Joey Ramone discusses the nature of radio in his final interview
Few members of the punk scene are as iconic as Joey Ramone, the lead singer of the Ramones. With a true counterculture legend at the helm, Ramones was considered the first proper punk rock band, despite (or perhaps because of) their limited commercial success yet unrivalled influence.
Joey Ramone was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995 but kept his suffering from the disease secret from the public until 2001. In April 2001, he finally succumbed to the disease, just a month before he would have turned 50. Ramone’s final public interview came in December 2000.
Ramone opened the interview by discussing how radio had changed from when he was growing up in the 1960s throughout the rest of the 20th Century. He said: “Radio was life. DJs who had personality. For me, it was the beginning of what would change my life. I got turned onto the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, all the great music, you know. The history of rock and roll music.”
However, things changed for the worse when radio became more corporate. Ramone continued: “When FM came in, it was kind of exciting; it was progressive. They’d play the whole album. Then things started changing. When the Ramones came out, it was ‘us versus them’. You know, big corporations. They didn’t want to play anything new; they just wanted to stick to the safe stuff. Corporate rock. Disco music.”
Then Ramone turned his attention to the contemporary bands of the time, expressing a particular distaste for Limp Bizkit. He said: “There’s a lot of music out there today that I can’t stand. I know it’s very popular, this hip-hop rap heavy metal kind of stuff. To me, it’s all the same old crap. Maybe there’s one band, Rage Against The Machine, at least they’re serious about what they’re doing. It’s not like, ‘let’s make some money and sound like Limp Bizkit’.”
Artistry was clearly something vital to the very nature of music to Ramone, and he demanded that musicians ought to take themselves seriously. He added, “Today, music is still about the passion, the love of making music. When I hear something like that on radio, it’s rare. I like to turn people onto new things because that’s what music is all about. And that’s not what it’s about anymore; it’s just a formula.”
Indeed, by the time MTV rolled around, radio had changed into a similar format, which is something we are still feeling the effects of today. Ramone concluded, “You know, it wasn’t about big business; it was about the music.”