A Conversation with The Ramones’ Marky Ramone – HuffPost 9.30.13

Mike Ragogna: Hey, good morning, how are you, Marky?

Marky Ramone: I’m doing good, how are you?

Mike: I’m doing okay.

Marky: That’s good to hear.

Mike: Thanks man. Rumor has it you’re going to be on tour soon with Andrew W.K..

Marky: Well, this is basically a world tour. It’s ending in England, but this is kind of the tail end so we decided to do some shows in America because a lot of people wanted to check the band out. We booked some shows and then England will be the last one. We’ve gone everywhere–Russia, we’ve been in Spain, we’ve been in Rio, we’ve been in Germany, Holland. It’s amazing how well these songs hold up and how the audiences want to hear them. That’s basically it. We’re going to be doing thirty-three or thirty-four Ramones songs, and in New York, we’re going to be playing in Irivng Plaza and we’re going to play out in the West Coast. It’s amazing to see all this, how the older and younger generations bridge the generation gap and it’s all because of this great music.

Mike: Yeah. Hey, listen, there’s going to be a CBGB’s event pretty soon in October. You guys are almost synonymous with CBGB’s. What are you thoughts about that?

Marky: It was just another club. To me, when Hilly Kristal died, CBGB’s died. I hate to come off that blunt, but again, we live in a capitalistic society and it’s becoming a brand–obviously the t-shirt is–and hey, it sounds like fun that the name is still going to be perpetuated for years to come. Do I have anything against it? No, everyone has to have fun and a good time and of course, a lot of people want to relive their memories, so more power to them. But I saw the trailer for the movie and it was pretty bad. It was very, very amateurish. But what can I say? I’m just being honest with you.

Mike: No problem, I admire that. I’m sure you’ve been asked this a billion times, but what is it about The Ramones’ music that keeps it alive through the generations?

Marky: I think it’s the lyrical content, the energy factor of how long we’ve played without stopping, counting the songs off–“1, 2, 3, 4…” in each song, and I think it was the image. We looked like one, and it’s very important to me for a band to look like a band and it still is. Maybe not as much today, but when I look at The Beatles and I look at The Stones and I look at The Ramones, when I look at bands like that, there’s a certain look that without one or the other, it wouldn’t be what it is. It really gelled and it was chemistry, and I think kids saw the camaraderie on the exterior of us. But when you start analyzing the reasons, it might go away. I guess that’s the reason.

Mike: How do you see The Ramones’ place in history from this point on?

Marky: We started a musical genre. I’m sure there were other bands and individuals with punk elements, but we definitely solidified it and this is the end result, what you see today in bands like Green Day, Offspring, Rancid, even in England when The Ramones went there for the first time influencing The Clash and The Sex Pistols. I think we did our honest day’s work. But the thing is it continues, and that’s why I’m here to continue bringing this music to people everywhere around the world because I feel these songs are too good not to be played.

Mike: One of the funniest ironies I can remember is the band’s appearance in the kiddie movie Rock ‘N’ Roll High School. The concept of the movie was almost the total opposite of what The Ramones were. It was beyond, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

Marky: [laughs] Well, we weren’t blessed with Hollywood features, but we tried and we were very disappointed that we didn’t win the Oscar. [laughs] Only kidding. But it was like a bunch of aliens landed and all of a sudden the director goes, “Yeah, we’ll use them.” We were put into that movie and we were very grateful. It definitely got us a lot more interest from fans and friends of the group. It was another step that we needed to catapult us to a longer audience.

Mike: Did you at least have a little more fun when you were playing Marky Ramone in the “Rosebud” episode of The Simpsons?

Marky: Well, that was easier than hanging around for six weeks making a movie, but yeah, that was fun. I’m a big Simpsons fan and Matt Groening’s a fan. I saw an eight by ten, came to the studio and recorded that song, or half a song, I should say. And that was what it was, the episode “Rosebud,” the song “Happy Birthday Mr. Burns,” and my one line was, “Gee, I think they like us.” So hey, who knows what that could lead to? But we were very happy to be included in that episode. When I see it on TV or DVD, I laugh. It’s pretty cool.

Mike: How are you keeping busy with music these days?

Marky: I try to do these shows with my band everywhere, not just England or the States, but all around the world, and I have my own radio show on Sirius XM coming into its ninth year. It’s the largest punk rock show in America because it goes to all the States. And my pasta sauce has really taken off. Sometimes when you pray for something, it can definitely come true. [laughs] I’m going to include something else in the food line farther down the road, and my book is finished now. I have the typed out rendition of it on my computer and I read it and I have to go over little things here and there and add some things, but now that’s done, which took about forty-five years to write. There’s always something new but you have to know when to stop. You could have a part two, a part three, but this really tells it all. It’s written by one of The Ramones. I don’t want to start patting myself on the back, but I was in the band for the last fifteen years, so there’s a lot of stuff that’s in the book that’s very topical. It’s real, it’s factual, and it’ll be out in 2014, which is right around the corner.

Mike: Is it going to have a lot of Bob Gruen photos, etc?

Marky: Maybe, maybe it might not have any photos. Maybe it’ll just be a book, a real book to read. But we’ll see. Everyone knows what The Ramones look like. I wanted to really put in things that had to do with me growing up and other bands I was in, just to show another side of what I did.

Mike: Hey, speaking of other bands you were in, you were in another pretty seminal band, Dust.

Marky: Yeah, we were in high school and we were really too young to tour because we had to finish school to make our parents happy and have that diploma on the wall, which we did eventually. I had to go to night school and summer school for three years. But that’s the price you pay to be in a rock band. We were one of the first heavy metal bands in America. We had that first album written as young teenagers before we even heard of Black Sabbath, because Sabbath had their album in 1970 in America on Warner Brothers. We really weren’t that aware of that genre there. Of course, Zeppelin was out and Hendrix and Cream and all those groups, but there was nothing in America, there was no representation of that genre yet. But the term “heavy metal” that coined the phrase I think was used in the song “Born To Be Wild,” but metal wasn’t out yet. Again, there were bands that had elements of metal like Blue Cheer and Mountain, but I think Dust was musically way ahead of those groups. Then we had to break up. We were just naive and the manager didn’t know what to do with us because it was a new genre and a lot of people didn’t know who to include us with on a floor. It was kind of like growing up, you know?

Mike: Something I didn’t know was that you auditioned to be a drummer in New York Dolls.

Marky: Yeah, that’s unfortunately when Billy Murcia, the first drummer died. Johnny Thunders called me and asked me if I would come down and audition. They knew Jerry Nolan already, but they knew me too. I guess it looked better to have more people there. It was just me and Jerry. Jerry got the job, he played it straight; I was doing all these drum fills and triplets and that’s not what they needed and wanted. I was taking all my Dust stuff, my technical 5/4, 6/4 stuff and throwing it into Dolls songs and it didn’t work. I was glad that Jerry got it and I think they lasted ’til ’75. But I knew all of them from hanging out in the city at clubs and venues, et cetera. But they were in the audience watching my band Dust, so that’s how we all became friends and then later on, I started hanging out at Max’s Kansas City and meeting Wayne County, Richard Hell and then Dee Dee asking me to join The Ramones. So that was pretty cool.

Mike: While compiling the material for your book, when you look at the stuff you’ve done, did anything surprise you, something you maybe hadn’t thought of in years? Did you make any connections?

Marky: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s really true, you’ve got to be at the right place at the right time and hanging out at Max’s and then, eventually, all of us going downtown to CBGB’s, we all started knowing each other and then one thing led to another. Dee Dee always loved the way I played in The Voidoids and Dust and so did Johnny Ramone and that’s how I got the job. It was that simple. So one thing leads to another. When Richard Hell approached me and asked me to join The Voidoids, I was at Max’s and I had just left Wayne County and a girl knew him and that’s how I got the connection. It was that simple. So you know, it’s fifty-fifty. You’ve got to be lucky, too, but who you are and what you do is very important.

Mike: Your history includes associating with VH1’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy Camp.

Marky: And I was a guest, I was never a teacher. I wouldn’t want to do that. Just to walk on as a guest, I think that’s great. The kids learn and have a good time and the other teachers are very good. They’re very technical, they know how to explain instruments and how they should play certain songs, but I guess I just came on to say hello to the people that were learning the songs. They thought maybe it would involve some kind of inspiration, but I did it just to come there and show them to have a good time.

Mike: Speaking of inspiration, how was your gig with Reverend Martini’s All Nite Jumpin’ Showcase?

Marky: Oh that stuff’s great, the rockabilly stuff, I love it. They’re really into The Ramones in Las Vegas. I was a guest. I saw Little Richard and then I hung out with a lot of the rockabilly bands. I think I played with one band at a venue there because I just happened to have been there. It was fun, but out of nowhere, you get asked to play and you go up there and they have their own way of doing Ramones songs so you just adjust. I did a walk-on at The Barclay Center in New York with Fallout Boy. They asked me to do two songs with them. That’s a whole other ball game. But they did it very well and I was very grateful to have been asked to do that, and then I just did Rock In Rio and I did a thing with The Ventures at B.B. King’s. That was also pretty cool.

Mike: You also were inducted into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002.

Marky: Yep. That was something totally unexpected. To represent this genre of music as The Ramones in this hall of fame where you’re among your peers and other people you were influenced by like The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean… We were very proud to be included in that because we were talking to everybody who was into punk rock and still is.

Mike: Are you surprised at how endearing and enduring The Ramones have been after all these years?

Marky: Yeah, I am. But when I hear one of our songs, I go, “Now I see why.” The songs were great when they came out originally; they were catchy, short and to the point, so I guess the two-minute song approach is the best way. You have your chorus, you have your bridge, that’s it, goodbye at the end, you know what I mean? Things were getting very bloated when Ramones came out with other bands. I don’t want to name names, but you have this self-indulgence, which is nice, but we didn’t like it. We just loved a great song, so that was the intent and that was what the punk scene was about. Now, looking back, a lot of the songs, in my opinion, should have been hits. A lot of DJs at the time were afraid to play us. They didn’t want to play us, they had other agendas. Plus the scare tactics and sensationalism about punk that was brought over from the UK didn’t help either. It kind of put a little damper on the name “punk.” Now, of course, it’s no big deal. The band’s being played more than ever, there’s a renewed interest in the last ten years, so who knows when the calling comes?

Mike: Do you have favorites among all those two-minute wonders?

Marky: Oh yeah, “Sedated,” “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School,” “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker,” “Rockaway Beach,” “The KKK Took My Baby Away”…

Mike: [laughs] Always loved that title.

Marky: I know, it’s pretty funny. What are some other ones? “Lobotomy” is great, these wonderful titles, “Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio,” we can’t skip that; “Pet Sematary,” which I want to thank Stephen King for including in his movie. The list goes on. It could just go on and on and on and on, there are hundreds of songs.

Mike: You already left your mark musically, but didn’t you have a clothing line as well?

Marky: That was a capsule collection, meaning that only came out at a certain time, like in the Spring. I’m friends with Tommy Hillfiger and I was approached to make my own jacket and my own jeans, which I did. They sold out and that was it. It was a creative thing, which I’m always willing to jump into, I don’t care if it’s cooking, music, clothes, it’s shows of creativity. Again, I was very happy to have made that clothes line because I said, “Hey, I can do that!” I thought that was pretty cool.

Mike: Nice. What’s your advice for new artists?

Marky: Try to be original. I know it’s hard to do because a lot of thing have been done already. Rehearse a lot because you’re going to have a lot of competition, try to be the best you can be. Don’t smoke cigarettes, don’t do any heavy drinking, believe me, I know. Don’t do hard drugs, which I never did, and believe in what you’re doing and try to not be influenced by negative influences out there, people saying, “You’re not going to make it, you can’t do it,” this especially from relatives or friends. Just believe in yourself. The most important thing is to rehearse with other musicians because you’re eventually going to have to play with other people. You’ll have to play with a bass player, a guitar player, whatever you’re doing live as a musician. And try to like all genres of music, not just one thing. You have to learn, it’s a learning process. Try to get into blues, jazz, some metal, definitely punk. Then throw it up and you come down and one day you might have your own style.

Mike: You’ve been in the public light for so long and everybody has their idea of who Marky is, but is there something we need to know about Marky Ramone that nobody knows yet?

Marky: Well, I wasn’t brothers with Johnny, Joey and Dee Dee. We were just friends. A lot of people thought we were brothers, but that wasn’t the case. That was just the name that Paul McCartney would use when he would sign into a hotel. He would call himself “Paul Ramone,” so Dee Dee took the name “Ramone” and called it The Ramones. It sounds like a family, but we weren’t. We were just friends.

Mike: Well, I guess we’ll be looking forward to the next entry in your pasta sauce line.

Marky: Yup, and ten percent goes to charity, to Autism Speaks. That’s the most important thing for me, is that it definitely goes to that charity. It’s a charity that’s been around for a while and the proceeds go to that. Obviously, it helps people with austism, all ages, all different types of development of the disease and I’m proud to be part of that.

Mike: Beautiful. Okay, thank you much, Marky, I don’t want to take up any more of your time, I really appreciate the interview.

Marky: Any time. Thank you.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne