Rock

One thing you can’t call Iggy Pop is predictable.
Ever since he came blasting out of Michigan as the lead singer of proto-punk trailblazers The Stooges during the late ‘60s, Pop has been nothing but eclectic, especially throughout a solo career he launched 46 years ago with a pair of David Bowie co-produced albums, The Idiot and Lust For Life. The past decade has also been a particular case study in range: there was 2012’s mostly French language covers album Après; a final Stooges effort, Ready to Die, the following year; the hard-rocking, Josh Homme-produced Post Pop Depression in 2016; a collaboration with Underworld (Teamtime Dub Encounters) two years later; and the ambient jazz of 2019’s Free.

Now Pop has his punk on again (albeit not exclusively) with Every Loser, due out Friday (Jan. 6) and produced and co-written by Andrew Watt (Ozzy Osbourne, Justin Bieber, Elton John, Eddie Vedder), who won last year’s Grammy Award for producer of the year, non-classical. Pop is, in fact, the first artist signed to Watt’s Gold Tooth Records imprint through Atlantic Records.

Tracks such as the lead single “Frenzy” — Pop’s record-setting first appearance in 31 years on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart — “Strung Out Johnny,” “When I’m Down,” the high-speed “Neo Punk” and the metallic album closer “The Regency” rattle the speakers with as much muscle as Pop houses on his sinewy torso, with no indication that he’s slowing down at the age of 75.

“It just sort of came along,” Pop, who was born James Osterberg Jr. in Michigan, tells Billboard from his home in Miami. “Especially if you’re my age, you can’t really grimace and tightened your fist and say, ‘OK, goddamit, 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 already jammed or played live with the guys who played (on the album) and having a feel for what would work best with what (Watt) had prepared.”

Pop met Watt via Morrissey and his upcoming Bonfire of Teenagers album. “I got a message (from Morrissey), ‘Hey, would you sing along on something with me? And by the way, it’s an extraordinary producer doing this.’ So I said, ‘Sure,’” Pop recalls. As he and Watt exchanged recordings for his guest appearance, Pop became intrigued by the sounds, particularly the meaty bass lines Watt was crafting. “It was very American, very Los Angeles, and full of a lot of, I would call it, chutzpah,” Pop says. “It had a lot of right up-front, chin-out energy.”

For Watt’s part, the collaboration flipped on a proverbial light bulb that there might be more work to do with Pop. “He had all these amazing ideas for the (Morrissey) song…too many, right?” Watt, who calls Pop “one of my favorites, ever,” tells Billboard. “His ideas were endless. One of them was gonna be cool, but they all weren’t going to fit into one song. That made me start thinking…I could make some amazing sh-t with this guy.” And Pop was open to the prospect.

“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 says. “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 had 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.”

Part of the allure for Pop was the musicians Watt was working with, including familiar figures such as Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan. Pop also had roots with others Watt brought into the project, such as Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro and Eric Avery, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, former Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.

Watt explains 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?’ 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. It was very low pressure. We just kept making music until we felt like we had an album.”

Every Loser also features the late Taylor Hawkins on two tracks (“Comments” and “The Regency,” which he also co-wrote), some of the drummer’s final recordings before his shocking death last March.

“He’s a great guy, just a beautiful cat,” Pop says of Hawkins, who portrayed him in the 2013 movie CBGB. “His drumming is very unique. Chad’s the backbone of the record, but I felt fortunate we could have Taylor on it, too, and he was perfect for those songs. It’s such a sad thing that he had to go so quick, but he was doing something he really wanted to do and he was doing it very well, and was at the top of the heap, and that’s something, y’know?”

Pop and Watt worked on Every Loser between studios in Miami, where most of the vocals were recorded, and Watt’s residential studio in Beverly Hills. “You can tell nobody lives there but an insane music guy,” Pop notes. “It’s got, like, an Elton John pinball machine and equipment all over the living room.

“(Watt) seems to have absorbed classic rock in a way that it comes out and it doesn’t sound classic,” Pop continues. “It sounds like know, but it still sounds like that. There’s one thing about my records…they’re all in one way or another kind of rough sounding. They never get too polished. Some of them, maybe Lust For Life, a couple things on Brick By Brick did, but my own taste is more for the DIY. I like Link Wray a lot better than Yngwie Malmsteen, put it that way. I think that influences the producers I work with to stop short of polishing the project too much.”

Pop found other kindred spirits during 2021 in the Italian band Måneskin, guesting on the quartet’s gold-certified single “I Wanna Be your Slave,” which hit No. 11 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. “That’s a really good band,” Pop says. “I hate to compare people to anything but they have the good qualities of a really top-notch American ‘70s band, like Aerosmith or something…but they have a style that’s their own. There’s a lot of musicality to it, too. They stay right on message and they don’t f–k around and they give the value.”

Pop previewed Every Loser with “Frenzy” and “Strung Out Johnny,” and he’s also teamed with Punk magazine — which featured him on its cover back in 1976 — for a full issue dedicated to him as part of its relaunch. He plans to tour in support of the album as well, starting with a short run of mostly West Coast U.S. dates in the spring and some stadium shows with the Chili Peppers in Europe. He anticipates more North American dates during the fall, but one thing Pop won’t be doing is diving into the crowd as has been a habit throughout much of his career.

“I’m not doing that right now. I hit my limit,” Pop acknowledges. “I did about 40 shows last year and I crossed over (into the audience) a few times, but not with a full dive. A couple of times I sorta fell in and a couple of times I walked around, but if I don’t have to, I prefer to stay on the stage. It’s too much wear and tear at this point. I would get hurt. So I prefer to stay on the stage, but now at some of the shows people do it themselves; they leap up, touch toe, do a grab and dive off.

“That’s cool with me.”

Tom DeLonge gave Blink-182 fans an early Christmas gift last month when he revealed that the first album from the reunited band is coming “in a few months.” Then, on Christmas Eve, DeLonge pulled the curtain back a bit more and promised fans that the best is yet to come.
“This is the best album we’ve ever made. Buckle up,” wrote co-vocalist/guitarist DeLonge in an Instagram post that featured an image of the cartoon rabbit from one of the band’s 1999 tour posters. “I’m personally tripping and so proud of what we have created TOGETHER. As one unified force of fun, eternal youth, and most of all- close friends.”

DeLonge — who rejoined the band in 2022 after leaving for a second time in 2014 — tagged bandmates drummer Travis Barker and singer/bassist Mark Hoppus in the post about the eagerly awaited follow-up to the trio’s 2019 album Nine, their second, and final, studio effort featuring fill-in third member Matt Skiba (Alkaline Trio).

While a release date and title for the new album have not yet been announced, the collection’s first single, “Edging,” has been on a tear at alternative radio, logging two months atop the alt radio tally. Last month DeLonge also promised that “the next single that’s coming is [fire emoji].”

As part of the slow leak of information, last month Hoppus described the follow-up to the trio’s last studio album together, 2011’s Neighborhoods, with a fire emoji, followed by a metal salute emoji. Plus, Hoppus posted what appeared to be some very on-brand lyrics from what appeared to be another new song.

“I like to eat cheese/ In my U-Haul/ And drink so much beer/ I never poop at all/ I put my dog down/ And pulled my grandma’s plug/ I was getting kinda used to be someone you loved,” read the lyrics. The latter appeared to reveal that the lyrics may have been a gag (or not), as the last line was cribbed from Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved.” That inclusion inspired the English pop singer to respond, “This is the best day of my life.”

Barker also weighed in in December, posting a killer, triple-time drum solo from the studio with the caption, “Anthem Pt. 3.” The first “Anthem” appeared on the group’s 1999 breakthrough Enema of the State album, with the sequel showing up on their follow-up fourth full-length, 2001’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.

The reunited trio’s massive world tour is slated to kick off on March 11 in Tijuana, Mexico at the Imperial GNP festival and keep the band on the road in South America and Mexico through April 2 before shifting to North America on May 4 with a show at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota; those dates will run through a July 16 gig in Nashville at the Bridgestone Arena and then move on to Europe in September and Australia/New Zealand in early 2024.

See DeLonge’s post below.

Fall Out Boy spent last year doing some serious woodshedding. We know this because in a poetic new year’s note to fans entitled “A Homeboy’s Life,” the Chicago-bred band promised that new music is coming in 2023.

“We spent the last year jamming ideas in a tiny room [and] can’t wait to share them with you,” they wrote in the new year’s day note to their email list signed by all four members, which ended with a teasing P.S. that read, “Thanks for always sticking around. Thanks for working the beat. Spoiler alert: we got more than a gold watch coming for you next year.”

The update was the follow-up to a nearly two-minute animated claymation video they dropped last week — A Claymation Fall Out Boy Celebration — starring a cute black dog, vomiting neon hands and a magical land of bizarre, shape-shifting creatures with what sounded like a brief snippet of new music. The video and note appear to be part of a long tease for the as-yet-untitled album, whose release date has not yet been announced.

The update for fans was also preceded by a website announcing “greetings from pink seashell beach,” with an image of a shell (inscribed with the hint “the answers are all inside of this”) that flips over when clicked to reveal a baseball on the other side and the message “the beach was never real. None of it is”; some fans also received cryptic postcards with the words “Pink Seashell Beach” on them and the message, “I saw you in a bright clear field. Hurricane heat in my head. The kind of pain you feel to get good in the end. Inscribed like stone and faded by the rain: ‘Give up what you love give up what you love before it does you in…’”

Before that, fans also posted images of a full-page ad FOB took out in their hometown Chicago Tribune in late November that read “FOB 8: If you build it, they will come.” At press time no additional information was available on follow to MANIA, which featured the singles “Young and Menace,” “Champion” and “The Last of the Real Ones.”

Check out a copy of the note below.