Espressos help get Iggy Pop through high-energy gigs

Punk icon Iggy Pop gulps down espressos before gigs so he has the energy to perform full sets like an aged wildman. The 66-year-old Lust For Life singer is known for his crazy stage antics that include diving into the crowd and thrashing about mid-performance, and to keep his energy up, he downs “two or three” coffees in his hotel room.
But that’s mild compared to how he used to make sure he was amped up for gigs.
He tells Playboy magazine, “I’m stone cold sober on the job. Always. For the first five years of the century, I used Zantac? Xanax? No, that’s different. It’s on TV; you get it at (pharmacy) Walgreens for ladies to help them do their housework faster. Legal speed.
“I’d take one of those when I was doing the Stooges (gigs). Before that I was drinking Red Bulls before a show, and I’d be burping and sloshing around. I’ve been on the natch (in a natural state), onstage, for about eight years. I have two or three big espressos in the afternoon in the hotel before work. That gets me awake enough to care.”