Random Most Dysfunctional Band Ramones That Stayed Togeth (14 items)

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  (#1) Dee Dee Ramone Supported His Heroin Addiction By Turning Tricks

  Upon first listen, “53rd and 3rd” is a jaunty, all-age-appropriate tune that’ll have you tapping your foot. If you take a moment to listen to the words, you’ll hear the sad tale of a male escort who always gets picked last on his corner.

  “Fifty-third and third standing on the street

  Fifty-third and third I'm tryin' to turn a trick

  Fifty-third and third you're the one they never pick

  Fifty-third and third don't it make you feel sick?”

  Bassist and songwriter Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin) struggled with heroin addiction throughout his life. When the Ramones began recording and touring full time, he had the cash to finance his habit. Before that, he resorted to other ways to get fast cash; namely, hanging about at a certain Manhattan intersection notorious for solicitation.

  Music journalist Legs McNeil wrote of Dee Dee: 

  "Dee Dee was the archetypical fuck-up whose life was a living disaster. He was a male prostitute, a would-be mugger, a heroin user and dealer, an accomplice to armed robbery—and a genius poet who was headed for an early grave, but was sidetracked by rock ‘n’ roll.”
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  (#2) Johnny Stole Joey’s Girlfriend, And The Two Hardly Spoke For 15 of the 22 Years The Band Was Together

  By all accounts, lead singer Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Ross Hyman) was a romantic, and the kindest member of the band. Guitarist Johnny (John William Cummings) was the cruelest Ramone. From the beginning, the two didn't get along. Joey was liberal, Johnny staunchly conservative. Johnny was regimented, Joey’s severe OCD often made him late and unreliable.

  Joey had one great love, Linda Danielle. Joey met Linda at a Ramones show in 1977, and the two officially became a couple while filming Rock and Roll High School. Eventually,  she went on tour with the band. It wasn't long before Johnny made a move; the two eventually married.  After that, Joey’s drinking and coke consumption increased, and he and Johnny only spoke when absolutely necessary. Rumor has it "The KKK Took My Baby Away" was Joey’s hyperbolic lament about conservative Johnny stealing Linda.

  Years later, when Joey was dying Marky told Johnny he should make his peace with Joey. Johnny replied, “He’s not my friend.”
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  (#3) They All Died Fairly Young, Three Of Cancer, One Of An Overdose

  Only one of the original Ramones made it to 60. Tommy, the band's original drummer, died of bile duct cancer at age 65, in 2014. Joey didn't even make it to 50; he died of lymphoma at 49, in 2001. Johnny died of prostate cancer in 2004, at 56. Perhaps most tragically, Dee Dee, who struggled with drug addiction for most of his life, but in his final years had long periods of sobriety, died of an accidental heroin overdose at 51, in 2002. 
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  (#4) Dee Dee's Teen Years Included Morphine Addiction, Armed Robbery, And Foraging For Swastikas

  Dee Dee Ramone's teen years in the '60s sound like something out of a gritty coming-of-age novel. They began in Germany, where his military father was stationed, and where Dee Dee spent his days unsupervised, foraging through the wreckage of WWII. He found gas masks, helmets, bayonets, and Nazi memorabilia. In his autobiography, Lobotomy, he recalls thinking Swastikas were glamorous.

  Dee Dee also spent a good amount of time interacting with soldiers, whom he got his first drugs from – he was getting high on morphine regularly by age 12.

  When his mother left his father, Dee Dee moved to the US, and eventually went hitchhiking across the country. He got picked up by a group of teenagers who talked obsessively about decapitation and pressured him into joining them in an armed robbery, after which Dee Dee was stranded in an Indiana jail for weeks.  

  Dee Dee asked his father to bail him out, to which he replied, “F*ck you, rot there! You deserve it!”
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  (#5) Johnny Ramone Threw TV Sets Off Roofs To Terrify Strangers

  Johnny Ramone was the authoritarian member of the group. He used fear and intimidation to become and remain the band's leader. In an interview, Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, recalls Johnny running the Ramones “like a military operation.  He would verbally abuse Tommy, regularly punch Dee Dee for any minor infraction and had little time for Joey’s OCD.”

  Johnny’s militaristic conduct was reinforced by a history of violent behavior. As he wrote in Commando, his autobiography, "I had been on a streak of bad, violent behavior for two years. I was just bad, every minute of the day." 

  In Commando, Johnny writes of carrying old TV sets to the roofs and dropping them when he saw people walking below, for the sake of scaring them. He also threw bricks through windows for the hell of it, and used physical and verbal abuse to control those around him. 
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  (#6) Dee Dee's Girlfriend Cut His Ass When He Had An Affair With Nancy Spungen, And Both Women Died Violently The Next Year

  If Dee Dee’s childhood among the rubble of post-war Germany and early career as a drug-addicted prostitute weren't rough enough, in the early days of the band, he had a turbulent relationship with a woman named Connie Gripp, AKA Connie Ramone. Connie was also a sex worker and addict. Marky recalls, upon joining the Ramones in 1978, being horrified when Dee Dee told him about Connie, whom Marky refers to as “a violent stalker, prostitute, and drug addict.”

  As the story goes, Dee Dee was living with Connie in '77, and cheated on her with Nancy Spungen of Sid and Nancy fame. Connie walked in Nancy riding Dee Dee's rocket to Russia, smashed a beer bottle, and sliced Dee Dee’s ass. According to Vera Ramone King, Dee Dee's wife, he had the scar for the rest of his life. As she wrote in her tell-all, Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone:

  "He had a huge scar on his ass for the rest of his life from that horrific relationship, just because she had caught him cheating on her. Connie was a pathetic person, and a stalker to boot. The only way she could hold on to any man was to supply him with heroin. Another time her former boyfriend, Arthur Kane from the New York Dolls [pre-Dee Dee] went all the way to Florida to try to get away from her. She followed him there, where they got into such a horrible fight that Arthur grabbed her breast and ripped out her breast implant. After that she only had one boob to hustle with and make money."

  The Dee Dee-Connie-Nancy love triangle ended in tragedy in 1978, when Nancy was murdered by boyfriend Sid Vicious and Connie overdosed on the street.
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  (#7) The Ramones Made Johnny Rotten Drink Piss Out Of A Beer Bottle

  Despite all the seriously sad things going on behind the scenes, the Ramones had some fun. If pissing in beer bottles and making unsuspecting friends drink urine is fun. Which, let's be honest, it is. 

  According to Johnny Ramone, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols drank from a piss-filled beer bottle, said “Boy, this stuff tastes like piss,” then kept drinking. 
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  (#8) Dee Dee Left The Band To Pursue A Rap Career

  On leaving the Ramones in 1989, Dee Dee said "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."

  Um... what?

  At the time, Dee Dee was trying to stay sober, and each member of the Ramones was locked in a constant battle with his own addictions and the other members of the band. As the story goes, Dee Dee showed up one day with gold chains and spiky hair and told the guys he going to be a rapper. He released some solo rap material while in the group, in 1987, under the name Dee Dee King. Just a few months before quitting, he released a solo rap album, Standing in the Spotlight, of which Matt Carlson of All Music wrote "Dee Dee Ramone's Standing in the Spotlight will go down in the annals of pop culture as one of the worst recordings of all time."

  Topics covered on Standing on the Spotlight range from mashed potatoes to mermaids. Some review highlights from Amazon include “Terribly hilarious” and “Was he serious? It would seem so.” There was no follow up album.
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  (#9) They Pulled The Clash And The Sex Pistols Through A Window To Help Them Sneak Into A Show

  On July 4, 1976, the Ramones played a mythic gig at the Roundhouse in London. The members of countless now legendary first wave UK punk bands were in attendance; some were inspired to start bands that very night. The Clash and Sex Pistols, both already playing shows at the time (though largely unknown outside the London club scene) were hugely influenced by the Ramones, and went to the show together. 

  According to Joe Strummer, lead vocalist, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist for the Clash, he and his friends knew how to sneak around to the windows of the dressing rooms at the Roundhouse, so they did, and threw rocks at the windows until one of them opened and Johnny Ramone's head appeared. The bands introduced themselves, and the Ramones formed a human chain out the window to lift the members of the Clash and Pistols into the venue. 

  Talk about a punk rock meet cute. 
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  (#10) Joey Suffered From Debilitating OCD That Played A Hand In His Death

  Joey Ramone always struggled with his health. He was born with a tertoma, a tumor the size of a baseball attached to the spine that can contain bone, hair, and teeth. The condition gave him bad blood circulation and increased vulnerability to infections. He also suffered from mental health issues. At one point, he was diagnosed schizophrenic, but Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the diagnosis that stuck. Doctors once told his mother the condition would grow so bad he would never be able to function in society, and inevitably become a living vegetable.  

  Joey proved the doc wrong when he found the one place he could be calm and in control, on stage. His elongated limbs (not officially diagnosed, but probably Marfan Syndrome), hair-hidden face, and choppy vocals commanded an otherworldly persona. As soon as he stepped off stage, however, he was crippled with compulsions. His younger brother Mickey Leigh recalls how “These voices in his head would say, ‘You didn't close this door right, you gotta do it again.’ He would do it 20 times until it was ‘right’.”  

  It sometimes took Joey hours to walk down a street, causing frequent tardiness to rehearsals, show, and events that exacerbated tension with Johnny. Once, after the band returned from tour in England, Joey insisted on driving back to the airport just to retrace one step.

  In April 2001, Joey died from lymphatic cancer. His death was accelerated on New Year’s Eve 2000, when he decided to return to his chiropractor’s office to see if he closed the door properly the previous day and slipped on an icy sidewalk. He needed hip surgery, which temporarily halted his cancer treatment, which led to his death some short months later on April 15, 2001.
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  (#11) At Least One Of Them Was Held At Gunpoint By Phil Spector

  For their fifth studio album, End of the Century, recorded in 1979, the Ramones hired future murderer and renown producer Phil Spector. Spector achieved great success with groups like The Ronettes and, later, John Lennon and George Harrison. When the Ramones first met Spector, he was goofy and relaxed. 

  Spector had a reputation for being controlling and abusive, and the bizarre habit of donning a cape and dark glasses while drinking wine from a goblet. One night, the band told Spector it was time to call it quits after recording for hours on end, well into the early morning, at which point the producer allegedly pulled a gun and told the band they weren't going anywhere.

  Depending on the version of the story, Spector pointed his firearm at either Dee Dee or Johnny, who, calling his bluff, said “What are you going to do, shoot me? Go ahead. I’m leaving. Goodbye” and walked out. 

  End of the Century went way over budget, and, while it was advanced as a piece of audio engineering, it wasn't terribly well received. Decades later, Spector was convicted of second-degree murder for the 2003 shooting of Lana Clarkson, and was sentenced to 19-years-to-life sentence in California. In his autobiography Commando, Johnny wrote, "After he shot that girl, I thought, 'I'm surprised that he didn't shoot someone every year.'"
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  (#12) Dee Dee Was Very Briefly In GG Allin's Band

  As Merle Allen, brother of anti-social, sh*t-smearing iconoclast GG Allin, tells it, Dee Dee decided to join the GG's band, the Murder Junkies, when he was kicking around with nothing to do after leaving the Ramones. 

  "I put an ad in the Village Voice, and one day Dee Dee just called me up out of the blue. I had seen him around the Village, and I knew he was just hanging out, he wasn't doing too much, playing in little bands here and there, but when he actually asked if he could audition for us, I almost fell on the floor. So of course I called GG right away and I’m like, 'You’re never going to believe this,' and we had Bill Weber who became really what I would call our original guitar player, and the guitar player that gave us the sound, and played with us up until we got back together recently. They both came and auditioned, and Bill was just a great guitar player and Dee Dee was Dee Dee and we just kind of finished the audition and we were like, 'We’ve got to hire Bill but we’ve got to hire Dee Dee' so we basically hired both of them.

  We rehearsed with Dee Dee and he would come by my place and we would show him stuff. There is a DVD of a couple of different rehearsals with Dee Dee on it that’s in my catalogue and what not. We never actually did a show with him. I think by the time the reality of what was about to hit Dee Dee came about, he decided he was just going to bow out. We never got any explanation from him why he decided not to play, he just one day didn't come to rehearsal and we never really heard from him."
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  (#13) They Ate So Much Curry Before Shows They Had Special Buckets For Their Inevitable Vomit

  Every band has a pre-show ritual. Some pray, some shoot up. The Ramones got curry.  Their PR manager, Mick Houghton, recalls the band got curry before every show, and ordered the spiciest thing on the menu. “It was like a challenge as they sat there, sweat dripping off their faces.”

  Because they ate such large quantities of super spicy food and were such an active live band, the Ramones kept special buckets on the side of the stage for puke. According to Houghton, at least one member of the band inevitably puked before the show was over.
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  (#14) Marky Ramone Got Into The Condom Business

  A dangerous combo of bullying and substance abuse kept the Ramones lineup in constant flux. Tommy (Thomas Erdelyi), the original drummer, left to focus on producing when finally fed up with Johnny verbally abusing him. He was replaced by Marky (Marc Steven Bell), who left due to alcoholism in 1983. Some other names thrown into the mix were Richie Ramone and Elvis Ramone, and then Marky, who returned, sober and a little more entrepreneurial, in '87.

  In the 2000s, Marky tried his hand at immortality by releasing a line of signature products, including, most notably, condoms. "The world has lost too many people to STDs of all types and that is why I joined up with Ready two Go for my signature series of safer sex tins," said Marky Ramone when the kit of condoms, lubricant, and an STD info card were released in 2008.

  Also available is Marky Ramone Pasta Sauce, Marky Ramone’s Cruisin' Kitchen (a food truck), and, of course, Marky Ramone’s gelato-filled cookies. Most products were discontinued in 2012 but I’m sure some dark and dusty corners of the internet can get you your Marky Ramone fix.

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