Rob Zombie once named the greatest American rock band ever: “It was shocking”
The definition of what true rock and roll is supposed to be seems to change almost once every decade. While The British Invasion started an entire revolution in the 1960s, it didn’t take long before that changed to the rise of heavy metal, the glam rock movement, and eventually the alternative rock boom taking over the mainstream in the 1990s. Although Rob Zombie took every piece of heavy music he heard and channelled it into his own tunes, these punk juggernauts were the best that America had to offer him in terms of gritty rock.
Because as much as British artists have been known for building rock and roll, the US is where everything truly got started. The genre may have started with the blues, but listening to acts like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, many of the biggest artists of the British Invasion started by copying their playbook first and building from there.
And it’s not hard to see where metal eventually started from there, either. Whereas Zombie was part of a different generation than Black Sabbath, for example, hearing Tony Iommi’s thunderous riffs wouldn’t have existed without hearing artists like Eric Clapton mining the same Buddy Guy and Muddy Waters licks first.
But punk was meant to be something different. All of the pageantries of rock and roll had started to become a little bit too ridiculous for anyone to take seriously. By the time Ramones hit the streets, people had finally been brought back to Earth with songs that didn’t mess around for a second.
Beyond being as short and compact as possible, the best Ramones songs were about taking the building blocks of rock and roll and making it their own. They had a lot more speed behind them, but looking at the basic chords helped inspire legions of kids that maybe if they practised hard enough, they would be able to make their own legacy with a fistful of chords.
Although Zombie came from a different angle, he had to give it up for what Ramones gave to the world, saying, “I think the Ramones are the greatest American rock band. The greatest band of all time is The Beatles, but as far as American rock bands go, the Ramones are the greatest band ever. When Joey [Ramone] died, it was shocking. It hadn’t been [like that] since John Lennon died.”
Whereas most of White Zombie’s material was about making the spookiest industrial metal possible, there’s still that punk rock attitude in the way they structured their songs. Outside of basing their tunes on one or two different riffs, having the gall to sample old-school horror movies was Zombie’s way of infusing that kind of ‘anything goes’ mentality that Ramones had on their earliest records.
Then again, Ramones weren’t designed to be an inspiring band for everyone to flock to. They only wanted to play rock and roll as loud as they could, and without really noticing it, they inadvertently laid the groundwork for every kid who wanted to lace up Doc Martens and play power chords as loud as possible.
