The ‘Low Pressure’ Route to Iggy Pop’s ‘Every Loser’
Iggy Pop and producer Andrew Watt discussed the origin of the album Every Loser, which is out now.
In a new interview with Billboard, the pair revealed it was a relatively easy experience after they met through Morrissey. Watt was working on the English singer’s upcoming album and Pop had been invited to contribute. That led to Pop's connection with Watt.
“We started chatting, and [Watt] said, ‘Look, I’d really like to send you some tracks,’ and I sorta said, ‘Well, OK, do it,'” Pop recalled. “I didn’t really ask him what it would be or how or anything. He didn’t pressure me in any way. We didn’t set out with some sort of plan like, ‘This has to be an album’ or ‘This has to be an EP’ or ‘This has to come out’ at all. But I was enjoying what we were doing and enjoying the music.”
The 75-year-old reflected that “it just sort of came along. Especially if you’re my age, you can’t really grimace and tightened your fist and say, ‘OK, goddammit, I’m gonna put together a rock album!’ It just kind of happened. So the credit goes to [Watt] for having the drive and interest – and also, I would say, some credit goes to me for … having a feel for what would work best with what he had prepared.”
Watt said he was impressed by the “amazing ideas” Pop had suggested for the Morrissey collaboration, although there were “too many.” "That made me start thinking," Watt explained. "I could make some amazing shit with this guy."
He explained that the process “was really like, ‘OK, Iggy Pop, godfather of punk, one of Bowie’s muses, inventor of genres, inventor of punk rock, inventor of garage rock …what do I want to hear this guy sing? If I’m in the front row with this kick-ass band and the punk rock James Brown singing, what do I want to hear?’”
Watt worked with previous collaborators Chad Smith and Duff McKagan, among many others, on backing tracks for the album that became Every Loser. “We would jam and make tracks and send them to Iggy, and he would like ’em and write to them or wouldn’t like them and we’d do something else,” the producer said. “It was very low pressure. We just kept making music until we felt like we had an album.”