Tues. Aug. 31

Iggy & the Stooges is back among us, howling and ranting and raving like it’s 1969 or 1973, or whatever raw and visceral era you’d like to reference. What it means is that Tuesday at House of Blues, Iggy Pop, drummer Scott Ashton, bassist Mike (Minutemen) Watt and guitarist James Williamson, will uncork a set based upon proto-punk classics like “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” “Raw Power,” “Search and Destroy” and “No Fun.” Wiliamson was the guitarist on the Stooges’ seminal “Raw Power” LP, but not back in the re-formed Stooges until after guitarist Ron Ashton died last year. I’ve got an interview running Tuesday in the Boston Herald (www.bostonherald.com) but here are some out-takes from a lively 45-minute exchange.

JSInk: Who’d have thought there would be a Stooges in 2010? Maybe who would have thought you would make it this far on the planet.
Iggy: I always assumed I would. I wasn’t sitting around preparing for death,  though a lot of people thought …

JSInk: You did some fairly public damage. I've heard "Metallic KO."
Iggy: We [Americans] are the still one of the most easily scandalized people on earth. Who better than me could carry the scarlet letter? It’s fine and eventually what happened was I waited long enough and didn’t die and it’s now become a plus.  In the mid’’90s, one by one large corporate groups wanted a little adventure in their lives and there I was. Everything changed at that point. When I had Don Was, an awfully nice guy, as a producer in the ‘80s he was trying to help broker what finally happened, that society and I have kind of met halfway. That’s what’s happened. One item in his scheme was to get me to play Farm Aid so did Farm Aid and I did interview for CNN and to the interviewer I crossed over into American society that day and he only had one thing to ask me. He stared at me and said, “So, are you gonna roll in broken glass today?” I politely didn’t answer him. I wasn’t gonna punk out on him, or say a mea culpa either, so there was some of that Everybody ‘s done fine and we’re all happy now.
 

JSInk: I remember seeing you play the main stage at SXSW back in the early '90s and it seemed like a watershed moment, Iggy pop singing these primal, decadent songs for kids, parents, everyone, right out ont the street for free.
Iggy: It’s a beautiful thing. I have the changing organization of the music business to thank for that. The advent of the music conference and of the festivals, especially in Europe, the advent of the Internet, the demise of the sort of record companies focused on a huge profit very quickly, and that are foolishly focused on the record business when it’s always been a branch of show business anyway which is a branch of corporate structure which is a branch of banking. That’s how it works. All that had gone down, and I hadn’t bitten anybody lately. I have songs about that, people can enjoy works of art without completely fearing or loathing me. That’s how I do it.

JSInk:  Whenever I’ve seen you, you’ve been so on. Amazing stamina.
Iggy: There are some nights where the setup suggests that the show will be better if you use 75 percent. That doesn’t happen too often. Generally, it’s 100 percent-plus thing. It’s just the way I do it; I wouldn’t know any other way to go about it. It gets a little less physical with hen some of the songs. You want to portray the song correctly and try not to rip off people who came out to see you and paid some money.

Showtime: 8:30. Tickets: $65-$45.

15 Lansdowne St., 617-693-BLUE www.houseofblues.com