Iggy Pop influenced by alone time

Iggy Pop's "lonesome and selfish" childhood helped make him a successful musician.

The rock star has been on the music scene since the late '60s, producing hits such as Lust For Life and The Passenger during his career. Growing up in a trailer park with his teacher father and office-worker mother proved to be the perfect environment to shape Iggy's music ideas.

"It made me lonesome and selfish, and both are potentially good for a writer and performer respectively," he explained to Mojo. "Lonesome for the writer, selfish for the performer. It's a shame being so selfish, and it's a shame being so lonesome sometimes."

Iggy was interviewed by Queens of the Stone Age rocker Josh Homme for the publication, who himself is a massive fan of the star. The pair are set to go on tour this year (16), with their Post Pop Depression shows taking them everywhere from New York to Amsterdam. The concerts are named after their upcoming joint LP, which was produced by Josh and is out in March.

Josh still remembers how overcome with emotion he was when Iggy reached out to him.

"It was all a little hard to get your head around," he recalled. "Then he sent me this package. He knew that Lust For Life (album) was very big for me, and he said: 'I'll send you some stuff to get started, some lyrics and some things that are important for me... and I'll send you a breakdown of Lust For Life, song by song.' I was like, 'Holy s**t.' That willingness to give an insight into something that I love really meant a lot."

Post Pop Depression is an especially important album for Iggy, who recently explained he felt the need to reassert himself as a solo artist following his reunion with his band The Stooges.

"I was feeling challenged at this point in my life to prove my value as a musical artist, not as a symbol of anything," he recently told Britain's The Guardian newspaper.