Herman’s Hermits: the British invasion band that inspired Joey Ramone’s vocals
Emerging from the seedy underbelly of New York City in 1974, the Ramones became the defiant voice of the city’s sneering punk movement. Stalwarts of the CBGB club, the group certainly made their mark on the scene, with an extensive repertoire of short, sharp anthems and the blitzkrieg delivery style to back them up. At the forefront of the group was its lanky lead singer, Joey Ramone, who provided a suitably individualistic voice for this bold new generation of musical misfits.
Joey Ramone – real name Jeff Hyman – was the natural choice for the Ramones’ frontman, perfectly capturing their distinctive image as a group, and coming complete with an energetic and distinctive performance style to back it up. Despite this, along with the fact that Joey had been the lead singer of pioneering glam-punk outfit Sniper during the early 1970s, the vocalist wasn’t originally intended to be the group’s leader. During their very early days, bassist Dee Dee Ramone took on vocal duties, while Joey was relegated to the back of the stage behind a drum kit.
Very shortly after their formation, however, Dee Dee landed upon the discovery that his vocal delivery style quickly wore his voice out, and he struggled to perform bass and sing at the same time. During those early days, the band were honing their primitive skills at Manhattan’s Performance Studios, where producer and band manager Thomas Erdelyi helped to carve out the Ramones’ distinctive sound. One key suggestion made by Erdelyi was that Joey Ramone should be the band’s vocalist.
“After two or three songs, Dee Dee would get hoarse so Joey would sing,” Erdelyi later recalled to Uncut. “And he had a really good voice. I thought Joey would look good as a lead singer because he wasn’t the cliché of a lead singer.” This, of course, left the band without a drummer, leading Erdelyi to step in, rechristening himself Tommy Ramone. This was the line-up that would launch the Ramones into the hearts of punk rockers across the world during their 1970s heyday.
Although they might have been heroes of the punk movement, the Ramones’ musical influences were always a little different from those of many of their CBGB peers. In particular, Joey Ramone always held a special appreciation for the landscape of 1960s pop and British invasion rock, leading the group to record covers of tracks like The Ronettes’ ‘Baby I Love You’ later in their career.
According to Tommy Ramone, however, the influence of the British invasion was always present in the singer’s performance. “From very early, he sang with this strange British accent,” the drummer laughed. The exact source of this inspiration remains unknown, but Tommy certainly had his hunches. “I don’t know where it came from, maybe his love of Herman’s Hermits,” he shared. “But we encouraged it, we thought it was cool because it was different.”
Hailing from Manchester – a city with its own claims in punk history – Herman’s Hermits were among the most successful and noteworthy groups to arise from the British invasion period. However, their brand of beat rock does not draw immediate parallels with the pioneering blitzkrieg punk stylings of the Ramones. Still, it appears as though the Mancunian outfit did play an essential role in the development of Joey Ramone as a vocalist, setting him on a path to define the landscape of punk rock vocals for decades.
