- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJeffry Ross Hyman
- Nicknames
- The Godfather of Punk Rock
- Jeff
- Height6′ 6″ (1.98 m)
- Joey Ramone was born Jeffrey Ross Hyman and the lead singer of the four-member punk-rock band the Ramones. In 1974, the band began in Queens, New York, when as he said "The only thing that you heard on the radio was disco." By 1976, the band became a major force in the evolution of rock-n-roll; they have been lauded as the inventors of punk rock and are important influences in musical and popular culture. Joey began his musical career at age 13 playing the drums. By the age 19, he was playing in New York clubs, sometimes under the name Jeff Starship. Their big break came at the legendary CBGB, a where-it's-at club that also gave rise to the likes of Blondie and Talking Heads. The Ramones was one of the first acts signed to Seymour Stein's Sire Records. Twenty-one years later, and on another label, the group disbanded. In 1995, Joey Ramone was diagnosed with lymphoma. He died of the disease on April 15, 2001, a month before his 50th birthday.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- Long black hair covering his face
- Strong Queens accent
- Crimson sunglasses and leather gloves
- Leather jacket, T-shirt and ripped jeans
- Towering height and extremely thin frame
- He was often at odds with guitarist Johnny Ramone, despite a 20+ year collaboration with the Ramones. They disagreed on many things, from the artistic direction of the band (Johnny wanted to keep performing similar material, Joey wanted to experiment more) to politics (Johnny was a die-hard Republican conservative, Joey was an outspoken liberal), but the main wedge occurred when Johnny stole Joey's girlfriend Linda and eventually married her.
- Both the Sex Pistols and the Clash credit the Ramones as a source of inspiration in their formative years.
- An outcast in his neighborhood, he was frequently a target of bullies in school on account of his towering height and awkward demeanor which was a result of his severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
- East Second Street between the Bowery and Second Avenue, the street adjacent to the legendary club CBGB in New York City, was renamed the Joey Ramone Place after his death.
- Actively disliked the Parents Music Resource Center, considering it a form of censorship. He wrote the song "Censorshit" about this.
- Everybody's just emulated us and now everybody just kinda takes our sound as their foundations.
- [Song lyrics] "Life's a gas, Life's a gas, Life's a gas, a gas, oh yeah/ Life's a gas, Life's a gas, Life's a gas, a gas, oh yeah/ So don't be sad 'cause I'll be there/ Don't be sad at all"
- [Commenting on their very first performance at CBGB's] "We played to an audience of five, but that's only if you include the bartender's dog."
- To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'. To me, John Lennon and Elvis Presley were punks, because they made music that evoked those emotions in people. And as long as people are making music that does that, punk rock is alive and well.
- The Eagles and the Captain and Tennille ruled the airwaves, and we were the answer to it.
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