‘Raw Power’: Josh Homme on the wildest, craziest and most unhinged example of rock and roll
There has always been an element of one-upmanship in rock and roll, not necessarily in the drive to be better than the great bands that came before you but to push the envelope just a bit further than they did. If sex, drugs, danger, and distortion are the base ingredients, then you might as well see how far those dials can turn: get louder, more outrageous, and more potentially unnerving or offensive to the establishment. The only problem is, when you get to the very edge of the edge, you might be disappointed to find out that somebody already planted their flag there 50 years ago.
This is essentially the perspective that Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme shared when he gave a memorable interview with Rolling Stone back in 2003, just as QOTSA were breaking into the mainstream. When he was asked to name some of his favourite records, Homme included plenty of examples of bands on the fairly extreme end of the danger spectrum, including Misfits, Black Flag, and the Subhumans. There was one band and one specific album, however, that he felt required a clear separation and distinction from the “crazy” efforts of other risk-taking outfits.
Raw Power, The Stooges’ third studio album, was released in 1973. It is sometimes regarded with so much reverence as a “classic” that one can lose sight of how extreme—and downright unusual—it sounded then and still sounds now.
“Some Stooges enthusiasts like this one the least because it’s not Ron Asheton playing guitar,” Homme said. “But I say to those people, uh, whatever, don’t get weird on me. To me, this record—I’m talking about the one Bowie did, not the remixed one—from start to finish, it is truly raw power. It’s like, go! Hit the switch! It’s dick-swinging, cutting yourself, let’s fuck, I’m high, yeah! It is what rock n’ roll sounds like when it comes off the tap. If you take the craziest band you’ve ever heard, and you play Raw Power first, your ‘Craziest Band Ever’ will sound like a bunch of pussies.”
Within five years of Raw Power’s release, the Stooges, and frontman Iggy Pop in particular, were already being labelled the “godfathers of punk,” and that remains hard to quibble with. It’s also hard to say, though, that Raw Power actually sounds like the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. It is—strange as it might be to say—quite a bit less refined and not remotely as slick as those bands.
The original mix of Raw Power, which is credited to David Bowie but which Bowie himself later described as “an absurd situation,” sounds absolutely like itself and nothing else. That’s because the only tinkering done in the studio seems to have been the sporadic turning up and down of the vocals and guitar in each song, creating the effect that you’re at a Stooges show in somebody’s basement, and your head’s getting pinged between the shoulders of the moshing maniacs on either side of you.
At other points, it sounds like Iggy has jumped from the stage and is singing directly into your ear. This whole experience creates a record that—for as loud and raucous and intense as it is—also feels intimate and “close” and sort of scarier as a result. Despite not selling well in its own time, Raw Power has famously gone on to influence a wide range of different musicians, as Josh Homme’s fandom puts him on a list of other noted admirers, from Kurt Cobain, Henry Rollins, and John Frusciante to Frank Black, Johnny Marr, and Morrissey.
