Iggy Pop Won’t Stage Dive Anymore, but He’s Happy if You Do

Iggy Pop is gearing up for tour dates in support of his new album Every Loser, but fans won’t see the veteran performer stage diving anymore.

In a new interview with Billboard, the 75-year-old Pop said he was happy if members of the audience wanted to keep throwing themselves around the way he used to.

“I’m not doing that right now. I hit my limit,” he said. “I did about 40 shows last year, and I crossed over 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.”

He added, “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.”

Every Loser – which arrives on Friday – was produced and co-written by Andrew Watt, who’s developed a reputation for working with rock icons like Ozzy Osbourne in recent years. “He seems to have absorbed classic rock in a way that it comes out and it doesn’t sound classic,” Pop said. “It sounds like now, 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.”