Well, I don’t use the toilet much to pee in. I almost always pee in the yard or the garden, because I like to pee on my estate.
I became Iggy because I had a sadistic boss at a record store. I’d been in a band called the Iguanas. And when this boss wanted to embarrass and demean me, he’d say, ‘Iggy, get me a coffee, light.’
Onstage I’ve been hit by a grapefruit, beercans, eggs, spit, money, cigarette butts, Mandies, Quaaludes, joints, bras, panties, and a fist.
I’ll love you when my eyes are open, I’ll love you when my eyes are gone.
The 2 things I like the most are girls and loud noises.
Life is just a bag of pot.
Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.
Curious is a good thing to be, it seems to pay some unexpected dividends.
I find it hard to focus looking forward. So I look backward.
What do you do with a lifetime of work? Face it in the morning.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame was a great idea when it started, but I think they ought to close it, I think it’s full.
Well, it wasn’t like I was going to run out and score heroin and score an ounce of coke – but incidentally, on the road, I would usually get tanked up and as stoned as I possibly could to go on stage. And offstage, it would be a demon that would come up about twice a week.
It’s the same thing: I would think, “If I can’t go out and pull some teenager tonight, maybe I’m no good on stage anymore.” And you start to think that you even need it as a motivation. I did, anyway.
Living in England was wonderfully civil and easy-going.
I try to beat back the producers and engineers so they – there’s not an excess of stuff used to squeeze my voice to make it artificial. There’s a person in there, and people will listen; if they hear another person speak to them, they’ll listen because it’s lonely out here.
I was a pretty nice kid. Kind of quiet, but quiet in terms I wasn’t going out and setting fire to anything. I had a big mouth and I was creative type, you know.
I don’t think I’m lucky; I think I have a tough constitution. That’s a lot of it. And I’ve been wise enough to listen to other people. I was unconsciously cultivating as many straight friends as I could.
Miami’s not anybody’s poor cousin. It’s an aspiration to live in this town, not something you have to do to promote yourself like some of the larger cities.
The people who were learning from me tended to be more commercial performers who were gonna rip off the salient idea to do it in a way that will sell, but they weren’t going for the music.
In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music – you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards – they didn’t get any money at first. They were all broke.