Ramones

After fifteen years and countless tours The Ramones’ love of rock n’ roll keeps them going strong, Joey tells Truepunk.

Archival December 1992 Interview by Steve Tauschke | steve@staff.truepunk.com | with The Ramones’ Joey Ramone.

"We’re a live band and a touring band and the key is spontoneity. It’s very exciting playing live, I mean it’s like instant gratification - it’s the ultimate high!"

Joey Ramone, gangly singer and unchanging face of New York punk rockers the Ramones is ruminating on the simplicity of the band’s approach and its 15-year success.

On the phone from NYC, slow-talking Joey, who punctuates each statement with a drawling ‘you know what I mean?’, almost sounds as starry-eyed as he did when he first started out in Forrest Hills in the mid-70s.

"We’re big fans of rock n’ roll and we’ve always been big record collectors," he begins. "We really enjoy what we do, we enjoy playin’ live and goin’ out and playin’ for our fans because they are a unique bunch; they’re real rock n’ roll purists and loyalist diehards.

"We love playin’ and that’s what it’s all about and that’s what excites us. It’s what fuels us and without sounding cliched, it’s our love of rock n’ roll that keeps us going, you know what I mean?"

The Ramones - Joey, guitarist Johnny, bassist CJ and drummer Marky - recently completed a dream tour of Europe where audience responses rivalled the kamikaze stage dives and general skinhead-fuelled mayhem of earlier gigs in Mexico this year. Joey says he’s always thrilled to see crowds go beserk.

"It’s great! Hahaha! It’s all about letting go and it’s a release for fans and it’s just great to see them enjoying themselves. As a metter of fact we just came back this week from what’s probably been our most succesful tour of Europe yet. It was nine countries with twenty-four shows in twenty-eight days. We played Yugoslavia for the first time and when we got there the promoter told us the three biggest bands in Yugoslavia were David Bowie, Paul McCartney and the Ramones, which was a great feeling.

"We also did about six cities in Spain. The kids there, you know, the average age was about 20 or so and it was just like total insanity - like real mass hysteria! People were sayin’ that we were the Beatles of Spain!"

While the 33-track Sire Records compilation All The Stuff & More has kept Ramones fans at bay in recent months, Joey says a new studio album isn’t too far off.

"We go in in May and we’re working with Ed Stasium, who’s done all our orginal records since Leave Home and has been involved with us ever since. He’s also done both Living Colour albums and a number of other projects. He totally understands the Ramones so we’ll be going in and hopefully we’ll have an album ready by the early fall. We’ve been writing and we should have a lot of stuff by May to sort out the best for the record.

"But what we’re also really hopin’ to do is a live album and we’ve been talking to the record company about that because we’ve never had a live album released in America. The only one we ever had out (It’s Alive) was recorded on New Year’s eve in 1977 at the Rainbow Theatre in London. Everybody in the band wants a live album because we’re so tight right now. So we’re thinking about maybe doing it Australia or Spain and hopefully that’ll carry us through until the studio album is available."

Another Ramones collectible to look out for in the short term is the quartet’s very own video release Lifestyles Of The Ramones, a one-hour documentary featuring not only footage and interviews of/with the band but also notable musicians (Debbie Harry, Anthrax) and identities (Sire President Seymour Stein) discussing the Ramones. Also included are uncut versions of all the group’s ten videos plus a handful of unreleased clips.

Meantime, New York’s famous punk brudders hit the road for more touring, ready to carve up another decade with a brazen punk attitude that has outlasted most of their peers.

"When we first started out, we just considered ourselves a rock n’ roll band and all that," shrugs Joey, "but that’s too general, especially nowadays. To me, the meaning of punk is rebellious so it works well for us, it’s accommodating, you know what I meeeaaan?"