The first album J Spaceman fell in love with
Jason Pierce, better known by his cosmic pseudonym J Spaceman, rose to prominence as the lead vocalist of Spacemen 3, which he co-founded with Peter Kember. The band were active in the 1980s, carving a path that was soon followed by a wave of acts inspired by their psychedelic, proto-shoegaze sound.
Honing an out-of-this-world soundscape that saw the members experiment with distorted guitars and reverb, the band were one of the most influential British groups of the decade, doing something completely different to many of their counterparts. However, the band began to crumble by 1990, leading to the formation of Spiritualized.
Spiritualized found popularity in 1997 after releasing Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, which featured the song of the same name – a reworked, spacey version of Elvis Presley’s ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. Pierce’s band have retained a cult following ever since, releasing well-received albums like Amazing Grace, Songs in A&E and And Nothing Hurt.
To achieve the distinctive blend of psychedelic sounds, ambience and more abrasive alternative rock, Pierce took inspiration from a large pool of bands, but few influenced him like Iggy Pop and the Stooges did.
The Stooges formed in 1967 and became one of the most influential alternative rock groups of all time, acting as highly important precursors to the punk movement. The garage rock band’s fuzzy guitars and unpolished, DIY sensibility captivated Pierce, keeping The Stooges in mind when he began making his own music.
Pierce revealed in an interview with Discogs, “I think I got incredibly lucky with my first record. The first record I ever bought was Raw Power by The Stooges. I don’t know how I came up with The Stooges from that. I knew nothing about it whatsoever.”
Raw Power was the band’s third album and their last before they returned 34 years later with another, The Weirdness. Released in 1973, the album contained some of the band’s most widely known tracks, such as ‘Search and Destroy’ and ‘Gimme Danger’. The record has been cited as a favourite by many iconic artists in the punk, noise rock and alt-rock genres, a testament to its pioneering sound.
Pierce added, “I knew nothing about the band or where they were from, or what they were about. I just fell in love with Iggy in that picture with his silver pants and then the wildcat on the back of his jacket.”
For the future musician, finding Raw Power felt like a landmark moment, “I felt like I discovered something uniquely mine.” It was instrumental in inspiring his developing tastes, continuing, “I think that’s really important when you’re young — that it’s personal, you know? And everybody I spoke to thought I was making it up. Iggy Pop, even the name sounds like such a bizarre idea!”
