The rock band Johnny Ramone knew would burn out: “The next best band”
Unity and solidarity are key attributes of every grassroots revolution, but they weren’t overly common within the abrasive rock and roll revolt of punk back in the mid-1970s. It is easy to imagine New York’s CBGB club as a united front against the musical establishment, but as far as the Ramones were concerned, it was every spikey-haired man for himself.
The Ramones were a pretty unique outfit within the context of that blossoming East Village punk scene. For starters, they hailed from a little further out, in Queens, and largely rejected the ever-evolving fashion of punk, remaining rooted in their leather jackets and blue jeans. Sonically, too, the band borrowed far more from the pop charts of the 1960s than they did from the DIY punk happening around them.
Politically, socially, and in virtually every aspect of its existence, that CBGB scene was anti-establishment and countercultural, but that is where the Ramones deviated once again.
A living contradiction, guitarist Johnny Ramone was an outspoken conservative Republican who thanked George Bush in the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech in 2002. It is no surprise, therefore, that Johnny wasn’t overly fond of the subversive artists frequenting CBGBs during the club’s heyday.
Far from inspiring a sense of solidarity between bands, Johnny Ramone revealed, “I’d review everyone, you know, where our competition lay,” in a 2003 interview, which turned out to be his last. In terms of that competition, the Ramones might have typified the punk age better than most, but their commercial success was dwarfed by the likes of Talking Heads and Blondie. Nevertheless, there was only one band Johnny Ramone considered serious rivals.
“The Heartbreakers are the only other band that I looked upon as, ‘these guys are really good’,” he shared, highlighting Johnny Thunders’ post-New York Dolls project that lived and breathed a DIY punk ethos. Having followed the path of punk solely as a result of the New York Dolls years prior, it was only natural that the Ramones’ guitarist felt some sense of inferiority towards them. However, he was also aware that their genius wouldn’t last forever.
Rather disparagingly, Ramone continued, “But they were a bunch of junkies, so I don’t have to worry about them, their careers are going to be short”. That rather harsh writing-off of The Heartbreakers should perhaps come as no surprise from the Republican guitarist, who was sober throughout his career and, as opposed to his bandmates, was never plagued by addiction to drink or drugs.
Admittedly, the guitarist was correct in a sense: The Heartbreakers only produced one album, 1977’s LAMF, before the heroin-addled Thunders relocated to London and began pursuing a solo career. Eventually, the songwriter’s lifestyle caught up with him, and he passed away in 1991 at the age of only 38, although there is some controversy over his exact cause of death, which was ruled as being of drug-related causes.
Regardless, that 1977 album, along with the entirety of Thunders’ career, from the early days of the New York Dolls to his final days on earth, marks some of the greatest punk recordings of all time. His discography might not have been quite as extensive as the Ramones, but let’s not kid ourselves that every Ramones record was a masterpiece.
