"I think we can all be friendly with each other and like each other but we can't live together or communicate or anything." "It just should be over, you know?" "What can you do?" "You know." "Anybody else'd probably be happy if they had what we have." "The Ramones really invented "a whole new genre"." "Music wouldn't sound the same if it weren't for the Ramones." "The Ramones, I thought, "should have been like The Stones"." "I mean, they influenced so much stuff." "All you hear now in car commercials and TV commercials are Ramones guitars." "I mean, this music saved rock'n'roll and influenced millions of kids around the world." ""And they were never acknowledged"." "is happening here tonight and that's that this industry "is paying some respect to the Ramones"." "So with the power invested in me," "I'd like to induct the Ramones." "Believe it or not, we really loved each other, even when we weren't acting civil to each other." "We were truly brothers." "The honor of our induction to the Hall Of Fame means a lot to us but it really meant everything to Joey." "Thank you very much." " And this is it." " How do you feel, coming back here?" " Do you feel anything at all?" " No." "You know, this place "has sort of lost its thing for me"." ""It doesn't even feel like home"." "This is where we used to hang out a lot." "Wouldn't you know?" "It looks like it's closed off." "Barbed wire up there." "It means that times have changed." ""Tommy's great." "He's very important"." "He talked us into me and Dee "starting a band"." "He was bugging me and Dee Dee "for about a year to start a band"." "We told him it was sick and we shouldn't do that." "At the time of our teens, "we all lived at Forest Hills"." "Forest Hills does have too many hills and Queens Boulevard "is too wide to cross without"..." "A lot of people get hit by cars there." "And all the kids there were taking LSD were more sophisticated," ""like young college student types"." "I don't think John and I and Tommy fit in there one bit." ""I guess we were all outcasts"." "At one point, maybe Ioners, more so, you know?" "How did you meet those guys?" "They all said, "I heard you like The Stooges. "" "Something like that, you know." "I said, "Yeah, you know, I like 'em. "" "Like maybe three people "liked The Stooges in the whole area"." "And everybody else "was violently against them"." "So if you liked The Stooges, you had to be friends with each other." "We had one friend, Richie Stern," ""and he was the leader of The Stooges fans"." "Through him, we would, like, hang out and sniff glue or smoke pot and listen to our..." "We had a live Stooges tape we would always play, you know." "It was part of hanging out." "Listening to Iggy and watch Richie sing like Iggy a little bit for us." "During the summer months, we would hang out in the area of Forest Hills and there was one particular hangout that was called Thorneycroft." "It was an apartment complex "which had a courtyard"." "As a kid, I grew up on the block and met Johnny when I was real young." "Bought my first pack of firecrackers from him." ""He had a little bit of a volatile personality"." "He was cool with me." "With other people, "he might not have been so cool with"." "I seen him pop this guy's father in the face." "Coœ my windows are right up here and I was looking down and he got into a fight and he must have started with the kid and the kid's father came up to the playground and he, like, popped him in the nose." "Popped the father in the nose." "But, you know, things like that happen when you're hanging out." "I was bad." "I was bad every minute of the day from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed." " Really?" " Yeah." "Anything I could think of to do, I'd do." "Really?" "Stole, stuff like that?" "Yeah." "And I don't want my mother watching this." "John went off to college a week before I did cos he went down to Florida." "So he goes down to Florida, OK?" "So we all had, like, a farewell party for him." "The next week, I come out of my house," "I'm walking up the hill towards Thorneycroft, and there sits John." "I said, "What are you doing here?"" "He says, "I didn't like it down there. "" "18 to 20 was a trying period, "figuring out what to do with yourself"." ""So I was sort of a delinquent at that point"." "Did the Ramones save you from that stuff?" "No." "I grew out of that stuff by the time I was 20." "I was walking on the block one day and it just hit me." ""What are you doing?" ""Is this what God put us here for?"" "Went home and stopped everything." "Plotted out the rest of my... what I was going to do with myself." "What was OK to do, what wasn't OK to do." "Just changed, in the matter of one minute." ""Joey, I didn't know that well"." ""He was sort of quiet"." "He was kind of reclusive and shy and I realized that he was not like the other kids." ""He was a loner"." ""Joey, I don't know, he was difficult"." "He used to leave his brothers' albums on the radiator, and stuff like that, and not put them back in the cover and they'd be melted." "Steal everybody's hash," "I think." "We're walking down the street at night and Jeff was so tall." "I'd be looking up to... "Jeff. " Like this, you know?" ""What's up?" He goes, "Yeah, what's up, man?"" "That was Jeff." "To me, he was freaky." "He was like..." "But he was cool." "He was together upstairs." "He looked funny but he was together upstairs." "The projections for him "from childhood were not good"." "And teachers said, "His eyes are bad, he's not reading well. "" "He was a slow student but they didn't think about his basic intelligence." "He was highly intelligent and very creative." "They didn't even look at that side of him." "Joey, when he was about 18, decided to check himself into St Vincent's because he was having a really hard time with this condition called O. C. D. " "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder." "He would hear voices that forced him to repeat things." "I did take him to a specialist." "They said he was compulsive." "So they would just tell my mother that this guy has an emotional disorder that is probably gonna render him useless to function in society for the remainder of his life." "We were all worried "about what was gonna become of him"." "Music really was my salvation "and always has been"." ""For me, it's something very special"." "really miserable or really depressed like The Stooges," " "cos it would be like an exorcism"." " "Powerful, yeah"." "Just like a total release, you know?" "I saw my brother on stage "with his band, Sniper"." "He was never a singer in a band before." "He was already on when I walked in and I see him up there and I see this guy who had gone through a transformation that I had never seen, except for in the movies, like..." "I guess the closest thing I could think of is Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor." "But so fucking aggressive," "I couldn't believe it was the same person." "And he was singing, he was fucking roaring." "I was so happy for him, to see him have the balls to go up and do something like that." "But I could tell he was finally finding his niche." "A week later, they threw him out of the band" ""because he wasn't pretty"." "Now Johnny didn't like your brother." "He didn't get along with my brother or want to know him because my brother was kind of a..." "I don't wanna say freak." "We were all freaks." "But he was more of a hippy freak, I guess, and John even though he was not..." "He tried to come off like a right-wing conservative but he was also a big Charles Manson advocate." ""All those guys were into the glitter scene"." "and chinchilla coats" "I guess that's where John and my brother found the connection." "Me and John, we'd go see The Stooges and we all got turned on to the MC5 about the same time and Alice Cooper." "Were any girls ever involved at this stage?" "Never." "No." "Any girls in Forest Hills would leave there to find a man somewhere else," "The East Village or something." "They wouldn't want anybody..." "It wasn't cool to be from Queens." "You would lie about it if you went into Manhattan." "You'd be telling, "I got an apartment in the city. "" "Then you'd go back to your mom's house." "So it was just the guys hanging out?" "Joey and me, you know, and..." "John and me and Richie Stern." "With the platform shoes and doing your hair for two hours." "And that's all." "We'd just be able "to make it to Tommy's car"." "And that's about as much "of a production that everybody could"." ""There was nowhere to go after that"." "Later there was, when the Dolls started playing." "When I say I'm in love, you'd best believe I'm in love, L-U-V." "real eventful kind of nights" ""that everybody came down"." "It was real decadent but great." "Great songs, great energy." "Real wild stage antics." ""I couldn't believe what I was seeing"." ""It was the best thing in the world"." "Partly, there was nobody that could compete with them." "I was just going coœ the music "was just incredible"." "And the clothes and stuff "and the freaks." "It was great"." "And then we'd make that long trip home back to Queens." ""It was rough"." "I saw where the musicianship was going at that point in time." "The drug era was coming into rock'n'roll so everyone was getting into "the overindulgence of their playing"." "The long solos." "You felt no way could I ever be able to play like this." "Even if you have the talent, "you'd spend 15 years practicing"." "I went to see the New York Dolls play." ""I was seeing bands now" - "rock'n'roll was supposed to be"." "How great they could sound and how great they could be with limited musicianship." "So finally, John calls me up one day and says, "I bought a guitar. "" "And he said, "I'm talking to Dee Dee. "" "I said, "Maybe we can put something together. "" "I had just left another band and Dee Dee liked my style." "And so he mentioned to John that he wanted me in the band." "So the two people that we knew then would be Joey played drums, me and Dee Dee were gonna play guitar." "Tommy was our adviser." "Tommy then would go," ""Make Dee Dee the bass player, you play the guitar... "" "Dee Dee would sing but he couldn't sing and play at the same time." "So when he was singing, he wasn't playing." "When he was playing, he wasn't singing." "And then Joey would sing." ""Lo and behold, he had this great voice"." "Tommy really pushed the Joey issue, especially as a singer." "He's not my idea of a singer but Tommy said, in between you and Dee Dee. "" "So when we decided to have Joey become the singer, we needed a drummer." "We kept trying drummers out and then one day, no one showed up to try out and Tommy just sat in and we convinced Tommy..." "We sounded right with Tommy "and he stayed in the band"." ""At first I was"... "I'd never played drums"." "So it took me a little while to just be able to do that, which fit in with their playing because they were learning, themselves." "As soon as I started playing drums, "the whole sound of the band changed"." "It started to gel, to become the Ramones." "Dee Dee was using the surname "Dee Dee Ramone"." "Ramone was, the way we were gonna be using it, was to create a sense of unity." "A bond, of sorts." "Joey's mother had an art gallery and we were in there after closing and we were rehearsing some of the songs." "And Dee Dee and Joey were running down Judy Is A Punk." "That's the first time I heard Judy Is A Punk." ""I had never heard anything like this"." ""This was something futuristic"." "What are these lyrics?" ""What is this melody?" "What is this crazy harmony?"" "And then it's all gelling and I'm listening to this and I'm going," ""This is brilliant stuff. "" "And from then, I became very serious because it wasn't just a glitter rock band, like 50 other glitter rock bands in New York," ""this was something fantastic"." "New from K-Tel Records, 22 explosive hits." "22 original stars." "Gallery." "During the early 70s, "there was the doldrums"." ""The spirit of rock'n'roll sort of went away"." "In that time and in that culture, "Donny and Marie are on TV"." "Everybody's nice." "Everything just seemed "so mediocre and tedious"." "It was just awful." "And everything was kind of earth shoes." "Everything was muted." "Everything was browns, you know?" ""It was wheat groats and we didn't like that"." "And you couldn't get laid unless you were spiritually correct or gave them some rap about macrame." "I don't know what you were supposed to do but I couldn't do it, you know?" ""It was the end of white flight in New York"." "people had been moving out of the cities" ""to these new things called the suburbs"." "So people were leaving New York "and it was kind of deserted"." "that the parents had left and you could take over "and do what you want"." ""In the early 1970s, New York was empty"." ""There was no clubs"." "The reason we played CBGB's "was there was no place to play"." "We saw a tiny, little add in the Voice." ""Television were playing there"." ""I saw a lot of good shows there"." ""I loved Television"." "That was CBGB's to me." "Some lonely night" ""with ten people there and Television playing"." "Tom Verlaine singing the Venus de Milo song." ""It was great, you know"." "The first time I walked into CBGB's, there was sawdust all over the floor and there was piles of dog shit everywhere." "It was like walking over a minefield." "And so we auditioned for Hilly Kristal and he said," ""Nobody's gonna like you guys but I'll have you back. "" "We walk into CBGB's." ""It's literally a bowery bar"." "counting out their pennies" ""to buy a shot"." "And then there's like ten people "sitting at these tables"." "At that point, the Ramones came out and they hit the stage," ""wearing these black leather jackets"." "And they counted off the song" ""and they started playing different songs"." ""And it was just this wall of noise"." "And they threw down their guitars in disgust "and walked off the stage"." "And they looked so..." "It looked like the SS had just walked in." "They looked so striking." "I mean, these guys were not hippies." "This was something completely new and the noise of it just hit you." "And then two minutes later, they came back and Dee Dee counted off, 1-2-3-4 and then went into Blitzkrieg Bop." "They just played really fast and really short songs and it was very funny but they were very earnest about it." "It wasn't that they were trying to be funny." "They were really serious and so it was almost like conceptual art, that it was just so great, you couldn't believe that it could exist." "It made you smile," ""once you managed to close your mouth"." "Coœ at first it was like..." "The first person that came up to us was Alan Vega from Suicide." "And said, "You guys are great." "This is what I've been waiting for. "" "And I thought, "This guy's nuts. "" "First fan." "I watched them as I was laughing cos I was more of a serious musician, coming from the different groups I came from." "And watching the Ramones, it was like a joke, really." "I remember that they had a sound problem and Dee Dee got pissed off and took his bass guitar and threw it on the ground and I think they walked off and then came back on." "And that was exciting, too." "I'd never seen any spontaneous anger like that from anybody." "And that's what made me a little bit scared of them." "The famous thing about the Ramones is they would always stop and start and have arguments on stage, which I always thought was pretty endearing." "You didn't go to a bar and see an original band." "You went to a stadium to see some big band." "And when you went to a bar, they played cover tunes." "their own music and did their own thing, wore black leather jackets, "was kind of amazing"." "I felt - my God, this is it." "Initially, CBGB's was about 100 people." "Four were the Ramones and five were the people in Blondie." "Do the math, as they say, "and there was a few other bands"." ""And that's who was there"." "Everybody would hang out outside of the club and it was..." "There was like, I guess, a decent kind of camaraderie to some degree." "CBGB's, I remember the early bands there." "It was getting to be a nightmare, "the competition"." "With the Mumps, Mink DeVille and the Marbles, all these jerk-off bands thought they were big stars and they weren't." "The Ramones were the stars." "And we were very standoffish and snobby so we irritated the hell out of everyone." "We're the Ramones and you're a loudmouth, baby." "You'd better shut it up." ""Their concept was very well-defined"." "They were very organized." "Yeah, they were like the military." "They really had a very clear vision and it was very tight." "After the failure of the New York Dolls to achieve commercial success, it was like a black cloud over New York and nobody was gonna be signed in New York and more people started coming down to CBGB's, there was an abundance of artists." "Talking Heads were doing something totally different," "Television, I didn't see as competition," "Heartbreakers were a bunch of junkies, so I knew that their careers were going to be short." "In around the summer of '75, "there was a CBGB's rock festival"." "Rolling Stone was actually covering this, a one-page article and three quarters "of the page was on the Ramones"." "At that point, we started selling out, once it was a Rolling Stone thing." "I'd shot the Ramones live once, mainly at CBGB's but it was really early and it got so crowded you couldn't do that any more." "About 550 people a night, "three nights in a row"." "We raised the price of the tickets." "We were the first one raising it to $2, $3, $4 and $5." "We'd always try and take as much control, "get it away from Hilly"." "We'd want somebody at the door, we didn't want to be cheated by them." "This is a business, right, at that point." "we kept sending out invitations, trying to get Danny Fields to come down, "we thought coœ it was his thing"." "He worked for the Doors and he worked for the Stooges and he worked for the MC5, so we figured with those credentials, if anybody was gonna see what we're doing, it would be Danny." ""Danny Fields came down eventually"." "And I think he didn't want to come down cos he thought we were a Spanish band or something, like a flamenco band or something." ""I went to see them the next time they played"." ""I was like, "This is just everything"." ""Guitar solos, the songs are over so fast," "I love what they're wearing. "" "I said, "I want to be your manager. "" "So they said, "Oh, well, we need a few thousand dollars for a drum kit," ""if you come up with that, you can be our manager. "" ""OK. "" "He knew all these people, cool people, nobody who could help our career, but those Andy Warhol people." "So they started coming down to meet us, "it was like a bunch of freaks"." ""And I wouldn't be very sociable or friendly"." "I just came off as unfriendly and nasty, "which they were fine with"." "They probably wanted the abuse, right?" "This was my first priority - get a deal, like Patti had a deal." ""That was the first thing"." ""We were playing at Mothers"." ""This must be later on in '75"." ""Then Craig Leon brings down Linda Stein"." "I guess eventually it leads to getting Seymour Stein to come and see us." "Danny organized a rehearsal "at S. I. R. Studios"." "They did their set, probably took 15 minutes, and that was it." ""Seymour signed them"." "I heard in the Ramones what I look for first in any artist that I sign  which is great songs because to me that is the most important thing." "I mean, the Ramones, we all shared a dark sense of humor, a dark... a darkness, you know." "The first album, Seymour comes down to the recording thing," ""Will you please not sing 'I'm A Nazi, Baby' on Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World?"" "I go, "What's wrong with that?"" "And, "Come on, guys, please, for me, just change it to something. "" "We're like, "We're compromising ourselves not singing, 'I'm a Nazi baby'. "" "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You is a love song." "Dee Dee wrote it about his girlfriend at the time." "We didn't try to be crazy, we didn't try to write things that were offensive." "This was all natural, we were trying to be normal, so..." "You were trying to be normal and you failed?" "Like a lot of people, when we first put it on, we all sort of laughed and looked at each other and couldn't stop staring at the cover." "And that's all we could listen to." "It instantly made half of our album collection obsolete." "Our music is just part of what the Ramones are about." "It's, in part, music, but then there's a lot of living in there." "They were in one way as real as real could be." "on the corner of 53rd and 3rd" ""and seen Dee Dee Ramone hustling"." "53rd and 3rd in New York was a very famous chicken hawk corner, where if you wanted to go pick up a boy prostitute, you'd drive up and they'd all be standing on the street." "Dee Dee wrote a song "about turning tricks there"." "We'd like to wish Seymour Stein a very happy birthday and we'd like to dedicate this set to him." "In the song he's lamenting that he's the one they never pick and when a guy finally does pick him up, he has to kill the guy, proving he's not really queer." "I think in the early days he turned tricks for drugs, to get heroin." "I think later he just slept with everybody because everybody wanted to sleep with him." "Dee Dee, you know, 53rd And 3rd." "What's the true story behind 53rd And 3rd?" "There's lots of rumors." "I'd rather by-pass that." "These rumors, nobody's really giving me a fair chance, like, what is real and what is fantasy." "Everybody always blows up the negative." "People try to make me out "like I was some rough character"." ""I was just a bass player"." "They should take a look at themselves." ""Wayne County was the D. J"." ""Of Max's Kansas City upstairs"." ""He just got the copy of the first album"." "I never heard anything like this before in my life." "I was blown away, it was something I never heard before." "It was so stripped down and so powerful, that at one point I said, "Shit, I wish I was in this band. "" "The opening for Johnny Winter, who was a huge star at the time, in Waterbury, Connecticut." "We thought that we were gonna go over." "We thought that these people are gonna hear us and gonna go, "Wow, this is amazing, boy, are we lucky to see this band. "" "That's not quite what happened." "In fact, we were kinda lucky because there was no pauses between our songs but when we stopped to take our jackets off before I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, this slow crescendo of... came up." "I'm supposed to be like the stage roadie and I find myself hiding behind the Marshall amps because bottles are getting tossed like every ten seconds." "Everybody's yelling, "Get the fuck off the stage. "" "We were lucky they didn't murder us." "The Ramones are not an opening act." "Whoever you came to see, they will confuse you as an opening act." "In America at the time, we couldn't even get a start." "Nobody cared." "Outside of Rolling Stone, Village Voice, nobody else." "But in England, we actually created a stir." "I was going, "Why have you?"" "England didn't seem that important." "They couldn't get a job in New Jersey." "I'd been aware, and the Pistols had been aware, of the New York scene through Malcolm McLaren." "We used to hang about in his shop and he'd been backwards and forwards to America." "He'd been involved in managing the New York Dolls." "If that Ramones record hadn't existed," "I don't know that we could have "built a scene here"." "It fulfilled a vital gap, if you like, between the death of the old pub rocking scene and the advent of punk." "July 4th, 1976." ""We went over to England"." "We played this place called the Roundhouse." "It held 3,000 and it was sold out." "There were people waiting at the hotel "to sleep with us all"." "You can tell it's pretty good if you've got people lined up to fuck the roadies and the managers." "During the sound check that day, all these kids came over to us and told us how were responsible for turning them on, basically, for them to go out and form their own bands." "Everyone who was gonna be in one of the UK punk bands was there at the show." "There must have been 60 people in the audience, which was nobody, but everyone formed a band." "They kick-started the thing in a big way." "Stranglers, the Pistols, "The Clash, The Damned"." "We knew how to get to the back stage window." "And so when the Ramones were getting ready to do their concert..." "I was there, Simo, Jonesy, some of the Sex Pistols." "We were in a back alley "and threw a rock at the window"." "Johnny Ramone stuck his head out and went, "What?"" "And we went, "Hey, this is The Clash and this is the Pistols and we need to get in. "" "So they kind of formed this human chain and pulled us up through this window." "And that was the first time we met them and it was a really great punk-rock moment." ""Johnny Rotten" - "I didn't know who he was" - "was trying to come in a side door"." ""He says he wants to meet the band"." ""But he's afraid"." "He's asking me if he comes in and meet the band, will they beat him up?" "Everybody thinks the Ramones are "a gang from the Bronx or something"." "Paul Simonon once said, "Jeez, you're so big, you sold this out"." ""We're from England" ""and haven't even performed yet because we're not good enough. "" "Johnny said, "Wait till you see us." "We stink." ""You don't have to be good." "Just go out and play. "" "Everybody, it's good to be here this evening." "Happy 4th of July." "What was it like to see them live?" "It was like white heat, because of the constant barrage of tunes." "You couldn't put a cigarette paper between "one tune ending and the next beginning"." "A lot of people, probably from the industry," "It's going to be drunk people falling over. "" "They weren't ready for a piledriver going..." "Like that." "And then..." "It couldn't have got tighter if you'd been in New Orleans all your life because it was unbelievable." "It was 4th of July weekend, 1976." "I remember going to the loft and hanging out "on the stoop, waiting for Joey"." ""Where's Joey?" "When's Joey coming back?"" ""They really, really liked us. " I said, "Really?"" "I was like, "Wow." "That's great. "" "I didn't have any understanding "of how significant or important it was"." "It was just, "Oh, someone didn't throw bottles at you." "That's great. "" "It was exciting, but it was over because you're not rich or famous." "You come home and guess what?" "You still can't get a gig in New Haven, Connecticut or something." "Toad's." ""You have to beg for Toad's"." "They were paying me $50 a week to roadie for them." ""I was going broke, and they were broke too"." "Arturo had this big loft "and everybody just wound up staying there"." "Joey's bed used to be "all the way at the back"." "And Dee Dee used to have a mattress on the floor that moved around all the time." "Coœ he kept burning the floor, you know." ""He really took good care of Joey and I"." ""We were like kids"." "We had no idea how to clean the loft or anything." "And he put up with it for the sake of art." "He thought the Ramones were some kind of art thing." "And Connie did live here for a while." "I kicked them out because of the fights." " Who did?" " Connie." "Connie was a prostitute, blonde, big blonde... big breasts, big girl, who was Dee Dee's girlfriend." ""They were both heroin addicts together"." "Connie was psycho." "Connie was with Arthur Kane from the New York Dolls." "She got mad, and while he was sleeping she took a knife and tried to saw his thumb off so he couldn't play bass again." "Oh, man." "Heavy-duty..." "She was into drugs, but a very heavy person, very intense." ""She stood toe-to-toe with him"." ""They'd have fights, man"." "Once Dee Dee took half a dollar and stuck it in his fist with it sticking out and hit her." "They would always be out in front of CBGB's arguing, smashing bottles." "Connie stabbed him in the ass, I remember that." ""And he couldn't sit down"." "My job was to keep Connie out in the parking lot while they were playing shows." "It was kind of tough for me because John would be trying to get me to keep Connie away from them and then on the other hand, Dee Dee, she was his girlfriend." "Some girl was always trying "to steal Dee Dee"." "That's basically what the fights between him and Connie were about." "Connie was very protective of her man, "who was becoming this rock star"." "Why do you play so loud?" "We like that." "I don't know." " You don't?" " We don't have..." "Why?" "We just like it." "We don't have any control over it." "Joey had to become a rock star" ""because he stuck out anyway"." ""So he had to do something with this"." "Instead of getting shit on by people, he had to become..." "I don't think he really had a choice." "The first thing that I remember that made me realize something "is really happening here for my brother"..." ""We were hanging out at CBGB's"." "This guy, Joe Stevens, a photographer, wants to take a picture, right?" "And he says to me, "Excuse me, can you step away from Joey?"" "strange about it laughed and I said, "Go for it, no problem. "" "Then all of a sudden, he starts coming out of his shell a little bit, "getting a bit of confidence"." "And all of a sudden, "girls are paying attention to him"." ""Girls that weren't on medication"." "Well, after eight weeks on the road," "I wanna be well." ""Every city was a goddamn struggle"." "Boston, Rochester, New Haven, Philadelphia..." "It was the United States, "they were stunted here." "It was horrible"." ""You couldn't get on the radio"." ""The media here was against them"." "We were always getting blacklisted because I guess the industry "didn't want the boat rocked"." ""They were hoping that we would disappear"." "We always played someplace "where no band had ever played before"." "I remember a lot of the places we played would still have the disco balls on the ceiling." "They left a legacy of fans." "Kids. "No future, people." "No future. "" ""Maybe we have a future." "We thought we had no future." ""Look at them." "They can't play." "They're terrible." ""They don't know more than three, maybe two notes." ""But look, it's exciting." "They're big, they're famous, everyone's here." "They can get laid." ""Let's start a band. "" "I swear to you, every place we went to, when the Ramones first played there" ""and when they came back, they did"." "They were Pied Pipers out there." "And of course I felt "that we're the best at what we do"." "and say, "This band's better. "" ""This is king of the hill"." "And at one moment in time, I did think someone was as good and that was The Clash." "On the second album tour, I did go, "Shit, these guys are as good as us. "" "Joey got White Riot in a single." "We took it out the sleeve and Joey put it on a little record player." "We both looked at each other and said, "My God, they're just copying you guys." ""Completely. "" "This English thing became even bigger and we're still trying to get 75 cents for a quart of beer." ""Like nothing's changed"." "We did this first." "We don't get anything. "" "And then once the Sex Pistols album came out, it was great." "It was a great album." "Not only did Malcolm steal the scene and repackage it, but the music was good." "The Ramones suffered greatly because the Sex Pistols were so famous for vomiting and bleeding and scratching  and anarchy." "This followed them here, with the Sex Pistols dominating the headlines." "An English rock band, which has somehow developed a following by spitting into the audience which frequently responds by throwing bottles at the band has come to this country saying it is here to "rip some dollars off the Yanks"." "We felt us and the Sex Pistols would become almost like the Beatles and the Stones of the '60s." "Like we were the new revolution, let's say." "It wasn't gonna work like that." "It was giving such a negative feeling off  that it would destroy the whole thing." "It scared everyone off, it scared off the music industry, the radio..." "I remember I had written a song called Sheena's A Punk Rocker and I played it for Seymour Stein and he flipped out and said, "We've got to get this right out. "" ""The record was doing really well"." "Then one day on 60 Minutes was the thing about the Sex Pistols, and the safety pins, and everyone gouging each other's eyeballs out, and the strangulation, and this and that." "And everybody flipped out "and then things changed radically"." "It really kind of screwed things up "for ourselves"." "And when their records went around to radio stations, that... intuitive, like, "What do I know about them?" "Oh, they're trouble. "" ""They throw up." "If we play their record, we'll have to have them here" ""and then they'll throw up on the console in the recording studio." ""We don't want them." "Don't play their record." ""It's easier." "Don't play their record. "" "It's always easier not to do something than to do it." "Those songs are classic American pop songs." "Why weren't they played on the radio?" "Why weren't they?" "The first write-up we got, they called us punks, a punk band." "That's where it started." "After that, they called us punk." "Tommy was our main spokesman "at that point." "He did most of the interviews"." "He felt it was important that the band come off sounding intelligent cos we had this cartoon dumb image." "So we tried to keep the interviews "to basically him and me"." "And I was not very friendly, so wasn't wanting to talk to anyone so it was left to him." "It was Johnny's band." "Johnny was the inside manager." "He was the disciplinarian" "Dee Dee on an important subject. "" "Dee Dee's very smart, "but Dee Dee is trouble"." ""He lives to be trouble"." ""He lives to be that awful six-year-old"." ""And Joey was trouble"." "He was so frail, he was always getting sick, "he couldn't come down a staircase"..." "Johnny was trouble." "He punched Dee Dee "in the head after the show if he missed a bit"." "They were all trouble." "It's a band." "I mean, you know, it's rock'n'roll." "We'd play so loud, and all the amps couldn't take it... but now we got these amps that... they... really... work." "We can really push them." "We could blow this place apart if we wanted to." "We'd set up everything." ""The Ramones were all crazy"." "Imagine being in a van with Dee Dee, Johnny and Joey forever." "I was in the van a lot, and let me tell you, "it wasn't fun"." "I'd be sitting in the fucking van, "Come on, Joe, we've got to get to Buffalo tonight. "" "He would come down the steps, go back up because he didn't touch every other step or something." "He was... superstitious, but beyond." "It was compulsive behavior." "He'd touch every other picket on the..." "If he'd cross the street, come back, start to cross the street..." "I remember they would sit with their girlfriends." "Connie and Dee Dee would be there." "And Johnny'd be saying, "She's a pig." "What are you doing with her?" ""What are you doing with a pig?"" "And just goading Dee Dee." "And Dee Dee would just be freaking out, and pulling out that huge 007 knife, gravity knife." "And I was between them." "Dee Dee's lunging with this huge knife to stab..." "Johnny's going, "You gonna kill me?"" "As far as business goes, "Johnny was right on the ball"." "He knew how to run that organization and business and all the aspects of making sure the group had certain rules and stuck with them, which I respected a lot." ""His personality sucked"." "He was a controlling..." "I don't know, a very controlling personality." "And difficult." "He was just trying to... take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime situation." "He'd try to be an adult about it." "And we were really dysfunctional." "It drove him crazy." "He was unpleasant enough as it is, so on top of that, we just instigated him into becoming a monster." "If I'm running things like a sergeant in "the army, not everyone can handle that"." "But you need someone to make the decisions." "Someone's gotta do something, otherwise you just flounder around." "I think he made a lot of sacrifices for the band too." "He had to put up with a lot of aggravation." "And I think everybody in the band's behavior "offended him"." ""He didn't want anybody to do drugs"." "I didn't want to conform to some of his ways all the time either." "And I think the Ramones really, really had to conform." "Dee Dee always expresses frustration at having been locked into the bowl haircut." "He wanted to dress differently "and have punk-rock hair"." "So I think Dee Dee felt very frustrated by that cos he came up from that more Jerry Nolan/Johnny Thunders lookin' good dressing with the styles and all that." "regimented "Here's your uniform." "Put it on. "" "The song Chinese Rocks came about because Dee Dee had written it and Hell had written one of the verses." "The Ramones didn't want to do any songs about heroin and they didn't like Dee Dee hanging out with Johnny, Jerry and Hell because they were junkies and they got pissed off when they found out he was hanging out with The Heartbreakers." "But we had a dope-addict relationship." "We didn't bother with playing guitars when we were hanging out and stuff." "The Heartbreakers were really focused around drugs and I think Dee Dee would have liked to have been in The Heartbreakers." "Wouldn't it be great to be in a band with junkies instead of guys who collect baseball cards?" "How do you feel about the bands that you really inspired like Blondie, that have in a sense commercially eclipsed you?" "Does that make you mad?" "No." "They took that way to do that and play disco music." "We do it what we believe in and have our integrity and we're happy doing what we're doing." "By about the third year, for me, things were getting claustrophobic." "Tommy left the band." "I don't know for sure why." "I think he didn't like touring, wanted to be a producer." ""It was the two different worlds"." ""In a studio, I was in control, creating"." "And on the road, I was, like, a passenger, basically being bossed around and not treated very well, actually." ""I felt like I was losing my mind"." "And I would explain to people, "I think I'm losing my mind, "" "and they would find this amusing, OK?" "So the choice was me staying on the road and becoming a vegetable, or helping them write songs and producing the records, which I felt would be more productive, and bringing in another drummer." "We were shocked and tried to convince "Tommy to stay"." ""What are we gonna do without Tommy?" This was a big thing." "But Tommy convinced us it'd be no problem, just find a drummer who plays better than him." ""OK, fine!"" "I went to their rehearsals and Tommy Ramone sat behind me, but John told me to be on my toes, and I knew what he meant, that the songs just kept coming and coming, which was amazing." "I never saw that in my life." "So right away I felt more insecure." "Is this real?" "Is this really the Ramones?" "Who are the Ramones?" "And then Tommy was never really accepted as a Ramone between the other three, because he presented such a conservative front to himself to the rest of us." "I knew Tommy was a total freak." "At the same time, there's certain things that were so wonderful about him that I could never be like him." "I recognized that and didn't like it about myself." "Tommy was the type of guy, he would buy some potatoes and "hamburgers and cook himself dinner"." "At 21 years old, that's a pretty cool thing to do, rather than eat some dope and potato chips." "Tommy was important to the sound, do you feel?" "No." "Any song recorded with different drummers, bass players, singers always sounded like the Ramones." "He was pretty important to the sound of the band, don't you think?" "No." "Not at all." "I think Tommy was in the right place at the right time." "But as far as him being able to claim fame off it, or artistic credit, or anything, come on." "Give me a break already." "It ain't true." "From Rocket To Russia to Road To Ruin, we spent a lot of time making that record." "They wanted to make a big record that was commercially viable  that would get a wider audience." "Tommy told me when they were producing Road To Ruin that if this record doesn't have a hit," "we're never gonna have a hit." "Joey always thought the next record "was gonna be their hit"." ""He was an eternal optimist"." " "Tommy was very realistic"." " "The record company couldn't sell our music"." "So who are they gonna blame?" "They won't blame themselves coœ marketing can't sell the damn thing, so it must be the producer." "I get a call to do Rock'N'Roll High School and come out to Los Angeles to do the tracking and I actually thought Tommy was going to be there." "And there's no Tommy." "Tommy was sort of in charge." "They would listen to me, "but then I would discuss it with Tommy"." "As long as I would agree with what Tommy thought we should do," "Dee Dee would go along." "What about Joey?" "He had less to say, "he was quieter at that point"." "In the beginning, Joey didn't talk much." "He was enjoying the success that they were having." "It was a continuation "of his shyness and insecurity"." "He didn't have a full understanding of even "what the whole Ramones concept was yet"." "He didn't really have that much to say and wasn't sure if he should even talk or not because he wasn't supposed to." "He seemed like an appreciative, harmless guy then one day I saw him change in France at a sound check when Tommy was in the band." "He got mad at Tommy for being the spokesman of the band." "I guess Joey felt like he had "something to say also"." "Coœ Tommy would try and control what Joey would say in interviews." ""He'd always been ignored most of his life"." "Now he's finally getting some attention and you got guys telling him, "This is what you should say." ""Don't talk about this. "" "I guess Joey at that point started to rebel." ""Who the fuck are you to tell me what to say?"" "So now Tommy's not there, and Joey starts to exert his opinion and we don't have Tommy there no more to be the buffer here and decide what we should do and what's right." "So that became a problem." "When we did the Phil Spector album, that's when I met good old Phil." "He was my drinking buddy in Los Angeles for the five weeks that we were there doing End Of The Century." "Somebody has to be able to do something with this band that everybody says should be the biggest band in the world." ""So maybe Phil Spector"." "I was the biggest Phil Spector fan." "He was a hero of mine." "All Things Must Pass and especially the stuff he did with Lennon sounded exceptionally raw." ""Phil really wanted to do the Ramones record"." "He was convinced this was gonna be the biggest record of their careers." "It was gonna be No. 1." "He would take me to his office and look at me, and say "This is gonna be the biggest record ever. "" ""He was convincing himself"." ""He had this insane look in his eye about it"." "Joey was a Phil Spector fan from the time we were nine, ten, eleven years old." "Every record, even before we knew they were produced by Phil Spector, we'd buy them and later on, find out all about Phil Spector, that he had produced all these bands, put them all together, wrote the songs." ""Phil Spector was his idol"." "To me, Phil's music was always kind of like early punk rock in its own kind of way because Spector was always cutting edge." "I think Phil loved Joey." "They had a good relationship." "Joey is a great singer." "I think Phil saw in Joey all the influence "of Phil's early stuff"." "I think that Johnny knew "that it was a mistake"." ""The guy's a producer"." ""Producers are nothing"." "So he did some good records in the 1960s." "Big deal." "What has he done lately?" "The guy hasn't had a hit in 15 years." "Phil's not like, "I'm gonna make you the Beatles, ", it's like, "Man, you're rock'n'roll, you know the New York stuff, I understand you. "" " That's right." " "Let's just make a record. "" ""You're the Ramones, I'm Phil Spector, you be you, I'll be me, and we'll have an album. "" "Joey working with Phil Spector helped him overcome any insecurities he had more than any other one thing that happened in his career." "He was interested in the power of the band and in Joey's vocals." "He spent a long time with Joey on the vocals." "He kept doing that throughout the whole session, before we did it, "Joey, Joey. "" "Treated us like we weren't even there." ""Phil Spector, he invited us back to his house"." "It was like, "Great, let's see what it's like. "" "Phil liked to do his preaching, telling them stories about rock'n'roll." ""Joey is a rock'n'roll fanatic"." "Then he started raving and putting on weird horror movies and things." "We wanted to go, "but he didn't want us to go"." "He said, "You've got to stay here. "" ""He had guns in the house"." "At one point, Phil pulls out his gun." ""Everyone dived behind the couch"." "He kept us hostage for a while up there." "Check it out, the Ramones, a garage band, very intellectual, very hip, and all of a sudden, they find themselves working with a serious, hard-core, professional producer of the highest order." "He had this little treasure chest of stuff next to him." "In a cooler." "He had some kind of wine in there." "In a Thermos." "At this point, Phil was drinking," "I was drinking, Dee Dee was doing drugs, and... there was a lot of clash of personalities during those sessions." "Phil would make them play one note 60 or 70 times." "The nightmare of that first chord "to Rock'N'Roll High School"." "We did two takes and went in and listened to it." "Phil played it back I think I counted around 160 times." "To Johnny, that must be like the Chinese water torture." "So we hit the chord and he paces around the room for three hours, cursing." "He would stop the tape and he would stomp his feet on the floor and go, "Shit, piss, fuck!"" "For God knows what reason." "Go back, play the chord again, pace around the room for three more hours, cursing at the engineer." "This goes on for 12 hours." "Even the engineer had a heart attack "around that time"." "It was a lot of stress to do that album." "After three days of this," "Johnny decided he's had enough "and can't take anymore"." ""I'm getting the fuck outta here, I'm on the next plane to New York." "Bye!"" ""No." "You're not going nowhere. "" "Go ahead." "I don't care." "I'm leaving. "" "He's a little man with the wig "on top of his head, and four guns"." "He's like an asshole to everybody, treats everybody horrible." "And... we reluctantly agreed to do the album with him because we thought it would help us." "When we got the mixes, it was for me just lying kind of on its side." "It wasn't the great record that that record could have been, I thought." "When we heard it, I personally didn't like the drum sound on it," "Dee Dee hated it, but I think the songs were very good." "And I think Phil did a good job, considering the situation under the influence he was in... on." "of pop music that Joey liked so much, and wanted to make and wanted "to see the Ramones move towards"." "And it was the kind of moving away from pure hard-core punk rock that Johnny hated seeing happen." "Johnny wanted to see them be the classic first-album Ramones forever." "It isn't anybody's individual fault that we got thrown into this and tried to make the best of it, but that started the break-up and separation." ""We did an album with Phil Spector"." ""Here was our big chance"." "And again, we didn't sell any records." "So at that point, I knew that I finally accepted that that's it, we didn't sell any records." "Let's just try to maintain our career and keep making money." "Just a job, let's do the best we can do, keep our fans happy, don't let them down." "And don't worry about it." "Accept it." "This is your spot in life." "Then we start giving him more of the pressure." ""Graham Gouldman, work with Graham Gouldman?" ""He's in 10cc, he should be producing a Ramones record?" "It's ridiculous. "" "I always thought "that we worked best for Tommy"." "what we should be doing and saw clearly" ""and I think the band stayed more focused"." ""Joey had the problem with him"." "He started to alienate a lot of people "after a while, like Tommy for one"." "Later on, a lot of friends from Forest Hills that we grew up with and he didn't want to be reminded of the past, of those bad days when he was kind of a nonentity." "And he needed to forget about that, he needed to block all that out in order to be that Joey Ramone character, in order to have that strength and confidence." "Was there kind of a power struggle developing between you and Joey?" "I suppose so." "Was there a power struggle going on in the band once Tommy left the band?" " Just answer, come on." " I guess." " What does that mean, a power struggle?" " Just answer." "I'm not really sure what's going on, it's easier looking at it from the outside." " Once Tommy left." " You were in power until a certain point." "I took over when Tommy left?" "There was a power struggle between me and Joey?" "Later on." "But I don't think he wanted to be in power, I think he wanted to be treated equal." "OK." "But did you notice then at that point that Joey was beginning to feel that he could have a life outside the Ramones?" "Yeah." "And why shouldn't he?" "That's only normal." "Everybody needs an escape fantasy." "But we were all such a hard-working unit," "I didn't see Joey working any harder than me or John or Mark that you would think the rest of the guys would, you know..." "There was other things going on but I can't talk about it." "Marky and Dee Dee said something happened with some girl." " Right." " Is that true?" "Well, something happened, yeah." "You know that." "Do you wanna talk about that?" "Well, yeah, I..." "What do you want me to say?" "Joey was seeing this girl and John stole her away from him." "That's life, things happen and you move on, you don't hold a grudge towards a person in your band for 18 years, 17 years after that." "There's a lot of girls out there." "Joey was very romantic, hence all those love songs." "And I think he really idealized love, wanted to have this one girl to hold hands with and live happily ever after." "This was the first serious relationship he had had and then all of a sudden she's gone, with his guitar player." "He's into writing and he wrote a lot of good songs," "She's A Sensation and all that." "A lot was written about Linda" ""and he was really in love with her"." ""He liked the fact that she was flashy looking"." "That made him look more like a rock star." "Unfortunately, they never resolved this issue." "I can't see it being intentional because they're still together to this day, so there had to be more to it than the typical thing that happens in bands where the other band mates are jealous of the lead singer getting more attention," "so I'm gonna steal his girlfriend - it wasn't that." "So obviously nature took its course and Linda and John fell in love with each other but that was, I guess, probably the biggest wedge that was driven between them two and they never did speak to each other, really." "through this woman," ""and then that was it"." "Then it all fell apart on him and he lost his girlfriend." ""And probably his dream, his ambition"." "The fact that John never talked to Joey about it, or Linda didn't, either, gave him the feeling that they didn't care how he felt about it." "That, I think, is what really hurt him the most." "I can't remember any bad direct confrontations but the hate was there." "That was weird - they'd stay together but they'd hate each other." "Linda was a great reminder that he was this weirdo and that he couldn't have this great love and she would just go marry Johnny, his worst nightmare." "Creatively, I think it helped him because he wrote some songs about that." "I think that's why Joey wrote the song "The KKK Took My Baby Away"." ""So make your own conclusions"." "Listen to the song carefully." "In the tour van, there was always silence, nobody would say anything." "I would come out with a joke and everybody would laugh." "Because I couldn't take it, so I had to humor this situation, create some humorous levity." "One day, I threw a fish head out the window of a hotel into a pool, people swimming - that was funny." ""He was always a laugh and a half, you know"." "He was a heavy alcoholic at the time and the only time they ever missed a show "was because of him"." "I would always talk to John and Dee Dee but nobody called any more." ""But then I got the phone call"." "Johnny Ramone had enough, said, "Mark, you fucked up, " he threw me out the band." "I tried to pull the band together with Too Tough To Die and bring it back to its sound." "I get a phone call from Dee Dee, "of all people"." "And they said, "Would you like to work with us?"" "And I said, "Sure. "" "I mean, they'd changed a lot, which was something new to me," ""they had a new drummer"." ""I came in, I played everything twice as fast"." "It got to the point where an hour and 15 minute set was going at 56 minutes." "They'd go, "Wait a minute, we're not playing long enough. " We were blitzing." ""We often ran into them down the road"." "I remember I met Johnny Ramone and he said to me, "It's two minutes faster. "" "I said, "What is?" And he went, "Our set." ""It's two minutes faster than it was last April." "I went, "My God!"" "I learnt that from the Ramones, where's the next one?" ""Coœ there's people watching and people have got things to do." ""It's a busy world out there, you've got to give it to them. "" ""The '80s were rough"." ""We were the only band doing this"." "You kept doing it because of... you didn't know how to do anything else." ""But we knew, the '80s, there was no chance"." "MTV didn't have concentrated play in the early days." "They were thankful for anything, so if you handed them a Ramones video, they played it." "As they got more corporate, "the Ramones were kicked out"." ""I think MTV destroyed music"." "They just started seeing themselves a bit too god-like." "If you didn't have a half-million dollar video, "you wouldn't get aired"." ""We were out there by ourselves"." ""Yeah, rough period"." "They were still coming to see the live show." "It's really great to be here in New Hampshire this evening, playing for all you wild people out there." "We'd like to dedicate this one to Kev." "The day after Richie leaves the band... for I don't... never really sure what reason, he just left the band." "See, what the Ramones was," "I was Richie Ramone when you wanted me to be but then I was just a hired guy when you wanted me to be." "And there was a lot of money in t-shirts made." "When it came to t-shirt money, "I wasn't a Ramone"." ""This is after five years" - "I felt that I was due"." "I felt I should get a little of that t-shirt money, what's the big deal?" "We'd like to introduce you to our newest member," "Marky Ramone, yeah." "Take it, Dieter." "A thing with the Ramones that's "important is that they were troubadours"." "They constantly were out there, going around the world." "We took them for granted cos they were always there, they were always great, they always looked the same." "So it didn't matter how much time went by, it seemed like they trapped in some sort of time bubble where they wouldn't change." "Trends would come and go and then you'd go see the Ramones and you'd be like, "What year is it?"" "and their records got to us" ""in a place where we didn't fit in"." "Everybody, when they heard the Ramones, it was like, "Whoa!" "Finally, a band for us. "" "that I had looked up to as a little kid," ""then I would've never gotten started"." "I discovered the Ramones and it clicked in my head, that music was something I could do right now." "There were no standards after the Ramones - all you had to do was just be yourself and that gave me a lot of self-esteem when I needed it, and confidence." "So, came back, I was sober and things were fine except the tension between Johnny and Joey was still there." "are you gonna hold on to this shit?"" "But Joey held it in, he didn't let it go." "Joey never got over anything." "Joey could carry a grudge like an elephant never forgets." "Dee Dee, when I finally left, he wanted to go too and I think he managed to hang on another year or something and do shows in like track pants or rap pants, you know." "one of the first white rappers, and started dressing in his rap clothes "before he'd put on his Ramones clothes"." "We went to Washington and he got on the plane and he was wearing these sweats and this big gold chain, he was like in a rap outfit." "We all look at him, saying, "What's... ? " John was like pissed." ""It was bizarre"." "He'd start talking like a rapper, talking like a black person." "and you'd say, "What time is it?"" ""It's Gucci time. "" "I understood that." "It's rising above oppression, you know, a Negro being able to buy a Gucci watch - great." "I'm a Negro, too." "I'd felt the same excitement when I could buy a Gucci watch and spend a lot of money, like an outlaw." "I don't think it was worth fighting over, "it wasn't so good anyway, the album"." "I couldn't do rap, I was trying, I don't know how, I'm not good enough," "I'm not a Negro or something, I don't know what it is." "I wanted to." "Dee Dee Ramone says he's left the seminal New York punk group." "In an interview on MTV news," "Dee Dee told us that the Ramones' constant touring jeopardized his health and his wish to avoid drugs and alcohol." "He also said that he'd been hit hard by his recent divorce and he was very enthusiastic about working full-time with his rap band, Strength." "A Ramones spokesperson hoped Dee Dee would change his mind, noting he'd quit a number of times before." "I was sick, I was bulimic and anorexic." "Nobody could tell because I was on so many antidepressants, I was bloated from them." "And I was dying." "Mussolini slept here for two nights." "I wanna go home." ""I'd had it." "It was just too miserable"." ""Joey was drinking so much then"." "Finally, I said, "I gotta get better. "" "I felt kind of hurt by it because me and Dee Dee had always discussed..." ""We're gonna do this till we both decide we don't wanna any more. "" "Dee Dee was the main songwriter and when he left, I felt that it was like Paul McCartney leaving the Beatles." "How can you replace a guy like Dee Dee Ramone?" "You can, physically, put somebody in his shoes but you're not going to get the same aura, image and quality of songwriting as you did with Dee Dee Ramone." ""So then I start thinking of positives"." "Everybody around me going," ""You guys gotta break up now, you can't play without Dee Dee. "" ""What do you mean?" "I'm finding somebody else, that's all." ""Break up?" "Are you crazy?" "Break up coœ Dee Dee quits?" ""I'm just gonna accept defeat and lose?"" "I was at that point determined to prove them, "anybody that was around, wrong"." "It was, "All right, we'll find a young Dee Dee, a Dee Dee clone. "" "And that's Johnny Ramone right there." "And this is Joey." " And that's C. J. , our new bass player." " I made it." "It's a real exciting time with C. J. In the band and Dee Dee leaving... having left the band." "Actually, I feel he did us a real favor by leaving the band." "C. J. Was great, he was like a breath of fresh air when he came into the group." "Take it, C. J." "In the beginning, I kept my mouth shut and just watched because if I was going to survive in the band," "I would have to understand the dynamics of the relationships between the guys and would have to have some kind of relationship with each guy." "It was so weird because Johnny is like ultra-conservative and Joey is ultra-liberal." "Politically, we were on opposite ends." " Were you always right wing?" " Me?" "Yeah." "Probably since I was 10 years old." ""I was a Nixon man in 1960"." "Now, Joey turned out to be a New York, left-wing, Jewish... left-wing Jew." "And he was there at every Save The Starving Namibians or Rwandan Burundians or whatever." "We are here in support of Jerry Brown." "He addresses the issues, understands the problems and is courageous and adamant enough to challenge, not only the Bush administration, but America's entire political structure." "These guys were opposites, "a married couple that were total opposites"." "But they had one thing in common." "They knew they were Ramones." "What's up?" "Why you didn't vote last year?" "If you think not being registered keeps the politicians up at night, forget it." "A lot of them don't want you to vote, that's why they make regiresting so hard." "Makes what?" "Washington, what are you afraid of?" "I really liked Joey and I really respected Johnny but Johnny was always kind of like a father figure to me and it was hard to have like a friendship with him." "a good relationship and we started getting to be kind of friends" "Johnny really didn't like me much" ""for a while there"." "It's not that he didn't like me or whatever, maybe he was frustrated because he could not understand me." "In fact, one time, Joey was really sick, and we were just doing show after show and it was wintertime and we were in the van." "I said to Joey, "Why don't you just say something?" ""Why don't you just say that you can't do it?" ""You know what I mean?" "This tour schedule is ridiculous, man. "" "The next morning, Johnny was like," ""Who the fuck do you think you are?" "Just keep your mouth shut and do what you're told. "" "You know when you get so mad that tears start to well up?" "That's the point I was at." "Thank you." "I think, honestly, to tell you the truth, "is that that is how Johnny knew to do it"." "You just keep going "and you keep going and you don't let up"." "You just go and go and go and go and go." "And maybe that's all that Johnny knew." "Johnny was the glue." "He managed the band's financial affairs "on the road." "He was tough"." "Joey respected Johnny for his business acumen." ""And Joey had money"." "Any time during those 20 years, "Joey wanted to leave, Joey could've left"." ""And he didn't"." "What he did need was, he needed the fix, the fix being the Ramones." "When you go up on stage, it's another world up there and nothing else matters, there's another whole high." ""It's why they stayed together"." "Ramones really are..." "It's honest and it's pure energy and it gets handed down through the generations." "it's not just one set person, it's like kids into metal and alternative "and all-aged people"." "In South America, they were like the Beatles, it was incredible." "It was insane." "Going back to the airport, kids were like following us in convoys of cars and hanging out of windows and stuff." "They're breaking fucking glass." "Hurry, hurry, hurry, go on, go on, go on." "What the fuck is this?" " Oh, man!" " Jesus Christ!" "There's always fucking something." ""Things were bad over there"." "Brazil is a country where there are a million abandoned kids in Rio, they are sniffing glue and robbing the businesses so the business owners hire these death squads to kill children." "That's heavy." "kind of help these guys express a little bit, a little catharsis about their situation," ""how bad their situations are"." ""It's like London in '76." "The kids see no future"." "And again, it's the rawness of the message "that these kids get"." "Playing, like, the soccer stadium with 30,000 people." "Great." "You could see what they could've turned into everywhere else." "Come back to the United States "and had to play these clubs" " ""it was very depressing"." "I guess it's a little tougher for a band that was the catalyst and it always seems like it's the pioneers who don't get the full glory." "It's like it's the bands that come after because they do it a little differently or they compromise the sound and so they break through or they have a little more of a mainstream act, kind of thing." "When alternative music started to kick, that was our chance to break and we were right there on that threshold." "from Nirvana to Soundgarden trumpeting," ""Yeah, the Ramones, the Ramones. " "Rancid" - "all the biggest-selling bands"." "We fit in with those bands "and we just couldn't break it"." "I think that's the point where they were like, "We're done. "" ""FM1063 on the Jersey shore"." "Everybody's been asking this question, let's get it out of the way." "Adios Amigos is the title because you guys are supposedly calling it quits." "There's talk on the internet that you're not." "No, we..." "This is probably our last area performance." "We made an agreement, we've been doing this for 21 years and, you know, it's been great and all, but this is gonna be our last album, studio album, and the band's gonna like..." "We're calling it a retirement as of maybe next February." "FINAL SHOW HOLLYWOOD, AUG. 6, 1996" "Thank you!" ""Very weird at the end of the last show"." "I just went and changed my clothes "and walked out"." "Did you say goodbye to anybody?" "Not that I remember." "Maybe I said, "See you later. " I don't know." "and made it beautiful, which I thought was the greatest thing "about Joey"." "And the whole philosophy of punk - you take everything that's shitty and celebrate it and make it good." "But he was to thousands, hundreds of thousands of millions of people a liberator." "He liberated them from their own sense of failure, unpopularity." "Joey was a hero because he overcame the odds, he triumphed over geekiness and he started off an alien" ""in the world in which he was raised"." "Joey was never a healthy person but he was one of the strongest people "I've ever known"." "He managed to fight off anything and everything all the time." "So, you know, one had the impression he was gonna go on for ever." "He was totally convinced that he was going to live." "He was completely convinced." "Four days before he died, he was refusing to be fed by tubes down his throat because he didn't want his vocal cords damaged." "But at this time, of course I didn't want to accept that he didn't like me or wasn't my friend or didn't care or thought I had something against him." "So I'd blame it on the mother and the brother and Arturo - anybody but him." "So why couldn't I have had one last conversation with the guy?" "If you don't get along with someone, then go..." "I shouldn't talk to her or something, I don't know, I mean..." "I'm only gonna be the way I'd want someone to react to me." "You know?" "And if I didn't like someone, I wouldn't want them calling up if I was dying," "I wouldn't want them to have regrets for not talking to me, I'm happy that they didn't." "If I'm gone, that's how it goes." "I assume, coœ of the way he looked, he didn't want me to see him in this condition." "Which is very painful for me because, you know, I wanted to connect with him." "Yeah, no, I cared, I mean, I cared, I couldn't help but care." "I cared." "I was wondering, "Why am I caring so much?" But I cared." "I was questioning it to myself." "I'm depressed for the whole week here, why am I feeling this way?" "I didn't really get along." "So it bothered me." "Did you ever think about why that was, why it bothered you?" "Why?" "I'm not sure." "I don't know if that's..." "I don't know." "Why..." "I wonder if it's a weakness inside, I don't know." "I'm not sure why." "He's a member of the Ramones, I love the Ramones, we're all in it together." "Even If we didn't get along, if someone did something to him, I'd defend him." "If I saw someone throw something at him, I'd want to go get the person." "I cared coœ I took it as an insult to the Ramones." "So, in that way, we were in it together." "I'd like to thank Seymour Stein for everything he's done for the Ramones, for our whole career." "Danny Fields our first manager," "Gary Kurfirst, who's managed us for the last 22 years, and Ramones fans, who made this all worthwhile." "God bless President Bush and God bless America." "Hi, everybody, I'm Marky Ramone, I wanna thank Johnny Ramone for asking me to join the Ramones and especially Tommy Ramone, who started that drum style that I had to work very hard to duplicate." "And thank you very much." "Hi, I'm Dee Dee Ramone and..." "I'd like to congratulate myself and thank myself and give myself a big pat on the back." "Thank you, Dee Dee, you're very wonderful, I love you." "What would they have done without me?" "What would I have done without them?" ""Nothing"." ""Probably been dead a million times"." ""The Ramones definitely saved me"." ""I don't know why I'm so sour"." ""The whole thing is like"..." "Well, I guess it's like it was an ugly life, somehow." "It's not easy being in a rock'n'roll band." " Stop by, right." " Yeah, I will." "I will come back and..." "Send the new dates." "OK." "I'm practicing for Brazil." "All right." "Oh, God, poor Dee Dee." "The combination of CB's and Ramones was magical, so it's fitting that Joey, who was the blood singer of the band, gets this corner named after him." "Four, three, two, one..." "Look, I bought this." "It's nice, I'm glad I got it." " Do you like Mondo Bizarro as an album?" " I don't think so." "Let me take a look." "OK..." "OK, Mondo Bizarro, no, I don't like it at all." "We've got to get across the street, so..." "Look out, Tommy." "That was a great shout." "Chicken Beat Boy is something I invented, I guess." "I would jump around tables and chairs and arch my back and swing my arms around and start cackling like chicken." "And it was very funny." "But I think due to the presence of alcohol and its influence, it had a lot to do with Chicken Beat Boy." "Hey, here I am." "At the urinal." "Bye."