Why Iggy dropped Jack White

Iggy Pop says a tense phone conversation scuppered any chance of Jack White producing a Stooges album.

Pop and White talked about the possibility, only for White to insist he take control of an entire album while Iggy had just a few tracks in mind.

In a previously unreleased interview with Steve Miller – author of Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in America’s Loudest City – Pop explains how close a Stooges/White project came to happening.

Pop says: “I heard he wanted to do it and I thought that could work in the group’s favour for a couple of reasons, but I didn’t want to do a whole record, I just wanted to do a few tracks.

“So I offered him a few tracks and Jack being Jack, said, ‘well I don’t want to do that, I want to do a whole thing.’ At one point I felt I was just about ready to do it and we were having a conversation and the last thing he had to say was, ‘Okay I’ll call you up when I have time.’

“I put down the phone and part of me was like, ‘fuck you kid.‘”

The Stooges came under pressure from their record company to make the collaboration happen, but there were fears it would be more about White than the band.

Iggy reformed The Stooges officially for 2007’s The Weirdness album, although he worked with the band on his 2003 solo album Skull Ring – which was around the time White showed an interest in a working relationship.

Meanwhile Jack White has shared a video for the title track from his upcoming solo album Lazaretto. The record, his second solo offering, is released on Monday, June 9.

Jack White: Lazaretto

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.