One band saved rock and roll, according to Stephen King
Since his debut novel, 1973’s Carrie, Stephen King has displayed a talent for suspenseful storytelling rivalled only by his boundless imagination. His extraordinarily prolific creativity has yielded 64 published fictional novels and over 200 short stories to date. However, during the slim hours in which he’s not sleeping, eating or punching frantically at his typewriter, King can often be found with a guitar in hand.
Growing up in the post-war baby boomer generation, King had the privilege of experiencing the heyday of pop-rock music. The writer’s teenage years spent in Durham, Maine, were shaped significantly by the influential artists of the British invasion era, especially The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. These iconic groups played a pivotal role in shaping his early attachment to rock music.
While appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2006, King picked out ‘She Loves You’ as one of his all-time favourite songs. “Of all The Beatles songs, it seems to me that it’s travelled the best over the years to my ear,” he said. “It still sounds totally fresh when I hear it today, as it did when I first heard it when I was probably 16 years old.”
Despite this teenage attachment, King was seemingly a bigger fan of The Rolling Stones overall. “Favourite musical act of all time? Probably Creedence Clearwater Revival,” he stated during a Reddit AMA session in 2013. “But AC/DC is close…and The Temptations…The Stones…ah, man, don’t get me started. Just not Led Zeppelin.”
Creedence, The Beatles and the Stones may have soundtracked King’s adolescent years in the ’60s, but the 1970s brought new flavours. Unfazed by the heavy prog-rock stylings of Led Zeppelin, King got swept into the punk scene in 1975, courtesy of the Ramones.
In 2003, Columbia released We’re a Happy Family: A Tribute to Ramones, an album of Ramones covers, including entries from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eddie Vedder, Metallica, Green Day and The Pretenders. To match Rob Zombie’s surreal cartoon cover art, Stephen King offered his hand to pen the sprawling, comical liner notes.
Throughout his stream-of-consciousness notes, King cast his mind back to the mid-1970s. He recalled that punk and disco emerged at the same time, pointing out at the outset that he was a party to both, unlike many Ramones fans. “I liked Disco, and if you have a problem reading quote/unquote Liner Notes from someone who liked disco, then it’s a bona fide case of tuff titty said the kitty.”
Getting stuck into his fleeting review, King explained that he took on the job not because he liked the bands on the tribute album but because “I loved the Ramones from the first time I heard them.” King noted that there were some “good people on this record” and that he was interested to hear how they “fucked up the 3-chord majesty (okay, sometimes 4) of Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky and Tommy.”
King continued, revealing his low expectations for the tribute album despite featuring “great” bands like The Pretenders. “But they will fuck it up, I think,” King added. “Every tribute album is a piece of shit. This is the Fabled Automatic, like how if you drop your toast on the floor, it always lands butter-side-down where the dog took a piss, or how you can’t get snot off a suede jacket.”
Comparing disco and punk, King noted that people listened to Donna Summer “in the back of a limo while they snorted Peruvian Flake through $100s,” whereas the Ramones “sang about getting high on a budget: sniffing glue and huffing various household products like Carbona.” While Summer crooned, “Ooooooooooh luv to love you, baby,” the Ramones “were about screaming until your lungs popped out your nose and just sort of hung there pulsing on your upper lip and banging your head until your fucking ears bled.”
King appreciated that there was a time and a place for disco and punk, and never the twain should meet. The ‘King of Horror’ finally noted that, while the Ramones never had a top-ten hit, they “saved rock and roll when it needed saving, and I miss them.” He took a subtle dig at the covers album by adding, “I never knew how much until I heard the songs on this record.”
The Misery author never explained what Ramones saved rock from, but with his distaste for Led Zeppelin, one can make assumptions. Supposedly, King enjoyed the visceral, expressive and animalistic side of rock ‘n’ roll that complex composition detracted from.
That instinct explains why the Ramones resonated with King in a way few other bands did. Their music mirrored the same principles that underpin his best writing: momentum, clarity, and emotional immediacy. There was no room for indulgence or ornamentation, only the blunt force of an idea delivered as directly as possible. Like King’s prose, Ramones songs move fast, hit hard.
In that sense, King’s musical tastes feel entirely consistent with his creative worldview. He gravitates toward artists who understand that power does not come from complexity, but from conviction. Whether through horror fiction or three-chord punk, the goal is the same: to make the audience feel something visceral and undeniable. For King, the Ramones did not just save rock and roll. They reminded it how to tell a story without getting in its own way.
Listen to ‘Carbona Not Glue’ by Ramones below.
