The Stooges

USA, 1967–1974

Ann Arbor band formed in 1967 around singer Iggy Pop. The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power used repetitive riffs, distortion and confrontational performance, and were taken up as a model by punk musicians a decade later.

MusicRoots documents 6 artists who influenced The Stooges and 22 artists The Stooges influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced The Stooges?

• The Doors — Iggy Pop has said seeing Jim Morrison confront a Michigan crowd in 1967 showed him what a frontman could be — the Stooges formed in that wake.
• Ravi Shankar — In Ron Asheton's riff vocabulary — the drone behind 'I Wanna Be Your Dog', with the Velvets.
• The Who — One of the influences Ron Asheton mixed into his riffs, with the Velvets and Ravi Shankar.
• The Velvet Underground — Ron Asheton put the Velvets' drone into the guitar parts — 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' is the plainest case — and John Cale produced the first Stooges album.
• The Kinks — Iggy Pop went to Chicago to learn the blues and came back wanting a version of it that copied nothing; the shape he reached for was garage rock, the Kinks and the Sonics.
• The Sonics — The other half of that garage rock model: the Sonics' overdriven, one-take racket is closer to the Stooges' first album than anything in the blues Pop had gone to study.

Which artists did The Stooges influence?

• The Fall — The Stooges' primal garage-punk drive feeds The Fall's raw, repetitive attack.
• The Cult — Iggy Pop and the Stooges' primal proto-punk shaped Ian Astbury's frontman style and the band's raw rock drive.
• Suicide — The Stooges' raw, confrontational proto-punk shaped Alan Vega's aggressive stage persona and Suicide's primal energy.
• The Strokes — The Stooges' raw garage-punk drive was one of the templates for The Strokes' lean, hooky sound.
• Primal Scream — The half of the band that never left 1969. Gillespie describes touring the country playing high-energy rock and roll before the house tapes in the van took over.
• Ramones — The Stooges' raw proto-punk is the direct ancestor of the Ramones.
• Sex Pistols — Iggy Pop and the Stooges were the Pistols' model of punk stagecraft.
• Black Flag — Black Flag's hardcore grew out of the Stooges' aggression.
• Nirvana — Cobain named the Stooges' 'Raw Power' his favourite album.
• Pixies — The Pixies' loud-quiet dynamics trace back to the Stooges' punk energy.
• Nick Cave — The Birthday Party's confrontational chaos was built on the Stooges — a documented foundation of Cave's first band.
• The Clash — The Clash's attack was built on the Stooges' proto-punk — Strummer and Jones cited Iggy's assault as core to what punk could be.
• Spacemen 3 — Spacemen 3 covered the Stooges and preached their two-chord gospel — Kember and Pierce named them core scripture.
• Loop — Hampson's fuzz-mantra minimalism is the Stooges' Fun House played as ritual — the documented other pole of Loop's sound.
• Sonic Youth — Sonic Youth's cover of 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' is documented devotion — the Stooges as the noise-rock old testament.
• The Jesus and Mary Chain — The abrasive guitar squall of Psychocandy is the early Stooges electrified — the proto-punk noise the Reids wrapped their pop songs in.
• Soundgarden — Critics placed Soundgarden's debut in a 'Stooges/MC5-meets-Zeppelin/Sabbath' lineage, drawing on the Stooges' proto-punk energy.
• The White Stripes — The Stooges' primal Detroit garage-punk was part of the local lineage the White Stripes drew on for their stripped-down, high-energy attack.
• The Raconteurs — The Stooges are among Brendan Benson's biggest influences — he later sang with Iggy Pop on the Stooges single 'Free & Freaky' — feeding the Raconteurs' garage bite.
• The Hives — The Hives are faithful adaptors of American garage as exemplified by the Stooges, whose primal proto-punk drives their two-minute blasts.
• Hole — The Stooges' primal punk energy underlies Hole's raw, confrontational attack.
• Wire — The other half of the 1976 listening — the noise, before it had been given a name and a uniform.