“We were going to be put in a sideman position in our own band.” Many critics hailed Raw Power as the Stooges’ best record, but it was another commercial disaster and Iggy Pop’s growing drug problem caused the band to break up in 1974. “We were told they couldn’t find anybody else,” said Scott. “Like a cross between a young Sonny Liston and Elvis Presley.” The album, however, was not a commercial success and the group practically dissolved after 1970’s equally brilliant Fun House also failed to find an audience.Īfter a brief break, Pop and new guitarist James Williamson headed to England and contemplated hiring new members of the group for their third album, though at the last minute, they called back Scott and Ron Asheton (though demoted Ron to bass). It’s almost impossible to imagine how the 1970s would have unfolded had they not formed. “He was magnetic,” Pop said of his first impression with Asheton in Paul Trynka’s 2008 book Open Up and Bleed. The record – produced by John Cale of the Velvet Underground – laid the groundwork for punk rock, inspiring everybody from David Bowie to the Ramones. “A lot of that first album was written at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City over two days immediately before we went in the studio.” “We didn’t have songs,” Scott Asheton told Callwood. Under the leadership of Iggy Pop, The Stooges, along with the MC5, became one of the most popular acts around Ann Arbor and Detroit, eventually signing a deal with Elektra and releasing their groundbreaking self-titled LP in 1969. It wasn’t until…Iggy, got involved that it actually became a real band.” “We liked the idea of being in a band, we looked like we were in a band and we’d all hang out together. “We didn’t get very far,” Scott told writer Brett Callwood in his book The Stooges: Head On. He began playing music with his older brother Ron and their friend Dave Alexander soon after. My thoughts are with his sister Kathy, his wife Liz and his daughter Leanna, who was the light of his life.”Īsheton was born in Washington, D.C., but moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan when he was 14.

The Ashetons have always been and continue to be a second family to me. He and Ron have left a huge legacy to the world. “I have never heard anyone play the drums with more meaning than Scott Asheton. “Scott was a great artist,” Iggy Pop said in a statement. Iggy and the Stooges Face Uncertain Future Iggy & The Stooges drummer Scott Asheton, who played with the pioneering proto-punk band from their earliest days in 1967 through their 2013 LP Ready to Die, died Saturday due to an unspecified illness.

MC5 by Brett Callwood