“I usually answer the phone here “Storage!” Or sometimes I answer in German or say ‘Rubinsky’s Deli!”’ Storage is very much like it, this very nondescript warehouse-style building not too far from the glamor of H*O*L*L*Y*W*O*O*D but too boring to look twice at. A hideaway. In it, Iggy Pop and his new band are rehearsing for a world tour, to kick off in Denmark, sweep across Europe, then the States, and then on into Japan. Such a task requires privacy and isolation, and this anonymous joint ensures it.

The only way I can be certain that this guy sitting across from me on the floor is actually Iggy Pop (he’s been introduced to me as “Jimmy”) is that instead of sitting cross-legged like I am, he’s engaged in this feline set of stretching, twisting motions, limbering his body up for the rehearsal. At one point during our conversation? he assumes the full lotus position, lifts, himself off the ground with his hands and walks around the room, sitting. He collapses on his side, raises a leg as high off the ground as it’ll go, catches it with his hand and twists it behind his head. There is an agonizing crack. Is this yoga? “Nah, I get in these moods and I just have to stretch or swim or something just to have something to do. I was in a wee car accident the other day and the doctor told me not to jump around for a little while, so I’m just a little bit sore. We’ve been messing with the music, and I just can’t stand sitting around anymore.” And Iggy pops another one. Ouch. But that’s what comes from 14 hours’ rehearsal each day. “Twelve actually, but I’ve been cutting it down to a hard eight. It comes out to 12 to 14 for me from the time my day starts to the time I turn off the left side first and then th^ right side. Of my head, I mean. I turn off the awe first and let that wind down, and then when that’s done I can just push the analytical button and stop that si<de and then I go home and sprout little mushrooms.” Bullshit. Nothing that healthy sprouts mushrooms.