I’m 20 and I’m super aggressive. I’m getting into fights at shows. I’m getting hit in the face, I’m hitting men in the face. I’m also in the adult world. I’m working, I have an apartment, Top Ramen noodles, 7-Eleven, microwave burritos, punk rock.

In the summer of 1981, I leave Washington, D.C. to join Black Flag, and they’re a whole other animal. They’d ask me what bands I liked, and I would list them, and they thought almost every one sucked. “I like the Clash.” “‘Poseurs.’” “I like the Sex Pistols.” “‘Please.’” “The Damned.” “‘Eh.’” They just thought punk rock was utter crap.

At one point, one of the band members said, “Look, if you want to be in this band you’ve got to be down with Black Sabbath, the Stooges, and the MC5.” One day, in the van, I put on Fun House. Upon first listen, a few things hit me: OK, this is my favorite record, and it’s the purest record I’ve ever heard, and I’m never going to do anything that good. All of that remains true to this day. Fun House is just feral genius. They were not musicians, they were hyenas on the Serengeti that eat the antelope’s guts after the lions have had their fill. But what repulses you is the Stooges will have dinner and survive, and thrive on antelope intestines ’cause they’re that tough.

I was not an Iggy clone on stage, no one can do that. But through the Stooges, I got in my mind that it’s Black Flag versus the audience. If we played a song that the crowd didn’t like, they always took it out on the singer. And for me, that meant many trips to the hospital to get stitched up. But the Stooges kind of gave me my posture: We are the street-walking cheetahs with hearts full of napalm. The cops don’t like us, we have religious groups protesting us, people would throw ashtrays, cans, bottles, whatever at us. But you put on a Stooges record and you go, “We’re going to be OK, ’cause they made it.”