Johnny Thunders: Exploring the great mystery surrounding his death
Following in the footsteps of his idol Keith Richards, Johnny Thunders was always destined to be a storied figure. Distinct from an early age, he possessed a talent on the guitar that future New York Dolls bandmate Arthur Kane would describe as “truly inspired”. In turn, due to the quality of his work with the Dolls, The Heartbreakers and others, Thunders would count legions as his followers – from punk pioneers Sex Pistols to indie heroes such as Johnny Marr.
“Raunchy, nasty, rough, raw, and untamed” were five other words that Kane would use to describe his old friend’s guitar sound, with his take being the most concise description of his work. Thunders was 1970s New York embodied in sound, with his guitar-playing style both gritty and sexual – two sides of the same coin that made up his native city.
Despite having various musical flourishes and exploits to his name, on April 23rd, 1991, Johnny Thunders passed away in New Orleans. Aged just 38, the circumstances surrounding the tragedy remain unclear, as a handful of conflicting accounts exist and have spread by word of mouth. From cancer to murder, it is fitting that for a man whose life is so highly mythologised, his death is shrouded in such mystery.
One thing is sure: Thunders died at the Inn on St. Peter Hotel (formerly known as St. Peter Guest House). Before coming to the more conspiratorial accounts of his passing, it must be noted that one of the last lovers in Thunders’ life, Swedish hairdresser Susanne Blomqvist – the mother to his daughter Jamie – claims that Thunders was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1987, shortly after their child’s birth. She recalled: “We separated when Jamie was one-and-a-half years old, and he moved back to New York. I drove him out to the airport, we said goodbye, and I knew I was never going to see him again. He went to see a doctor once, and they took some tests, and something changed”.
Per Pamela Des Barres’ book, Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon, Thunders’ sister, Mariann Bracken, claimed that the autopsy confirmed Thunders’ leukaemia had advanced. This would explain the sharp decline in his appearance in his final year.
Although leukaemia seems like the most likely cause of Thunders’ death, for some of his friends, drugs or foul play remains a plausible explanation. Writing in his biography, Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones, the late Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone claimed that a group of anonymous “bastards” ripped the guitarist off for his methadone supply and then murdered him.
The day after Thunders’ death, Ramone contended that he had taken a call from Stevie Klasson, Thunders’ guitarist, who told him information about this supposed group of murderers. He said: “They told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards… who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him. He had gotten a pretty large supply of methadone in England, so he could travel and stay away from those creeps – the drug dealers, Thunders imitators, and losers like that.”
Demonstrating the opaque nature of Thunders’ death is an account from Willy DeVille, the musician who lived next door to him at the Inn. DeVille admitted to toying with the press as they kept ringing him after his friend’s death, inferring that the provenance of most sources in this case – outside of Thunders’ family – is dubious. DeVille later said: “I don’t know how the word got out that I lived next door, but all of a sudden, the phone started ringing and ringing. Rolling Stone was calling, the Village Voice called, his family called, and then his guitar player called. I felt bad for all of them”.
He added: “It was a tragic end, and I mean, he went out in a blaze of glory, ha ha ha, so I thought I might as well make it look real good, you know, out of respect, so I just told everybody that when Johnny died he was laying down on the floor with his guitar in his hands. I made that up. When he came out of the St. Peter Guest House, rigor mortis had set in to such an extent that his body was in a U shape. When you’re laying on the floor in a fetal position, doubled over – well, when the body bag came out, it was in a U. It was pretty awful.”
One of the main points of contention is the New Orleans coroner’s report. A 1991 article in the Orlando Sentinel claims: “[He] died of an overdose of cocaine and methadone, according to the coroner’s office in New Orleans. Chief investigator John Gagliano said tests completed last week found substantial amounts of both drugs.”
On the other hand, Thunders’ biographer and friend, Nina Antonia, posted on the Jungle Records website that the level of drugs found in his system was not fatal. This thought is also compounded by Thunders’ manager, Mick Webster, who suggested to Melody Maker in 1994 that the New Orleans police weren’t “particularly friendly” and were happy to close the book on the death as that of a junkie.
Of the family’s efforts to get the police to investigate further, Webster said: “We keep asking the New Orleans police to re-investigate, but they haven’t been particularly friendly. They seemed to think that this was just another junkie who had wandered into town and died. They simply weren’t interested.”
Perhaps most pointedly is that Danny Garcia, the director of the documentary Looking for Johnny, sides with the family’s argument that cancer took Thunders’ life. He offered a balanced account to Punk Globe in 2015: “He was a very ill man by the time he got to New Orleans, and I’m totally convinced that he died of natural causes. I read the other day somewhere he died of a methadone and cocaine overdose, and that’s BS. But, since it’s still a mysterious drug-related death, and two guys that were with him when he died stole all his belongings, of course, people go for the sensationalistic theories before looking at the evidence. Murder sells more than dying of natural causes, that’s for sure.”
Interestingly, there’s an argument to be made that the other theories surrounding Thunders’ death came to fruition because he largely kept his diagnosis to himself. Not long after his passing, Thunders’ close friend and former bandmate, Jerry Nolan, claimed that the guitarist had a medical phobia and refused to go to the hospital for treatment (per Rock and Roll True Stories). If true, this explains a great deal. Tragically though, Nolan died in January 1992, so the case will likely never be closed.
Despite what conclusion we might individually reach as fans, everyone agrees that Johnny Thunders went long before his time.
