"It's old-time Stooges," engineer Ed Cherney told HitFix. Cherney recently finished mixing the album, the Stooges' first in six years. "It's raw. They're great songs, but not necessarily big choruses. They're the antichrist of anthems."
Cherney didn't produce Ready to Die: that responsibility went to guitarist James Williamson, who co-wrote the band's 1973 tour de force, Raw Power. After a 30-year absence from the Stooges, Williamson rejoined the group in 2009 following the death of Ron Asheton. Ron's brother, Stooges co-founder Scott Asheton remains the drummer. The Minutemen's Mike Watt plays bass, as on 2007's The Weirdness.
So far two song titles from Ready to Die's tracklist are known: Gun and I Got a Job But It Don't Pay Shit. The lyrics are "very timely", Cherney said. "[Iggy] knows what he wants to say. He's watching the world around him."
Pop was forced to self-release his last solo album, Après, after it was rejected by Virgin EMI. "They would have preferred that I do a rock album with popular punks," he explained. "Sort of like 'Hi Dad!'"