The vocalist Anthony Kiedis called “one of the great rock singers”
When asked about the greatest vocalists of all time, there are answers that pop up again and again. Janis Joplin, Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and so on. Across genres, a top cast emerges of the best of the best singers who exist in a God-like tier. But Anthony Kiedis’ nomination isn’t a common one.
When thinking back on punk, it’s rarely the beauty of the singing voices that’s discussed. That’s not what it was all about. Instead, the era was all about the messages and the energy, not the capabilities of the vehicle telling it. It was a DIY moment where skill, and sometimes even talent, were beside the point. Instead, it was all about the experience the bad could unleash on stage and how riled up they could get their crowd.
But for Kiedis, that meant that some great voices have been forgotten or are shrugged off as nothing more than another shouting punk amidst a gaggle of them. Yet amongst them all, in the CBGB scene of the 1970s that saw the power of the genre take hold, one star emerged with a voice that Kiedis demands respect for.
“I didn’t discover the Ramones until much later in life, for whatever reason,” he admitted to Forbes. But perhaps Kiedis’ late entry to the Ramones allowed him to see their musical majesty rather than just being wrapped up in and distracted by their energy. Instead, with the space to engage with the band in a different manner, he could pay attention.
“We actually played a show with the Ramones in the late middle ’80s, I wanna say like in Finland, and that was an eye-opener for me, just to see how beloved they were in the world. But I didn’t fully comprehend the Ramones until much later in life,” he explained. “And John was far more tuned in to what they had brought to the world, and ended up becoming quite close with Johnny Ramone before he passed.”
Not only did Kiedis get a personal connection to the group, but outside of the immediate chaos of their 1970s breakout, he got to interact with their music differently. Maybe there’s something in the fact that the group were decontextualised. Knowing them personally broke down the illusion of their personas, while removing them from that early scene of the CBGBs gave them some distance from the energy of early punk. Instead, the Red Hot Chili Peppers singer could hit play and listen on his own terms and with the kind of focus that is rarely afforded to punk music.
“So that was a very special period of time for us, when I got to listen to record after record by the Ramones, and really discover who they were, and what great songwriters they were, and what a phenomenal singer Joey was,” he explained, highlighting the underappreciated talent of Joey Ramone as a singer, rather than just as a frontman.
“I think he’s one of the great rock singers of all time,” Kiedis said, delivering high praise as he added, “I put him on that shortlist with Elvis Presley and whatnot.”
