'Joey Ramone sings these songs beautifully'

Waiting outside a record company office in mid-town Manhattan, it's not hard to identify Mickey Leigh as he lopes down the street. Sure enough, he's the guy in drainpipe jeans, a black leather jacket and a mop of unruly hair, a look that would be be suspect on a figure of his age if it wasn't for the fact that he helped pioneer it: he's the younger brother of Joey Ramone, the Ramones singer who died after a six-year struggle against lymphatic cancer at the age of 49 in April 2001.

A posthumous Joey Ramone album, Don't Worry About Me, was released the following year. Since then Leigh has been working on the release of a sequel: 15 songs written by Joey, some of them dating as far back as 1977, which he recorded as demos. With overdubs provided by fans and old friends, including members of Cheap Trick and the Dictators, these have now been brought to life. But as Leigh tells it, in the record company's office, over black coffee, it's not been an easy project.

Why has the record taken this long to make?

Well, it's been a 10-year struggle: there have been a lot of legal issues. Even when I had the material – and some songs were written for Ramones, but they rejected them, which baffles me, and some songs were left over from his first solo album – there were differences of opinion over what to do with it. I wanted to work with people who knew him – who had the right attitude and spirit. I'd even discussed the idea with Phil Spector when Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [after Joey died, in 2001] – an honour I was meant to accept on my brother's behalf, but that's a whole other drama.

Some other people wanted to get some big names and bands involved, but I wanted to keep the focus on Joey, not on Dave Grohl or whoever. So I said, give it a try. Then later it would be: "So … how you doing with that? Oh, they want a fortune? Oh really?! Hah hah!" So it went back to the way I envisioned it, working with real New York City guys.

It's very diverse. People will be surprised by some of the material. But I can't imagine even hardcore Ramones fans not liking it because all the producers did a great job, they're great songs … and Joey sings them beautifully.

What kind of person was your brother?

Well, he was there when I first opened my eyes, so I know him as my brother, not as "Joey Ramone" – but you're talking about a very complex person.

There was a huge transformation when the band became famous, but it was a beautiful thing to see because growing up he was very shy … Not so much reclusive, by choice … but because he grew up so fast, and was so tall and skinny and a little different from everyone else, he took a lot of teasing, a lot of people pointing and laughing, a lot of bullying: he was kind of in his shell. So to see him gaining confidence in himself was great … although it was still slow, because he was still in a band with a bunch of guys from the neighbourhood, like John [Cummings – later known as Johnny Ramone], who were intimidating personalities.

It was a different dynamic from most bands, where the singer is the spokesman and the focal point. In this band, there were other forces – inside and out – that kept him back in that personality he had growing up. But he overcame that as well, it just took a while.

Tell me about the start of Ramones.

I'd known Tommy [Erdelyi, later the band's manager, then drummer] and John since I was 10 years old. I was in a band with them when I was 14, playing cover songs mostly. My brother didn't know them until later.

Then a couple of years before Ramones started, I went to play in Iceland, with a different covers band. I'd left an acoustic guitar in the house and when I came back it had these scratches on it. Joey played drums, he never sang except perhaps, say, in the car with my father … but I said, I see you've been playing my guitar, and he asked me if I could teach him to play. He was a leftie, I'm a rightie, so I knew it could be problematic, so I taught him how to play on just the bottom strings. On the bottom two strings he could form the makings of a chord, and whatever melody you sang above, he could determine whether it was a major or a minor chord … Stuff he didn't really have to know, but he could do it with one finger. And he wrote these songs … things like I Don't Care and Here Today Gone Tomorrow.

So I'd heard those songs already – they were the seeds of what Ramones … I don't want to say a formula, but it became a part of the Ramones sound.

I first saw my brother sing in the band he was in prior to Ramones – this glam band called Sniper – and I was just blown away. It was the first time I'd seen him as a frontman on stage – I was used to him sitting in the corner of our bedroom, with his hands in his hair, very quiet. And there was on stage: like a lion. But he was also wearing purple lavender platform boots.

My Mom had an art gallery – one of the very few in Forest Hills, which is a very Jewish neighbourhood [in Queens in New York]; I mean, she didn't just sell paintings of rabbis at the wailing wall, she sold real art – and we used to rehearse in the basement. So one day, I walked in there. I knew [Joey, John Cummings and Douglas Colvin, who now became Dee Dee Ramone] were starting this band but I'd never heard them play. My brother was the drummer at the time. They were playing songs he had written and things like Beat on the Brat.

I got what it was going to be: it was just as simple as it could be. And it was refreshing, even though it was so messy. Maybe that's why it was refreshing, because everything else at the time was so slick, with these virtuoso half-hour solos, everything so polished. And it was funny. Because the words were just things we'd say hanging out in the schoolyard. "You're a loudmouth, baby … I'm gonna beat you up." It was just fun … you'd never hear people write that in a song! It was entertaining to me immediately.

The title of the new record – Ya Know? – sounds like the same sort of thing

There were some other ideas for the title being bandied about, and I was texting a friend to ask what he thought, and he replied along the lines of "I'm not really sure they're true to Joey's personality…" - and he signed it "Ya know." And I thought, that's it – it's just perfect.

What was it like growing up in Queens at that time?

In the late 60s and early 70s, when we grew up, there were still people combing their hair back with grease and into Elvis and doo wop. Things were nothing like they are in society now. Today, every style is instant. Back then, there was this big separation: you were either a jock or a freak … there were a select few of us who were freaks, and the majority of kids were more into the status quo and being rewarded for being good.

Also, my brother had some emotional problems growing up, a really severe case of OCD, and living in the same room as someone like that – we shared a bedroom – I knew I was not going to have a normal life.

So, we were outcasts, and we knew it.

Ramones made their name at clubs such as CBGBs on the Lower East Side in New York. What was that part of the city like at that time?

Downtown New York had been on the decline since the 50s. Alphabet City was a notorious drug haven, the Bowery was all hookers and alcoholics – it was dangerous. It took an area like that for something like [Ramones] to be able to happen. CBGBs was a place where you could make your own character. Everything else was discotheques and rich people …

Everything's much more sanitised now, isn't it?

Punk has become so polished and packaged. The Bowery is now like a wild west tourist attraction. They should make up a show: punks having fights with junkies – and the tourists could come and watch. "OK, next show at four o'clock!"

When did you become aware of punk in England?

Not that long after things at CBGBs started flourishing in 1975. I'd become the Ramones roadie and we went to England for the first time in 1976. We knew about bands such as the Sex Pistols. July fourth, Ramones played at the Roundhouse, opening for the Flamin' Groovies, and the next night at Dingwalls we ran into the Clash.

How well did you relate to your brother?

It could be problematic, because he'd grown up never being accepted whereas I did good at school, skipping grades and getting pats on the back – and he was where he was. When the tables turned, he enjoyed it, thankfully so, but sometimes he went a little overboard. Maybe he got a little bit too cocky sometimes and it maybe seemed like he was taking advantage of his status at times. Even with our Mom.

I seemed to be the only person who would talk to him like I always did, like, "What the fuck are you doing?" And there were some other issues between us, regarding songwriting and things like that. But it's hard for people who attain that level of success and fame to not get a little overwhelmed with themselves.

I'd try and bring him back down to earth. And the big difference between him and these other successful people: he always stayed pretty true to who he was, more than most.

Was Joey worried that in the eyes of some, the Ramones sound, the whole thing, was reduced over time to a caricature?

It's the reason why he quit, so he says. And I don't doubt it. "I don't want to keep with this bowl haircut and playing these same sort of songs." It was hard to keep that formula going. Those original songs still sound fresh and exciting. Personally, I lost interest after … well, I shouldn't say when. I don't want to discourage people who just started listening to Ramones.

How satisyfing is it for you that this new record is finally happening?

It feels good and it feels bad. That's the first thing I always have to think: that I'm only doing this because he's not here. And it's sad, but I have to see it through for him. He entrusted me with this responsibility. I don't have to do any of it: I could just sit back and collect cheques and not have to sit up all night and get into these battles with people, but I have to.

He never expected to die. He was fighting to the last day, he always thought he was going to beat it, and get back on stage.

When two brothers are fighting and one says "my brother's an asshole…" and that person happens to be Joey Ramone, then everyone says you're an asshole. And after he passed away, there were some people who appointed themselves his protector, and said ah, he didn't want it this way, or that way. Well, if he didn't want it this way or that way, he would have said.