Five artists Joey Ramone hated
While they were often perceived as a whole entity with each member adopting the same uniform, surname, and snarl, Joey Ramone was arguably the leader of the celebrated Queens punk rock group The Ramones. With his gangly frame and cartoonish vocal style, his presence as the frontman was arguably one of the most distinctive ever witnessed in the history of rock music, and the amount that he and the rest of the group gave to the punk movement of the 1970s was matched by few others.
The band’s aesthetic was rebellious and snotty, both in the way they presented themselves and in their raucous guitar-driven sound, but their influences largely stemmed from ‘60s pop groups, as did their obsession with creating an instantly recognisable brand. There was never any mistaking who the Ramones were on record, and there was no mistaking who they were as individuals from their appearance.
However, you might think it would be embarrassing for someone like Joey Ramone to go on record and admit to liking artists like the Ronettes and the Monkees – two incredibly manufactured groups that were the antithesis of punk in the way that they chased commercial success and offered something that was so easily consumable for the public. Joey even admitted that he and his bandmates loved the Bay City Rollers, and that their song ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ was heavily influenced by their hit ‘Saturday Night’ for the way it incorporated a chant in the refrain.
While they also worshipped the Beatles, taking their name from a pseudonym that Paul McCartney used to use to check into hotels, Paul Ramon, they had plenty of hatred for acts that they thought were phoney or didn’t offer anything new and exciting like the music they had grown up on. When it came to dissing others, Joey Ramone was incredibly outspoken and something of a savage. There’s plenty that Joey Ramone hated about his contemporaries and bands that came after The Ramones, but these are some of the ones he detested the most.
Eagles
Joey Ramone once made a claim that “The Eagles and the Captain and Tennille ruled the airwaves, and we were the answer to it.” It isn’t exactly the most disparaging comment ever, but it does highlight how Eagles and Ramones were operating on totally different ends of the musical spectrum. You can’t imagine Glenn Frey rocking out to ‘Sheena is a Punk Rocker’, and nor can you imagine Joey finding something to love about ‘Desperado’.
However, he would later row back on his comments and admitted that they were something of a guilty pleasure in a 1994 interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Back in the ’70s, I never would have admitted to liking the Eagles,” the vocalist claimed, “but they had some good songs.” Perhaps Ramone softened in his later years and warmed to their country rock stylings.
The Cure
One of the premier goth groups of the 1970s and ‘80s, The Cure represented a not-too-distant subculture from that of The Ramones if we’re looking at things from an appearance perspective, but in terms of their sound, the two couldn’t have been further apart from one another. The abrasively fast-paced hooks of the New York punks were a far cry from the slow and dreary take on guitar music that the British group proffered, and Joey Ramone wasn’t having any of that.
When a viewer faxed in a question to Joey on an episode of Ring My Bell to ask what he thought of the ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ group, his response was incredibly to the point. “I hate the Cure,” Ramone claimed, offering nothing more of his opinion than a simple dismissal of them. While the Cure were known for pushing boundaries and making their music complex, Ramone was always of the opinion that music, especially punk, should be kept simple.
Sex Pistols
Ramone’s relationship with the Sex Pistols was a little confusing. While he had a certain sense of admiration for the group for becoming their snotty counterparts in the UK, he also resented their existence for the fact that they ripped off his band and attempted to steal their thunder. It was something of a love-hate relationship, to say the least.
One incident that took place during an early encounter between the two parties may have also led to the Sex Pistols having a pretty poor opinion of the Ramones as well. Having performed with them on their 1977 debut visit to the UK, the Ramones would be invited back once again later the same year. However, in an interview with Conan O’Brien, Ramone revealed: “Johnny Rotten wanted to come backstage. So, a little prank that we pulled on Johnny was that we all kinda pissed in the beer. And then Johnny Ramone gave Johnny Rotten the beer. It’s like our way of saying hello.”
Billy Idol
It wasn’t just the Sex Pistols that pissed off Joey Ramone for stealing their limelight with a watered down version of the punk rock they created. He also had a fervent hatred for all of the other acts that the punk movement spawned long after they had laid the foundations, purely for how they all seemingly jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to commercialise punk.
While Joey did still crave success to a degree, he wanted to do it in an authentic way, which was something that he didn’t think Billy Idol had going for him. In a 1987 interview with Wayne Robins, he claimed that “Billy Idol is a commercial item, it’s a package,” claiming that he lacked any of the true punk credentials that he and his band had. “The Ramones are reality, authentic and genuine, we’re not a package and we can’t be packaged.”
The Ramones
It’s hardly a secret that Joey Ramone and Johnny Ramone had a few scuffles with one another over the years they spent together in the band. Seemingly always at odds with each other for their personal views – the Liberal Joey often clashing with the Republican Johnny – they somehow managed to continue working together throughout the band’s existence until they finally split in 1996.
It wasn’t just this that severed their relationship though, as Johnny would also steal Joey’s girlfriend, Linda Danielle, who he eventually married in 1984. As one might imagine, this wound Joey up no end, but his relationships with other band members weren’t great either. Drummer Tommy Ramone allegedly left the band due to bust-ups with the rest of the group, with Joey having “ignored” him throughout most of his tenure, while his replacement, Marky, argued publicly with Joey on many occasions. It wasn’t a hatred of his own music, but the people that he had to deal with every day for over 20 years that irked the gangly frontman.
