great gift.

Nobody understands me, I'm really sensitive.

If you give a good performance, something that gets some feeling across to people, that's such a rare gift. It's underestimated at this point in history, when the music biz is inevitably turning into a kind of politics.

Well, the stuff that has become more commercial doesn't have any edge.

What some people would call antics, I would just call a good show.

Look, you're here to see me, and I can't go on until my dealer is here, and he's waiting to be paid, so give me some money so I can fix up, and then you'll get your show.

'Punk rock' is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.

In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music - you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards - they didn't get any money at first. They were all broke.

When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.

I stare at myself in the mirror and I think, 'Wow, I'm really great-looking.'... I think I'm the greatest, anyway.

I was who I was in high school in accordance with the rules of conduct for a normal person, like obeying your mom and dad. Then I got out of high school and moved out of the house, and I just started, for lack of a better term, running free.

She looked at me penetratingly. So I suppose you can figure out what happened next.

What did Christ really do? He hung out with hard-drinking fishermen.

My parents wanted to light my artistic candle. But over time, the definition of 'the arts' began to stretch. And as I got older, they suddenly realized, Oh, my God, we're the parents of Iggy Pop.

I like music that's more offensive. I like it to sound like nails on a blackboard, get me wild.

When it comes to art money is an unimportant detail. It just happens to be a huge unimportant detail.

At university, I had been obsessed with reading about the lives of Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and I was steeped in the crazy poets, and I came to view my early subjects through that prism.

I have no idea why a guy would bring a jar of peanut butter to a concert.

Second only to the sea, the Miami sky has been the greatest comfort in my life past 50. On a good day, when the wind blows from the south, the light here is diffuse and forgiving.

If I don't terrorize, I'm not Pop.

Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.

Living in England was wonderfully civil and easy-going.

I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I'd been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he'd say, 'Iggy, get me a coffee, light.'

Miami is nothing like me, and that's why I need to be here - it's the opposite. I'm practical, where this place is moody, I'm stolid in my interior, where this place has a certain flair, and I'm materialistic in a sense that this place is fundamentally spiritual - there's a quicksilver quality about this place.

I have a hot memory, but I know I've forgotten many things, too, just squashed things in favor of survival.