When punk rock was in its infancy during the early 1970s, Marc Bell was already building a name for himself in NYC’s seedy underground scene. Playing drums in bands like the proto-metal Dust, the transexual pioneers Wayne County & The Backstreet Boys, and the influential Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Bell had been there and done that. However, none of them had the impact of Bell being christened Marky Ramone, the drummer of the iconoclastic Ramones!
Caught in a whirlwind of leather, Chucks, anarchy, and hooks, it’s safe to say, Marky Ramone’s life has been anything but normal.
But what can be said about the influence of the Ramones that hasn’t already been in books, film, and carved into pop culture? As the band’s sole survivor, Marky continues to keep the legacy alive with his band Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg. A feral tribute to the band who will forever be punk rock royalty.
Ahead of his set on the first day of Riot Fest 2022, I had the opportunity to hang out with Marky Ramone. As we sat in his air-conditioned mobile dressing room, we sipped seltzers and discussed Glenn Danzig, 1960s girl bands, fake drums, and all things punk! Past, present, and future.
Coop: How do you feel about these big festivals
Marky Ramone: Well I like them because you’re in front of more people! We did the US Festival in 1980? ’82 it was! In front of 150,000 people, you know.
Coop: That was the year I was born!
Marky Ramone: And we also just did the Lollapalooza with Dave Grohl’s band just recently. And that’s when of course, Taylor passed away the next day, in Chile. That was about 60,000. So what do I think about them? I think they’re good because you get to more people. But I also really like smaller places.
Coop: Yeah I typically prefer smaller venues.
Marky Ramone: Right, because you can get that eye contact. You get the umm… It’s a different vibe, you know?
Coop: That’s something missing at some of these festivals, for sure.
Marky Ramone: Yeah, you gotta learn to love both because it’s all an experience. A learning experience, you know? You’re always learning. No matter how long you’ve been doing this, you’re always learning something. So yeah, the big things? I’ve already done the Lollapalooza things but you’ll find they both have their set of qualities for different reasons.
Coop: As a musician, do you approach your playing or your energy differently according to the size of the setting?
Marky Ramone: No. Always the same. Always the same. Even if there are 10 people in an audience, you know that’s never happened (laughs), you should always play like it’s an audience of 20, 30, or 40,000 people. Because why not?
Coop: With Riot Fest, there seems to be the particular appeal of getting to see some legacy acts…
Marky Ramone: You mean reunions? Yeah, a lot of reunions! Like the Misfits and what’s the other one? The Chemical Romance?
Coop: My Chemical Romance.
Marky Ramone: Yeah, My Chemical Romance! Yeah, there’s a lot of reunion bands and that. I guess they like the money or whatever. I don’t know what it is. Do I like reunion bands? I mean, they’re not as good as they were when they first started out, you know. But people like the nostalgia. They like having the chance to hear the songs they grew up on. And I say, more power to ’em!
Coop: Speaking of the Misfits. You know those guys personally, yeah?
Marky Ramone: Yes, Well, Jerry Only and Dez Cadena were playing for me and they called it The Misfits. It wasn’t really the Misfits. (laughs) But I left after 4 years or so. It was fun but I had other things I wanted to do, you know.
Coop: Right. To me, it’s only Misfits if it’s Glenn Danzig.
Marky Ramone: Oh yeah. Definitely. Glenn is the whole band, you know. He is the Misfits.
Coop: It’s a question you’ve probably been asked in quite a few ways, but do you think Riot Fest could’ve persuaded the Ramones to get it back together to headline at some point?
Marky Ramone: No. Absolutely not. We were opposed to reunions because we knew that when we retired that if we got back together 10 or 15 years later, we wouldn’t have been as good as we were. Time marches on, you know? We would see reunion bands and we’d go “Why?”. Why not just go out on a high note, just stop, and be that’s it?
Coop: At the point when The Ramones retired, did you feel satisfied with the accomplishments? Was there anything left to do at that point?
Marky Ramone: I mean, we got into the Hall of Fame and we were on The Simpsons! (laughs). “Sedated” went double platinum, and “Blitzkrieg Bop” went platinum. We did a movie. What more could you do? Where else do you go, you know? We achieved a lot and I’m very happy with that.
Coop: Everyone correlates The Ramones with punk and the like, but you got your start in heavier music like Dust?
Marky Ramone: Yep with Dust. When I was a kid in high school like 17 or 18! We were a 3-piece band and were one of the first… Well, we were probably the first of maybe 3 metal bands in America. I’m talking real metal bands too. There was us and Blue Cheer. You know, bands like that.
Coop: What was that like?
Marky Ramone: (laughs) Well, we were very young and very naive so we kinda had to move on and we did. Kenny Aaronson became a session guy. Richie, Richie Wise produced the first 2 KISS albums, and he was only like 20 or 21 years old! And I started hanging out at CBGB and I joined Wayne County & The Backstreet Boys and Richard Hell & The Voidoids. Then The Ramones asked me to play with them!
Coop: What do you think of the current state of what people call punk these days?
Marky Ramone: I think it’s gentrified. It’s very gentrified. Now, I don’t mean that in a negative sense. I mean that in comparing it to what we went through. How we started, what went down, and what we had to grow through. Do you know what I mean?
Coop: In your opinion, what could be done to sort of remedy that?
Marky Ramone: I don’t know. I’m looking forward to a new, original punk band. One who copies The Ramones or The Clash, or the Pistols, or the Misfits. Or a girl in the front trying to be Debbie Harry.
Coop: Right, good luck with trying to be Deborah Harry.
Marky Ramone: Right, we all know that’s not gonna happen. Just come up with something new. But don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re there. I’d much rather listen to that than all that house sh** and electronica garbage. And that’s where we are today. Everything is relative to time and that’s kinda the thing.
Coop: Do you seek out a lot of new music from bands or artists who you think will bring it back to that?
Marky Ramone: Well I have to! I have 2 shows on Sirus XM so I listen to what I feel is appropriate for those programs. There are a lot of bands who send me their albums and I listen and all that. But I’m waiting for something to really kick in with some originality.
Coop: Most definitely. Originality is vital for any kind of movement.
Marky Ramone: Originality is the most important to me because it continues the new era. The right now. You can’t just set out to copy old bands, if you’re gonna get anywhere you gotta get your own style. Your own image. I mean, it’s nice to see the leather jackets, skinny jeans, and Converse but it has to be more than that. I’m very grateful and humbled they visually and musically copy the first wave of punk though.
Coop: Yeah, it’s very cool to see that cycle come back around and pay tribute to that influence.
Marky Ramone: Yes, it’s the same thing. It’s like you have the British Invasion, right? You had these British bands copying Little Richard and Chuck Berry, then The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. But then you had The Beatles and The Stones. Where other bands were copying American music, they were putting their own original style to it. And I think time has proven over and over they did the right thing!
Coop: Going back to Dust and that scene, do you listen to any music of the heavier variety these days?
Marky Ramone: I don’t really like any of that stuff. I don’t like Nu Metal, Dark Metal, Black Metal, (laughs), or whatever you wanna call it. I like a song with a verse, chorus, a bridge and that’s it. A lot of that stuff is just too long. I think the longest a song should be is 3 minutes. Do you know what I mean?
Coop: I like a lot of metal but more thrash style. Probably because it’s closer to punk. At least by structure.
Marky Ramone: Right, right.
Coop: A friend of mine who also writes for this publication, is always adamant about no album should be longer than 40 minutes.
Marky Ramone: Exactly! He gets it. That’s the thing, you know? Look at the first Ramones record, its like under 30 minutes, 27 to be exact. So yeah, he’s completely right.
Coop: Growing up, I listened to a lot of 60s music. I still do! I’ve always thought The Ramones were more influenced by the R&B girl groups than the likes of Elvis or whatever.
Marky Ramone: Yeah? Like who?
Coop: I’m talking about The Shangri-las, The Chiffons, Ronnettes. Stuff like that.
Marky Ramone: Oh well yeah, we listened to them and stuff like that but there was no conscious decision for the influence. When The Ramones hit, there wasn’t anything like it at the time. But we loved all the Phil Spector stuff and those R&B girl bands and a lot of one-hit wonders. And we really really liked the British Invasion stuff. Loved bands like The Kinks.
Coop: Oh man, it doesn’t get better than The Kinks. When you listen to them now, you can retroactively see they were sort of proto-punk.
Marky Ramone: God I love The Kinks. Definitely punk. “All Day and All of The Night”? Listen to that guitar. THAT’S punk and it’s all on 2 tracks. That’s all they had!
Coop: Maybe that’s the key to new punk rock? Artists strip things back a little and rely less on production.
Marky Ramone: Yeah yeah! It needs to be stripped back. No samples and no auto-tuning. We don’t have to rely on that. It’s like, just be yourself. Stop it with the samples of other people’s stuff. Make your own, you know?
Coop: One of the things we seem to stress in every episode of my podcast is the blasphemy of fake drums.
Marky Ramone: Of definitely. I hate fake drums. Or it could be real drums but they’re so produced, they sound fake. Why would anyone want to make real drums sound fake? I don’t like that sound. Maybe it’s because they’re recording digitally? I don’t know but they should be recording in analog anyway. Then bump it to digital if they want. Punk is analog music. It shouldn’t be cleaned up, leave in the dirt!
Coop: How do you think a band like The Ramones would be accepted had they come out today?
Marky Ramone: You know, I don’t really know. Maybe? Maybe not. It’s all relative to time as we were saying earlier. I mean we were a very unusual band (laughs). We projected a lot of energy in the musical and lyrical content so a lot of the kids liked that.
Coop: Was that the key to the success of The Ramones?
Marky Ramone: Well, we always appealed to the youth and I do think that’s why The Ramones will last from generation to generation.
Coop: Does that remain your mission statement with Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg?
Marky Ramone: Oh yeah. Keep the music alive! The songs are too good not to be played, you know? And there’s no one else out there. I mean, there are a lot of Ramones tribute bands and I’m happy they are there. They help perpetuate the style of the band. But unfortunately, the guys have all passed away too early to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And that’s what we do! And we do it really really good.
Coop: I think giving the audience the opportunity to hear those songs live is a gift. The Ramones and the Misfits introduced me to punk. Up until the Misfits reunion and Marky Ramones’s Blitzkrieg, I didn’t have the opportunity to hear it all live.
Marky Ramone: Thank you! I appreciate hearing that. And you know, the Misfits are really just The Ramones with makeup on (laughs). I mean they were very much influenced by what influenced us and it’s very obvious. And if that’s what they wanted to do, they chose to be the right band at the right time.
Coop: I’d like to ask you which band you’re excited to see here at Riot Fest today…
Marky Ramone: What about you though? What do you want to check out?
Coop: Oh well, Of course, the Misfits, My Chemical Romance, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but typically I’m excited to check out the bands I know nothing about. Sort of challenge myself on whether or not the lower tier is underrated or the top tier is overrated.
Marky Ramone: Yeah. Who is underrated is a tough question. Who’s overrated is also a tough question. I’m friends with a lot of these guys too (laughs) so I don’t want to have that conversation. I mean, I can talk about the Misfits because I know them.
Coop: I respect that brand of loyalty!
Marky Ramone: (laughs) oh you gotta have that! It’s very important!
Coop: There are a lot of acts at Riot Fest this year who achieved their success by way of TikTok and social media. Do you think that hurts rock n’ roll or punk?
Marky Ramone: Why would it though? Like, how do you mean?
Coop: Well, when I was a kid, the internet wasn’t as common. The bands were untouchable! The only thing I knew was from MTV or reading a magazine. Now with Twitter and TikTok, the mystery is gone.
Marky Ramone: Oh, right. Well, I want to be close to my fans! I want to be close to them because we’re all the same. So what, I’ve been successful in life. What about a construction worker? Or the fireman, or the teacher, or the nurse? I could conversations with those people for hours! We should never judge someone by where they are or their occupation. We’re all the same!
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For more information on Marky Ramone’s Blitzkrieg, please visit MarkyRamone.com