Iggy Pop and The Stooges' saxophonist Steve Mackay
Having collaborated with Iggy Pop and The Stooges, The Violent Femmes, and Smegma, Steve Mackay, the San Francisco-based tenor saxophone player has a lot to toot his horn about. On 17 March last month as part of the JUE Festival, Mackay came through Shanghai playing tunes from his most recent solo album, Sometimes Like This I Talk, as well as joining in on pieces with improvisational percussionist act Sikhara. He discusses music, his famous collaborators and how the world thought for a while he’d died.
What’s your approach to music?
Sort of passive/active: people ask me to play with them and I do what I can to add to their project or band. But I also initiate my own projects and promote my own material whenever possible. My latest CD, Sometimes Like This I Talk, is taken from several different sessions with collaborators who were kind enough to donate their efforts, including Iggy Pop, who sings my song ‘The Prisoner’.
As a saxophone player, how do you think you fit into a rock band?
Sax has always had a voice in rock, but I have always enjoyed playing in situations that saxes don't normally appear, like punk, or country and western. I’m happy that Iggy has included me more and more in the current Stooges – guitar, bass, drums, vocals, and sax seem to be an ideal combination. I am also happy to see more and more sax and brass in contemporary bands!
The world was reporting that you were dead for a while. How did this happen?
The Violent Femmes alerted me to my supposed death when I first met them and played with them in 1983. The source was an ill-researched Iggy Pop book by Nick Kent, who confused me with the unfortunate Stooge bassist Zeke Zettner, who did die of a "drug overdose" in 1975. There was also another death report around 2000 when another Steve Mackay died of AIDS in San Francisco and turned up on a Google Search. Thankfully Iggy and the Asheton brothers knew I lived, thanks to my membership in the Musician's Union in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
As a musician, what makes you keep playing?
I keep playing because it is what I can do best, and I’m often rewarded with spiritual bliss!
What’s the most memorable moment you’ve had playing with The Stooges?
It was playing ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ acoustically with James Williamson and Iggy after a freak storm destroyed our stage at a festival in Pori, Finland in 2010. You can watch it on Youtube!
