Zitat des Tages über Ramones:
We all started calling ourselves 'Ramones' because it was just a fun thing to do.
Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols.
Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn't their parents'. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.
The closest things to an influence would be people like Charlie Watts or Al Jackson. But I didn't really listen to drummers; I basically played what I thought was needed for the Ramones.
No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song.
Even from the very beginning, the type of fans the Ramones generated were the kind of people who wound up running industry, who became professors and scientists. Our staunchest fans were always a little bit more on the outside, the type of people who didn't fit in with society.
I mean, gosh, my first tours I ever did were with the Ramones and Iggy Pop and Love & Rockets.
The main issue was deciding what to play: Should it be old Ramones material or new material? I had about three albums worth of new material, but I knew that people would rather hear the Ramones songs.
Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn't mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, 'Listen to the Ramones.'
Then the early punk rock period with Television and the Ramones. That's what I loved- that's what I was listening to immediately prior to when I started to play.
It's not like that anymore really, but back in the day, nobody would let the Misfits open up for them, not the Ramones, not the Cramps, nobody.
We were watching bands like the Ramones and Blondie and other bands beginning to ignite.
I started listening to and playing other music in the '90s. It was after hearing other bands, like Bad Religion, cover Ramones songs that I started to like our songs again.
Most of the people who are given these Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame things sell millions of records, so it's kind of like a trophy for them. But for the Ramones, it really was a symbolic gesture of, 'Yes, you guys are special and are important to rock n' roll.' So in that sense, the Roll Hall of Fame served its purpose.
Who's the new Ramones, who's the new Guns 'N Roses, who's the new Motley Crue, who's the new Black Sabbath? They're coming, they're on the street, they're 16, 17 years old.
I discovered the Clash, the Pistols, obviously the Ramones, Blondie.
I got tired of the Ramones around the time I quit and I really got into rap. I thought it was the new punk rock. LL Cool J was my biggest idol.
I always think the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as very, very important because they stripped things down.
It was awesome because we were doing Ramones songs.
We were just a bunch of high school kids who got into the Ramones together.
I love punk rock, The Clash, The Ramones, The Cramps. I love where it all came from, and music for my ears now, it has to have that same electricity, adrenaline and danger.
The Ramones own the fountain of youth. Experiencing us is like having the fountain of youth.
You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.
It was never fun being in the Ramones, which is the saddest thing of all, cause it shoulda been fun. It was probably fun when we played Performance Studio, and maybe some of the early gigs at CBGB's. But the Ramones were the type of group that had a bizarre mindset. Being in the band was so cut off from reality.
I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called 'Rock Star,' which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, 'Why not play the drums?'
When I got my first guitar, I played along with everything I heard that had guitar in it, like the Ramones, Nirvana and Sublime, as well as whatever hip-hop and R&B stuff was on the radio.
When I got into rap I didn't exactly win any popularity contests. I called myself Dee Dee King, after B.B. King, to the total dismay of my fellow Ramones.
I didn't want the Ramones being told what to be doing, and I wanted the Ramones being presented in the right light - the remaining Ramones.
It wasn't just music in the Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music - it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different.
My first Ramones show was at a small club in Columbus, Ohio, in 1978. It was a transformative experience, even though my memories are a little blurry, since someone kicked me in the head halfway through the show, probably during 'Beat on the Brat.'
Punk rock wasn't a career choice. It was a hobby that we did for fun. We never thought we'd get as big as our idols in T.S.O.L. or certainly not the Ramones.
