Iggy Pop - Iggy Pop Is Record Store Day Ambassador

The Stooges star is championing small shops ahead of the celebration on 21 April (12), which is held annually to help independent retail outlets.

Pop, real name James Newell Osterberg, Jr., insists he owes his rock star persona to the time he spent working in a record store as a youngster - and he hopes the shops will one day experience a revival in popularity.

In a statement, he says, "I got my name, my musical education and my personality all from working at a record store during my tender years. In the 50s and 60s the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat. You could buy the disc you liked for 79 cents and if you were lucky meet a chick. Clerks in these places became managers, (like Brian Epstein), label heads, (Jack Holzman) and Faces on album covers (like me).

"Personally I feel best in a store that, while staying small and socially relaxed, still keeps a complete variety of music types and non musical recordings on offer... All of this is cool and has a much bigger future than most people realize today.

"As Record Store Day Ambassador for 2012 I feel like a representative from some exotic jungle full of life and death and sex and anger, called upon to wear a leopard skin and translate joy to the world of the dead."