The frontman who forced Iggy Pop to become a singer: “I had to!”
Jim Morrison’s erratic behaviour was a direct reflection of his lifestyle.
When he took to the stage, he performed like a man possessed. It was a style which was confrontational, and that resonated with punk audiences long before John Lydon was even a twinkle in the music industry’s eye. Many artists were completely enamoured by Morrison’s new counterintuitive approach to being a frontman; others worried about him, and most sat somewhere in the middle.
Alice Cooper, for instance. No doubt his style of shock rock was an offset of The Doors frontman, and he even named the band’s self-titled album as one of his favourites ever, but he was always somewhat worried about the singer as well. He said, “There are certain people you meet, and you just know they won’t be around forever, and Jim was one of those people.”
Cooper spoke about Morrison’s lifestyle and how his stage presence was reflected in the way he lived. “The guy was a genius, and I don’t throw that word around very often, but he did not treat himself very well,” he said. “He would eat pills like you might eat Skittles, and he was a big drinker. He could have died 100 times. He was a risk-taker, fearless. You’d be at a party and see him standing on the edge of a 300-foot-high building, balancing himself with a whisky bottle in each hand: that was a normal day for him.”
It’s sad that Morrison wasn’t around for longer, but considering he passed away at 27, it’s incredible just how much of a legacy he left behind. Speak to any flamboyant frontman out in the world of music today, and see how long it takes for them to cite The Doors’ lead as one of their biggest inspirations, you won’t be waiting around.
Iggy Pop was always very forthcoming about how much he loved Jim Morrison. The first time he saw The Doors play live was at a homecoming event at the University of Michigan. The band were starting to cement themselves as pioneers within the world of rock music, and so fans were ecstatic about seeing them live; however, the show wound up being a disaster.
Morrison came on stage drunk, dissonant, as a frustrated crowd began to sporadically boo while the singer found his feet. One concert-goer, Fred LaBour, said, “After a while, it started to get uncomfortable.”
However, while a lot of performers would shy away from such an atmosphere, Morrison took to it with a figurative knife in the shape of a microphone and tore the whole thing to shreds, as he argued with the crowd and was almost fighting with those who were making their feelings known.
Iggy Pop would later become famous for his performance style, as he was never shy about taking to the stage in a way which many would describe as confrontational. Once again, he was one of those artists who was punk before punk was actually a word, unforgiving and unrelenting in his approach to both sound and vision. It all started with Jim Morrison, who was the first person not to make Iggy Pop want to be a singer, but to show Pop the kind of singer he could be.
“There’s just a connection,” said Pop when talking about how Morrison influenced him, concluding, “I’ve always said this: When I saw Mick Jagger play, I wanted to be a lead singer. When I saw Morrison play, I had to. I had to! I said I have to go out and do it now! He affected me just very deeply as a person.”
