Interview: Richie Ramone on his new autobiography, his time in the Ramones, Dee Dee King, and much more

Drummer Richie Ramone may have only been in the Ramones for five years, but he managed to make a huge impact during his run. Richie brought a breakneck sense of speed and aggression to the Ramones, which “saved the band,” according to Joey Ramone.

Richie played and contributed songs to three Ramones albums, including 1984’s highly underrated Too Tough to Die, 1986’s Animal Boy (which opens with Richie’s track “Somebody Put Something in My Drink,” a song that became a Ramones live staple), before wrapping up with 1987’s Halfway to Sanity. 

Richie Ramone looks back on his time in the Ramones, along with his long history of gigging with various bands and his own eventual solo career in his recently released autobiography with writer Peter Aaron, I Know Better Now: My Life Before, During and After the Ramones (Backbeat Books). The book is a candid look back at the highs and lows of Richie’s career, and offers some rare insights into what it was like inside the Ramones camp, from dealing with the eccentricities of the band members, to his tight relationship with Joey Ramone.

We caught up with Richie to discuss what prompted the book, what it felt like to be thrust into the world of the Ramones in the 80s, and his current solo career.

Richie Ramone’s I Know Better Now: My Life Before, During and After the Ramones is available now. To order Richie Ramone’s solo records, and for all upcoming tour dates visit his official site.

When did the idea for this book come about? Was it something you had on your mind for a while?

Not really, you know? It was probably the furthest thing from my mind, writing a book. Because I didn’t want to go down the path of all those other books, I figured everybody wrote a book. It was funny, I got contracted by a literary agent, Lee Sobel, along the way, and he was like, “You should do a book.” I was like,”nah, nah, nah.” He called me again, and finally I talked to people and they said, “You should do it, you know?” Backbeat Books came with a sweet deal, and I still didn’t know if I wanted to do it, because you’ve really go to expose everything. It’s like running down the street naked to do a book, it’s really different to do something like that, if you’re going to do it right and tell it from the heart. And I said, “Alright, let’s do it, but I want to talk about my whole life, not just my time in the Ramones.” And then we agreed, and we got a deal, and we were on our way. But yeah, I fought the idea for a long time, as people approached me. But now I’m happy I did it, because I think people are really enjoying it, and they get to see — they had no idea [about] my musical background before I was in this band, or what I did. I’ve been playing since I was like, 8 years old.

That first part of the book is really fascinating because there are so many ups and downs before you even get to the Ramones audition. Did having that life as a real working musician help prepare you for all the insanity that came after?

Yeah, but there was a lot of insanity playing in those bands before the Ramones, so I was used to what playing live and travelling was because I did it for so long. So really it was like, “Fuck yeah, the Ramones.” It was a big deal when you didn’t have to take your snare drum anywhere or do anything, you know? People called and told you where to be at what time, and shined a flashlight to find your drum stool at live shows, that was pretty awesome. [Laughs]

Did your experience in bands before help you appreciate those things more than someone who was just starting off in a band like the Ramones?

I was just ready, I was prepared. I knew everything. I knew about groupies, I knew about travelling on the road, I knew all those things. This was just way more comfortable, but I’d done it for so long, so it wasn’t foreign to me. It was just at a different level. Stayed at the Holiday Inn now instead of the Best Western, or the Motel 6.

When did you start writing the book? How long was the process?

Probably around a year and a half, two years, it wasn’t that long. I think we started to write it around the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash, 2017. It was a year and a half of talking, and Peter would write it out. It wasn’t easy, you know? It wasn’t easy, really.

What was the most difficult aspect?

The worst part was putting in stuff that you know your Mother doesn’t want to read. [Laughs] But we did it anyway, because I didn’t want to leave nothing out. The process is hard, and then after it’s written you start to edit it, and go back, and go back, and you make sure it’s all cool. But the main thing is Peter Aaron, who was the writer on this with me, he got my voice, he understood how I talk, you know? In short sentences. So many people who know me say, “It’s like we’re sitting at a bar and you’re telling me the story.” And that was really, really important to get across. Because some books are written by people and they’re talking but it doesn’t even sound like them. And you just wonder, “Well, who wrote that, you know?”

What did your first show with the Ramones feel like? It seems like you were thrust into the band very quickly.

That wasn’t easy, because you learn these songs fast, you know. We were notorious for not really rehearsing much. We’d book a 3-hour studio and rehearse for 48 minutes and then go home. So, when you’re first in there, you’re thinking. When you ride a bicycle you don’t think, “Oh, let me put my left foot and my right foot,” you’d probably fall off the bicycle. So, that’s what the drumming was like. When you have to think and drum, think of all the songs, it’s not any fun, you can’t do your best anyway. I got through it, I may have messed up once, I talk about it in the book, where they stopped the show and we started again, which was the first time I ever experienced that. But then after a few shows, you’re there. It’s Ramones songs, so you’re just playing faster and faster, but there are parts, there are changes in the songs, you know, and stops and shit like that, so you still have to learn it.

Too Tough To Die is one of the most eclectic Ramones albums — was there any discussion in the band about branching out into different styles for that record?

No, none of that stuff. People come with their songs, we go to Gary Kurfirst, the manager, put ’em in the cassette deck, you all sit around, and you vote on what you want to do. That’s kind of what it was. We never sat around as a band and said, “Oh, well, the music is trending like this, so why don’t we do something like that,” that never happens. Things just happened.

Your song “Smash You,” has to be one of the most underrated Ramones songs; how did that song come about?

Now that I was in the Ramones, Joey said, “You should start writing,” so, sure, I’m going to write in the style of the Ramones, you know what I’m saying? But I wrote all my stuff on a little Casio keyboard, and I had my friend, once I wrote the song he’d lay guitar on it, and that’s how I made my demo. Phil Cabano, I think he’s in Monster Magnet now. Back in the day, lonnnng in the day, I’d go up to his place, it was probably like a 6-story walk-up in the Lower East Side, and he’d just lay the guitar parts over my keyboard. So that’s when I started writing that, “You Can’t Say Anything Nice,” and “Smash You,” and all that stuff. The hardcore stuff, “I’m Not Jesus.” Remember, the Cro-Mags were around, and stuff like that, so there was some kind of hardcore trend going. That’s why Dee Dee and I wrote [them], he’d write like two of those, I wrote one. It’s just what’s happening, you know what I’m saying? At that moment in time, that kind of music was going on, and it was kind of cool to have that.

Was the rest of the band onboard with you contributing songs?

They were all onboard. Johnny just said, “Did you write that?” Because my shit was good, you know? Because they went through it with Marky, Marky would bring songs but I think his brother was writing them, it wasn’t Marky. So they were very leery about that. The only thing John didn’t like, I was getting 100% of the writing royalties, so he wouldn’t want more than one song on the record, so finally by my third album he allowed two songs.

But Beggars Banquet, Martin, our UK label, would always take a second song of mine. He loved my stuff, so in the UK they’d release a second song of mine as a single, that wasn’t on the American version. Like “You Can’t Say Anything Nice,” I sang that song, that’s not in America, that’s only over there. “Smash You,” is that on the album?

It’s on the expanded reissue.

Right, right, but on the American album, “Smash You,” isn’t on there. Martin took that, and did it over there.

So they had better taste in the UK!

Well, it wasn’t that, it was John saying “You only get one song, ’cause you’re eating into my pocketbook.” It had nothing to do with what was the best song, ’cause they could have put three of ’em on. When you get to Animal Boy, “Somebody Put Something In My Drink” leads off the album, the number one song on side A. That was a big feather in my hat man.

Did you know early on that it would kick off the album?

I don’t know if we sat around discussing the order, we didn’t do things like that, you know? Especially me, as the drummer, I kind of went and I’d record for a day and a half, and that was it. See ya later. I was still getting paid, and eating in nice restaurants, so I didn’t really have anything to do with the production until Halfway to Sanity, the last album, I mixed half of that record. So I really didn’t know about that.

But I guess at some point you find out. And I remember Dee Dee always wanted — he talks about it in an interview — that he wanted to make the video of that song. But now you’re giving the new guy, the new drummer, been in the band two and a half years, first song, do a video of his song, but you know, so what? But they played that song in their set forever. All the way to their last show, which is pretty amazing. It’s one of the fan favourites, probably in the top 15, 20, [Ramones] songs of all time.

And there are so many covers of that song that have come out over the years; does the longevity of that song surprise you?

Nah, a good song is a good song. You can’t really do anything. But I write from a darker place, and it’s heavier, so a lot of the metal guys love the stuff. I’m not a really poppy songwriter, except for “Smash You,” which is probably my poppiest song that I’ve ever written.

You get into your bond with Joey Ramone in the book; what do you think formed that tight relationship between the two of you?

What formed it, hmm. [Pauses] I don’t think you can pinpoint what actually formed it, you know what I’m saying? We just hit it off. We were two people who hit it off, coming from different sides of the tracks, a Jersey boy and a guy from Queens. I came in [to the band] and I had no judgement about anybody. I had no judgement about Joey and his OCD, he was my friend. I looked through all those things. Gosh, we just hung together all the time. Every day, every day. We had a good time. I guess I put up with all his silliness, and he was a real…he was the closest one who lived where I was. Dee Dee was still living way out in Queens, so we weren’t going and hanging there, and he couldn’t really go hang at night, so it was Joey. And John never did anything, so it was me and Joey, night after night, going to clubs, and just stomping on the East Village, you know? It was great.

Before you joined the band did you know anything about the strange habits of the members? Things like driving back to New York after shows instead of getting hotels, or John’s habit of getting milk and cookies from a 7/11 after every show.

It just brushed off my shoulders, I was in the Ramones. I wasn’t getting like, all freaked out. That’s what he did fine, this is what I do. I felt great, nothing was in my way. This was like, incredible. We had a great time, we had a great band, we had a great lineup, and we worked a lot, and made records, and toured. You couldn’t ask for anything more. So I didn’t really think, “Oh, well that’s kind of odd.”

You mention in the book that you never really saw much tension between Joey and Johnny — do you think that’s been blown out of proportion over the years?

I think it’s been blown out, but I think it worsened after my tenure. And by the 90s, it was probably even worse. But I never saw that blatantly, them talking through each other. But then again, none of us were hanging out on a social level. It wasn’t me, Joey, and Johnny going out for a beer, that never happened. So [Johnny] was never around, you just saw him in the van and backstage, and on the stage. But did they talk a lot? No. What’s there to really talk about? You’re not going to talk politics with John. They had their setlist, which was the same for years, and every album we just put 3-4 songs in there, switched the same couple out. I never saw, “Hey [Tour Manager] Monte [Melnick], can you tell Johnny to change this song?” I never saw that.

What was the feeling like in the band when you get to Halfway to Sanity? Did it seem more difficult than the previous albums that you had worked on?

No, all the albums were real fast, I worked a day and a half and I cut all my tracks. I didn’t see anything different. Joey called me at 4 in the morning and said he wasn’t liking some of the mixes, so I went in with Joe Blaney and him, and we mixed a few nights, and I was hoping I’d at least get credit for it, you know? I wasn’t asking for money. But it was just one of the things that John didn’t really care about.

The book gets into the confrontation you had with John in the studio during the making of the album — it seems like people didn’t stand up to him much. Was he as intimidating as people have made him out to be over the years?

He wasn’t intimidating, he was John, you know? He was a guy who…is there such a thing as the leader of the band? Yeah, he’s the leader of the band. From the business side and everything.

Dee Dee was all over the place, and you know Joey, so John was the glue, he kept things together. I think that was his job, and that’s what kept that band together for so long. It wasn’t like you were afraid he was going to throw a brick at your head, no, none of that. But there were times I got in his face a little bit, not a big deal, especially when the only thing I could do it with was a musical thing, when I was writing my songs. I didn’t want things to change too much, just because he couldn’t get the hang of it.

What were your thoughts when Dee Dee took on the Dee Dee King persona?

It was great! Dee Dee was…he had to express himself, he had to do other things, you know? So there was nothing wrong with it. He used to come to my house and we’d write these things all day long, I had an 8-track and he’d bring the lyrics and I’d write the keyboards. I have a lot of great demos of the early stuff before he did that album. It’s really good stuff. But it’ll never get to the public because of legalities.

It was fun. He was just so inspirational, and funny, and crazy, and just…god, knowing him could really touch your life in a big way, you know? He taught me a lot of different things, just by hanging with him, you know? [Laughs]

He just seems like a character that’s too big for life. It’s hard to imagine all these stories coming from one person.

That’s why this band, or at least for my lap, they’re such individual characters. All completely different, that made it work.

You quit the band in a pretty spectacular way, calling a limo after a show and just disappearing — what did it feel like when you left that backstage into that limo?

It was hard, you know? It was hard, but it was something that needed to be done…it was just like, wow, I’m going to come off here and that’s it. I’m going to put on a fresh t-shirt and go out the back.

There have been a number of Ramones books and movies over the years — were you reading those books as they come out? Or was your time in the band a closed-door for you for a while?

I didn’t read any of the other books, I probably read my sections to see if they’re fucking around with me, but I didn’t really sit from front to back. I think Joey’s brother’s book [Mickey Leigh’s I Slept With Joey Ramone] I read, but never from front to book. Another thing, I’m not like this huge reader, so that was another challenge for my thing. But I never really went back, you know. Maybe we looked at some things to fact check to make sure things are proper, getting the timelines together in the book is always a real problem, so you try to do your best getting it exactly down.

How did your solo career come about?

I don’t think I played drums for like 10 years. And Mickey Leigh, Joey’s brother, wanted me to come play the Joey Ramone birthday bash. He said, “Richie, you should really come play.” So I went down to that, I forget what the first year I went down, 2005 maybe, 2006. So I played in that, and then went down the next year, and the juices started flowing. I was like, “Wow, maybe this is what I’ve been missing.” I’d been away from the music scene for so long. And that’s how it all started, people said, “Why don’t you write something, do your own record?” And I was like, “I don’t know how to make a record.” But I started writing and moving forward and did that. And the first album, Entitled, I wanted to make it really … I got [Guitarist] Tommy Bolan the shredder, I wanted to put some metal over the punk. And when it came to Cellophane, my next record, I learned more about songwriting and how I wanted to do it, and how I wanted to sing. So the album got better, I think I did a better job on the second one, and now we’re starting to write for the third one, which we’ll hopefully get out later this year.

How has touring changed over the years? Is it easier now with technology to spread the word?

No. It’s the same thing. It’s probably worse in my opinion, because the promoters really don’t spend any money on advertising. Now it’s all Facebook, where they make this thing on Facebook for free. You know how many kids don’t even bother with Facebook? Before they’d put posters in the streets, they’d put a little $25 ad in a magazine, none of that stuff. That’s your answer, it’s worse.

At least you can communicate easier with fans now.

Well, that’s something different. That’s a horse of a different colour. For that, and for new bands, having the internet and all that is fantastic. They can put their work out there, they can out their song out there, and do all of that.

Is there a part of the world you enjoy touring the most?

My mainstay is overseas, South America, I do much better there than the States. So did the Ramones in a way, you know? I love touring the East Coast because I do well there, and naturally, South America, Argentina, Brazil, all those Latin countries, they really love the Ramones.

Richie Ramone’s I Know Better Now: My Life Before, During and After the Ramones is available now. To order Richie Ramone’s solo records, and for all upcoming tour dates visit his official site.