For seven years (and it feels like so much longer than that), CJ Ramone was a driving force in The Ramones. In a time when one of their key founding members, Dee Dee Ramone, jumped ship, it was a youthful, energetic CJ Ramone that breathed a new life into the band and charging them with a new found energy. When the Ramones unanimously decided it was time to say, “Adios amigos” on August 6, 1996, unlike most bands that say “farewell”, they meant it and that was that.
In 2011, CJ Ramone re-surfaced and hit the road with longtime Ramones producer/friend Daniel Rey and drummer Brent Bjork playing an energized set of Ramones songs including songs that the Ramones had long since ignored such as “Endless Vacation” and “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and brought back to life the excitement and fun of the Ramones legacy to a whole new generation. Not content with just performing Ramones classics, CJ dropped not one but two stellar albums worth of original material between 2012 and 2014, Reconquista and Last Chance to Dance.
In 2015 CJ hi the road to support Last Chance to Dance and on his Atlanta stop of the tour (also featuring Japanese punk girls Shonen Knife) I was honored to have the opportunity to have a drink backstage with CJ after the show and talk to him about the Ramones legacy, his own legacy, and his love for Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. It was a real honor to sit down with this true living legend and with that being said, I hope you will enjoy my interview with Mr. CJ Ramone.
CJ, welcome back to Atlanta brother! It’s been too long!
Yeah, it sure has. What was it? 2010? 2011 with Daniel Rey and Brant Bjork.
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Yeah, that was such an amazing show.
Thanks, man. Yeah, I just got done talking with Brant (Bjork; former drummer) today and we’re going to do an album together maybe next year. I’m finally going to get to do a heavy metal record [laughs]. That’s my background so I’m like, “I’m gonna play the shit out of that!” [laughs]
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Oh yeah. You’ll get to play with your fingers again?
[laughs] Oh yeah!
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Ok, I just wanted to take a second and say that doing this 2nd interview with me has totally made this fanboy’s day You are a passionate fan of music yourself. What band are you a total fanboy about?
[laughs] Oh man, you mean, like who I totally fanboy out if I met them? Probably Geezer Butler and Steve Harris. Those are the guys that when it came to playing bass that I looked to as who I’m most influenced by. I mean, Dee Dee (Ramone, former Ramones bassist) of course and obviously but as far as my early influences of playing, definitely Geezer Butler and Steve Harris.
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You were a metal guy growing up weren’t you?
That’s all I played. I always listened to punk rock too but there were no punks in my town. I was a totally metal guy when I was a kid. The way it was in my town, if you weren’t into Manowar you’d get your ass kicked. My town was just a completely metal town. All the different bands in town wanted me to play bass for them because I could play any Iron Maiden song from the debut album all the way up to Powerslave so everyone wanted me in their band [laughs]. Those two guys, yeah, I would absolutely fanboy out over. Especially Geezer Butler. I mean, Black Sabbath was the first band I ever liked. I bought all the records and just became a serious fan of.
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Back in the day, me and my friends used to talk about how you seemed to have this kind of a metal attitude and you really brought that vibe into the Ramones, especially on Mondo Bizzaro. Were you ever told to reel in some of the metal vibe at all?
Nothing really. The only thing Johnny (Ramone) ever instructed me to do live was to walk up to the front of the stage when he did but I had seen the Ramones so many times that I knew the whole choreography of their show. Everything else I did he never really said anything about. There was one point where my hair got really long and he was like, “Why don’t you cut your hair?” and I said, “No.” [laughs] Then I would ask for a raise and if he said, “no” I would just shave my head because I knew it pissed him off. You can look through the Ramones press photos and when my head is shaved, that’s because I had asked for a raise and was turned down for it [laughs]. I never told him why I did and he never really caught on.
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So he was that adamant about giving you a raise?
Oh yeah, all the way up until we went to Japan on one of our last tours. In Japan, they would absolutely kill it on t-shirt sales and stuff so I knew if we were going to Japan that we were going to make a lot of extra money. Let me hit him up now and maybe he’ll say yes. Nope [laughs]. I started at $350.00 a week in The Ramones. I made more money in the Marine Corps than I did in the Ramones. It was slightly aggravating but realistically I would’ve done it for free. Being in the Ramones is just fucking off the charts. It’s a rock star dream.
The last time we talked in 2011, you had just wrapped up your American Punk tour and here we are, nearly 4 years later and you’ve since put out two brand albums of brand new material. Where did this burst of creativity come from?
When I first started going out on the road and playing again I had a plan in my head that I was going to do five records. I wanted to do five records before I left music because if I could do five really good records, that’s a career. Everything I did with the Ramones I can’t take credit for. Playing with the Ramones, I wasn’t writing songs at that time so I just couldn’t take credit for it. While I helped the Ramones move on and have a longer career, I didn’t get to prove myself as far as songwriting goes. I just wanted to prove that I can do it on my own so I said I’ll put out five albums.
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Even though you didn’t write in the Ramones, songwriting isn’t something new for you.
I’ve been writing songs for a long time. Those songs on Reconquista, some of those songs were written years, a long time before it was made. The songs on the latest album Last Chance To Dance, those were written while I was on the road for Reconquista. I’m just getting to doing what I should be doing. The songs that are on Reconquista, I wish I would’ve written those songs for the Ramones last record. Some of those songs I can hear Joey singing and they would’ve been perfect Ramones songs.
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It was really cool to hear you come out tonight guns blazing with two of your own songs right out the gates. How does it feel to be integrating your material with the classic Ramones songs in your live set?
You know, it’s really nerve wracking to put your own stuff up against the Ramones stuff in the same set.
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I can only imagine but it works fucking amazingly. Those are some great songs.
Thanks man. When I go in to record a record I really suffer over it about what I’m going to put on it because anything I put the Ramones name on has to live up to it. I don’t want to just dump out album after album of just fast filler songs that just are just written kind of in the Ramones style. I tried to just go back to what the Ramones did in the beginning. They just wrote quality songs. I’m not writing Ramones songs. I’m just trying to write really good, solid songs with good melody and lyrics. Naturally, I’m influenced by the Ramones. I played in the band for seven years and I was a fan since I was 15 years old so there’s some influence there. I didn’t sit down and say, “I’m going to re-write Rocket to Russia.” I just try to write the best songs I can, put them on a record, and hopefully they translate well and everybody digs them.
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You should feel really good about these records because I feel like you did just what you set out to do.
Thanks! Yeah, I feel totally, 100% confident that I recorded two really good records that stand up. If I hadn’t ever been in the Ramones, I would still think that they would be good records regardless and that’s what I really aim to do. I feel proud of these records for being my records.
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I mean, isn’t that essentially what the Ramones did? They just wrote good ol’ rock n’ roll songs. They weren’t out to reinvent the wheel. They just did it their own way.
Oh yeah. They went backwards. They kind of devolved music. They took it back to what it great and what made it fun. They, Dee Dee especially, was just masterfully skillful at capturing that exciting rock n’ roll song. I’m not saying that my songs are as good as Dee Dee’s but my view was to do what they did. Just do the best that I can do and not put any filler on the records. That’s the goal.
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The band you assembled for this tour is off the charts good man.
Thanks. That’s one thing. I have to really play with solid players. I wouldn’t be doing the Ramones legacy any good if I was just out there using different guys in every country or just local guys from my neighborhood because I could pay them $50.00 a night. I try to use great players and make sure that when we go up there, everyone I’m playing with loves the Ramones and respects them at least as much as I do. That’s why I’ve worked with the guys from Social Distortion, the Adolescents, the Aquabats. I had Brant Bjork and Daniel Rey who produced the Ramones for years. Those are the kinds of people I play with because those are the people that take what I’m doing seriously and they take the Ramones seriously.
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The Ramones were a band the NEVER toured in a tour bus and much like them, you still tour in a van. How much longer can you do this?
I could tour in a van endlessly honestly. I love it. You can ask my guys. I still take a shift driving just like everyone else does. I love being on the road. I’m more at home on the road than I am in my own house. It’s always been my thing and I still have that traveling bug. I mean, it hurts a little more now [laughs]. When I don’t have to get up at 5:30 am to get my son and my daughter up to go to school, I am fucking psyched [laughs]. I can sleep until 9 or 10 and I’m like, “This is Heaven!”
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In all the years in the Ramones, was there ever one Ramones song that never made the setlists that you wish would have?
“I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” I always thought that was one of their best, most well written great songs and they just wouldn’t do it. They wouldn’t do any of their love songs but besides that, I always wanted to do “Endless Vacation” so that was one of the first ones I pulled out on my last tour. Everyone was screaming for “Warthog.” I did “Warthog” every night for seven years. I’m going to do “Endless Vacation.” [laughs] Now, on my tours, I just try to do some of the songs that I didn’t get to do in the Ramones when they were around that are fan favorites. I was also doing “I’m Against It” and “Sitting in My Room.” I just try to pull out a lot of fan favorites that they just didn’t do live and it’s been really fun. Now, it’s more about my own songs so now I just try to cherry pick specific songs that I want to keep included in the sets.
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I have to be honest, one of the things that has irked me more and more over the years is how the Ramones name has become somewhat of a “hip” brand. It used to be back when you wore a Ramones shirt you were a fan. Now, you have Taylor Swift wearing a Ramones shirt. How does it make you feel?
Honestly man, the more people flying the flag the better. We played in Nashville yesterday and one of the kids who was loading gear for us came out to the van wearing a Ramones shirt and said, “What band are you with?” [laughs] That’s just how it is. I just thought it was funny. Honestly, I don’t make any money off of that stuff so it really doesn’t mean anything to me one way or the other. When a band reaches that iconic level, it just happens. The Ramones logo no longer even represents the band any more. It’s just an iconic image that people just want to be a part of. It’s up there with logo is up there with images of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. That’s fucking big so people wearing the shirt who don’t really know the Ramones is just natural progression. That logo has just reached that status.
I never looked at it like that but nonetheless, there are some fans out there that get their hides really chapped over that.
Oh yeah. It’s a big thing down in South America. The Ramones are bigger in South America than anywhere else in the world. Now, down there, everyone wears Ramones shirts and the kids are like, “Look at this picture of this rich asshole wearing a Ramones shirt. He never even heard the Ramones” and I’m like, “I understand why you’re upset. It’s your team and you feel like they don’t deserve to wear the colors if they don’t know what it is” but the fact of the matter is, that’s the level the Ramones are at right now. They’re iconic. They’re a Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame band. The Ramones no longer just belong to our family of Ramones fans. It belongs to the world now and that’s just how it is. The Ramones were one of those bands that you always loved because you were in on the joke. You were in on that and if you saw someone else with a Ramones shirt on you were like, “Fuck yeah. The Ramones!” and you instantly had a connection with them. I’m old enough now that I can understand that the Ramones have had as much of an impact on pop culture as they did on music. That’s why knuckleheads from Hollywood who have no idea who the Ramones are wearing their shirts.
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Wasn’t that somewhat what Arturo (Vega; Ramones artist/logo creator) was going for when he initially designed that seal?
Yes, indeed. Absolutely. Arturo understood that from the beginning and he got it from the get go. That’s why he worked for them forever. Unfortunately Arturo wasn’t around long enough to really get to enjoy all of this come to fruition. Neither were Johnny and Joey for that matter.
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So you said you want to make five albums. We have one and two already. Why only five albums?
I’m hoping to be back in the studio in February or March to do another record and that’s my goal. To be in the studio every other February or March recording another record. I know I have three more good records in my. Fuck, I probably have 10 more good records in me but I don’t want to go the route of the Ramones who had a lot of later albums with filler. If you look at the Ramones collection, you have Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin. They did it themselves and they stayed true to their sound and kept it tight with their own people. As soon as they opened it up and they brought in fucking Phil Spector, down the fucking toilet and every record just got progressively worse and worse with fewer moments of greatness because at that point they were handing their stuff over to producers who didn’t understand them and who thought they needed to sound like the new contemporaries. Where it all went wrong was that they just didn’t stay true to their own fucking vision which was that stripped down rock n’ roll traditional sound. If you take Phil Spector’s production out of End of the Century and you hear those demos, it’s a fiery fucking record that would’ve been part 2 of Road to Ruin but they got pushed by their record company and that brought about their demise. I’m lucky enough that I have no other band members to worry about, no management, no record company. I can do whatever the fuck I want. I like what I’m writing, I like the style, and I like the sound. I can do this all the way to the end and put out five records of really solid songs and then at the end check out and say, “Ok. I’m going to go be a writer or an artist or go live in the fucking mountains and hunt squirrels for the rest of my life.” At least at that point, I will have proven to the fans that I could do this on my own.
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CJ, thank you so much for taking the time out to do this again man. It’s been a real honor and thanks again for keeping the spirit alive for us.
Thank you so much, brother. I’m doing my best.
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