"If I had the choice, I'd rather sing than talk," the Godfather of Punk says down the line from his Miami Beach home recently.

And yet, for the next 45 minutes, Iggy Pop chats away -- in an exclusive Canadian newspaper interview with the Sun -- telling both highly entertaining and informative tales in that unmistakable deep voice.

Topics range from seeing Jim Morrison for the first time -- the catalyst for Pop forming seminal Detroit punk band The Stooges in 1967 -- to his apparent invention of the stage dive and torn jeans, to reuniting with Stooges bandmates Ron and Scott Asheton for the first time in 30 years on his latest album, Skull Ring.

Not bad for a reluctant interview.

"I'm never going to be Maria Callas but I could imitate Jim Morrison pretty well," Pop says of his reaction after catching The Lizard King at a homecoming dance at the University of Michigan when he was just 19.

"He had a great sense of occasion. And the first night I saw him, his sense of occasion was totally out of hand and he had no sense of anything else. He was just LSD'd out of his mind and reeling like a drunk, singing like Betty Boop, and refusing to be correct, basically. And I thought, 'This is great. This is really great.' "

Given that anecdote alone, it's a shame Pop is doing fewer and fewer interviews these days.

STARTLING PHYSIQUE

He's one of those rare rockers who has improved with age -- still a dynamo in concert -- and he's articulate, blunt and funny in conversation.

"There's a lot of energy that flies out when you've got your mouth open," explains Pop, 56. "It's really true. Yogis and Tai Chi masters will tell you that."

Which leads to how the famously toned rocker has maintained his incredible, some might say startling, physique, despite early years of abuse, which included cutting himself with broken glass during performances, and a couple of battles with heroin addiction.

"Basically I've got a Tai Chi master," says Pop, whose biggest vices these days are a nightly glass of red wine and Cuban coffee. "And I do about 40 minutes a day, if I'm not working in showbiz. And, if I am, then I do about 20 minutes or a half-hour a day. And that really does the trick. Other than that, there's a little heredity, the luxury of being able to go to the beach whenever I want to, and then ... I managed to figure out that what my mother told me was good (adopts matronly tone): 'Eat three square meals and early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.' It works."

Pop -- shirtless, tanned, bleached-blond, barefoot and in tight jeans -- was definitely a sight to behold as he hurled himself off the stage at one point during a two-song set with Ajax pop-punk outfit Sum 41 at the Casby Awards last November at Kool Haus bar in Toronto.

In fact, a recent Rolling Stone profile even suggested he invented the move.

"I think I did. I think so," says Pop. "How do you stake a claim?" he adds with a chuckle. "The first one I did was in 1968, it was the second show I ever did, and I was opening for Frank Zappa, for the Mothers of Invention. And I couldn't think of another way to get attention and I did this thing -- ever seen how little boys sometimes when they want attention, they'll make themselves perfectly stiff and then they'll just fall flat-faced on the floor? -- I did that, except off a five-foot stage."

Pop says he was inspired by those who came before him.

"Obviously, I was a keen student of R&B and blues, gospel. And there is the tradition in gospel, the preacher he'll get down from time to time, but I'd also see the R&B singers rip their pants. They'd rip them, some of them, during almost every performance. They'd just make sure they were really, really tight sheer pants. And the first time I ripped mine, by accident, I thought, 'This is cool. I want to go out with my pants ripped. Start from there.' I think I was the first one to do that, too."

In Rolling Stone, Pop declared: "Today's rock is just embarrassing. It's white men on MSG."

He jokes now: "I wondered if anybody would understand what MSG was."

Still, that assessment obviously doesn't extend to Toronto electro-rap artist -- and fellow rock terrorist -- Peaches and Sum 41, who both appear on Skull Ring.

'ART GHETTO'

"It was capital-R rock that I was talking about," Pop says. "Peaches is funny because she's really good. But because she's adventurous or witty or whatever it is, she ventures pretty far afield, she's kind of shoved over to the art ghetto and she doesn't really want to be there, at least ghetto-ized there."

Pop says Sum 41, who co-wrote and performed on the first single, Little Know It All, came to his attention late in the recording of Skull Ring courtesy of his label's A&R guy.

"And, in fact, I hadn't told anyone else this ... but I actually used them before I did the last record," he says. "Beat 'Em Up (his 2001 release) was a very heavy record and I wanted to hear what the skill level and the recording technique level was for hard bands at that point. And I used them as my kind of bar. I went out and got one of their (CDs). I didn't listen to the songs. I didn't want be influenced. I just listened to the first 30 seconds. It was a little too good. The skill level is extremely high there. It's really, really precise."

As for Peaches -- who has been known to disrobe and spit blood during her manic performances -- he definitely sees himself in her.

"It happened accidentally," Pop says of his introduction to Peaches. "I appeared at The Short List (ceremony) a year-and-a-half ago and some critics were discussing her and I was eavesdropping and she sounded really immense, in terms of what they thought she was doing. I thought, 'Oh this is important.' And then I didn't think anything more about it. But she crashed my dressing room that night and she's a real heathen, you know. I would have thrown her out usually but I went, 'Oh, it's Peaches!' And she's wearing her little pink suit and she was interesting. So I got her record the next day and it was really good -- The Teaches of Peaches -- a really good piece of work."

STOOGES REUNION

Finally then, and perhaps most significantly, there's Pop's long-awaited reunion with The Stooges on Skull Ring on four songs.

It took 30 years to get Pop back with the Asheton brothers -- guitarist Ron and drummer Scott -- after his label put up some resistance to him working solely with his current band The Trolls.

Pop says his old bandmates had wanted to reunite for a long time but he resisted "doing a reunion, oldies thing."

But, as they say, people change.

"They're more focused now than they were," he says. "They're hungry. They've had a long time to wait for this and they're ravenous. Because of that, they've managed to muster something that passes for maturity when we're working. So they're very keyed in."

Pop has since performed eight shows with The Stooges this year and will play with them in Toyko and Osaka for arena shows in the spring.

He says he's forsaking a traditional North American tour to support Skull Ring in favour of diversification.

"I'm flexible and available, basically, if the situation is right," Pop says. "So it's sort of like today's army. I have one set with The Stooges that I can do that is still growing and I have another set that has different material with The Trolls.

"And I can also do acoustic -- maybe if you're having a birthday party?" he adds with a laugh.