(Credits: Far Out / Elektra Entertainment)
Tue 11 November 2025 8:00, UK
Some trips are too important to say no to. Finances be damned, you simply have to make it work when a golden opportunity arises. It happened in 1965 for two brothers and their friend from the states. At 18 years old, Ron Asheton sold his motorbike and changed his life, leading to the birth of The Stooges.
It starts in a very familiar scene. Ron Asheton, his brother Scott and their friend Dave Alexander were sat around, and the three were dreaming. Suddenly though, Scott made it all real when he announced that he was leaving and going to London for a pilgrimage of sorts.
Scott wanted to go worship at the altar of their heroes – The Beatles. He seems to truly believe that if he just went to the UK, he’d surely meet them as if the Fab Four were the welcoming committee. Then and there, with his brother’s announcement, that feeling hit young Ron. Some trips are too important, he must go too.
He sold his beloved motorbike to make it happen. “Where’s Ringo?” Ron Asheton asked when he landed in London, not even Liverpool, still convinced he’s get to meet the boys. After the first time he was laughed at, the realisation set in that he would not, in fact, get to meet The Beatles. He grieved, he mourned, he got over it in the bustling crowd of a different gig.
Their solution to their broken hearts was simply to go seek out new heroes, hitting up iconic venues to watch up-and-coming local bands play. “We figured if we went to these historic places, we’d learn something,” Asheton told Louder Sound about the trip, and he was right. He did learn something – exactly what he wanted to be doing with his life.
He paid exactly one pound to change his life, watching The Who play. “My Generation had just come out and Townshend was really feeling great,” the future guitarist recalled, “He broke his Rickenbacker on stage that night, and my friend ran up and got me a little piece of it.”
It was wild. For these teenage boys looking for direction, the animal playing of The Who struck a match in them and started a fire. They wanted to do that and behave like that.
Several other gigs would fan the flames. Later, Iggy Pop and his friends would see The Doors play, or head into New York and catch new acts on the thriving scene there, each as wild as the other. More and more, the passion formed in them and Iggy Pop was starting to form into the chaotic frontman he’d become.
Between that, and the Asheton and Alexander’s holiday to London, the melting pop was beginning to boil. The Stooges was born as they came together, combining these flashes of wild musical carnage into their own sound.
Perhaps, if they had met The Beatles instead, none of it would have ever happened.
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