When Iggy Pop Got Freaked Out by Elton John in a Gorilla Suit
Iggy Pop recalled his terror when he faced off with someone in a huge gorilla suit – and it turned out to be Elton John.
The incident took place around 1973, and in a recent interview with Mojo, Pop admitted that he, for one, was under the influence of drugs at the time.
"I was really out of it," he said. "I'd done too much on the downside the night before, so I had to be injected madly to get to the point where I could just barely stand up straight and hold the mic. And then I saw this gorilla. I realized it wasn't a real gorilla, but anyone who puts on a gorilla suit looks huge."
The issue was that Pop didn't know who was wearing the costume, leading him to wonder if he was in real danger. "You don't know who's in there," he said, adding that it could have been someone who was "going to kill me." Eventually he discovered it was John. "He just picked me up for a little bit and gave me a little carry around," he recalled. "It was very funny."
In the same interview, Pop reflected that while continuing his musical career was getting more difficult at the age of 75, almost every other aspect of it had become easier. "[T]he big problem before was the size of career, size of audience," he said. "How many units are you generating? How many people are listening? When your size isn't big enough, you get all sorts of pushback from the world in general, and from the inner layers of the industry. But everything kind of added up and I have a lot of records out there. They all sell."
Pop will release a new album, Every Loser, on Jan. 6.