The Stooges song inspired by The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys
The so-called Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop, first rose to national recognition in the late 1960s, fronting The Stooges, a group characterised by their raw and primitive rock sound. From here, Iggy ducked and dived through stylistic overhauls in a successful and prolific solo career, nurtured by David Bowie through the late 1970s.
In retrospect, The Stooges’ live performances are admired and admonished in equal measure due to the rife occurrence of indecent exposure, self-mutilation, destruction of property, assault (using watermelons), and on a couple of occasions, the wearing of Nazi uniforms.
After a few short yet meteoric years, Iggy was somewhat derailed by the all-too-familiar hedonistic tendencies of the rock scene. But all was saved when he fled to Europe with David Bowie for a fresh start in the late 1970s. These solo endeavours reinvented Iggy as a comparatively clean rocker with more refined music to match.
During Iggy’s first stint with The Stooges, he helped lay the foundations for the subsequent rise of punk, but his roots, though marred by heavier rock, always remained firmly planted in classic rock and roll of the ‘60s, especially that of surf-rock sensation The Beach Boys. This penchant for more intricate and subdued rock began to rear its head in Iggy’s solo works made in collaboration with Bowie, The Idiot and Lust For Life.
Expressing his deep respect for The Beach Boys on Brian Wilson’s website, Iggy is quoted as saying, “The Beach Boys were probably underrated in many ways because their rock forays were on the light side. But when it comes to melody and touching your heart with a ballad, nobody could exceed them.”
In a separate interview with David Fricke at SXSW, Iggy further discussed The Beach Boys as one of the most crucial groups in his early infatuation with music. He continued to point out how the band, as well as their British rivals The Rolling Stones, directly influenced the early Stooges hit ‘No Fun’.
“When Ron [Asheton] started jamming the chords in ‘No Fun,’ I knew instantly that we would be in the book,” Iggy said. “As for the lyrics of that track, I always thought that ‘no’ is a great word. One of my favourite parts of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ is when Mick goes, “No no no.” And then, on the other hand, you had the Beach Boys, another great band, who had this song where they kept repeating ‘Fun, fun, fun’, so I thought to myself, ‘Well, there you go.’”
Listen to ‘No Fun’, a pulsating cut from The Stooges’ 1969 debut album, below.
