The musician Iggy Pop called the light of his life: “He was the best there is”
There is a fair amount of hyperbole that surrounds the lore of 1970s hedonism.
Snorting human ashes, driving cars into swimming pools and throwing television sets out of windows have become the pillars upon which we question the fidelity of these lofty stories. But just as we begin to roll our eyes and pass it off as the truth inflated, another tale of Iggy Pop madness comes to the fore, and suddenly the twisted romance of this wild era pales into view.
Tracing the story of the great punk rock frontman is a reminder that this was undoubtedly a time of unbridled chaos, and the ambitious nature of his own hedonism was what caused a ripple effect of hyperbolic tale sharing. Perhaps no story encapsulates this better than that of madcap actor Dennis Hopper and mercurial musician David Bowie, breaking into Iggy Pop’s mental health institution, dressed as spacemen, delivering him a secret passage of cocaine.
A tale of true irreverence that encapsulates the friendship of the 1970s wildest duo: Iggy Pop and David Bowie. Together, the pair defined the very best and worst of the era, collaborating with fearless ambition in their creative endeavours, while using their spare time in between to spiral into desperate states of addiction.
“I met David in New York in 1971,” Iggy recalled. “I was staying at [publicist] Danny Fields’ little funky-ass loft. It was late one night, and Danny went to Max’s Kansas City. I didn’t want to go. I was watching TV – Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Danny rang me: ‘There’s a guy down here. You remember him.’ And I did.”
It seemed as though the pair met their match when they locked eyes in that Manhattan loft, feeling an acute sense of mental understanding that these two unique creatives could scarcely find. “If it’s wearing a pink hat and a red nose and it plays the guitar upside down,” David Bowie once proclaimed, ”I’ll go and look at it. I love to see people being dangerous.”
It was almost as if his subconscious was searching for Iggy, a man whose life mission was to practice danger. Bowie spotted that within him and dove straight into his weird world of punky chaos. While the salacious nature of history means we remember that through the lens of their hedonism, there was sonic greatness achieved within it.
Bowie went to the very edge with Iggy, harnessing the chaos and injecting it into his triumphant solo records The Idiot and Lust for Life. Bowie uncovered the soul within Iggy’s chaotic persona and created music that showcased that best, specifically on ‘Lust For Life’. It was a song that perfectly depicted the line between dark and light, which the pair so often straddled.
So it’s unsurprising that the man who took him to musical glory and drug-addled darkness is the man that Iggy considers a soulmate of sorts, explaining, “David’s friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is.”
