Iggy Pop has revealed that he once “smoked spider webs to get high.”

Speaking during a recent appearance on the The Jonathan Ross Show, which you can watch below, Ross asked him about his younger days in The Stooges and how he once stuck his tongue into an electric socket.

“Well it was an electric train transformer,” said Pop correcting Ross before he added: “I tried spider webs too. I tried to smoke them. You know you’ve got to start somewhere.” As for the experience itself, he described it as “harsh.”


When asked if Pop was surprised that he’s still alive, he said: “No its brinksmanship. My psychiatrist told me in the ’70s ‘you have amazing brinkmanship, you go to a certain place and you know when to pull back’. I always have and I’m a very conservative guy in my daily life. I go to bed early. ”

The iconic artist, who released his latest album ‘Free‘ in September, will make a one-off appearance in London next month as part of The EFG London Jazz Festival.

Pop will perform his new record in its entirety at The Barbican Centre on Thursday, November 21. It serves as his only UK date of the year.

Speaking about ‘Free’ earlier this summer, Pop described his 18th solo LP as “an album in which other artists speak for me, but I lend my voice.”

He explained: “I know that that freedom is only something you feel, but I have lived my life thus far in the belief that that feeling is all that is worth pursuing; all that you need – not happiness or love necessarily, but the feeling of being free. So this album just kind of happened to me, and I let it happen.”