Marky Ramone: October 1995

SLUG: When did you join? 

MR: In March of 1978, Tommy Ramone, the original drummer, wanted to leave and produce wheel to wheel. So he suggested I join the band and DD wanted me in the band and I was still playing with Richard Hell. We just came off a clash tour in Europe for six weeks. We opened up for The Clash all over Europe and I didn’t really get along with Richard. I respected him as a songwriter and I think he’s a very talented guy still. But you know, at the time we had differences of opinions on things and you know certain things rubbed him wrong, certain things rubbed me wrong. So you know at that particular point we came back off the tour with The Clash, I wasn’t too happy, you know. I mean the album came out it was doing okay. “Blank Generation” was all over New York, all over Los Angeles, London it was a big seller. Then I found out around February Ramones drummer was leaving and in March, right after I rehearsed with Richard Hell at 21st Street and Manhattan, I went to an audition for Ramones, two blocks away, two hours later. So there were about 20 guys there, just people I don’t even know who they were. They were from all over the county.They flew in from other places. In fact I felt bad for them because I knew I already had it. I knew I had it and Danny Fields the manager was pushing for me. But they had to do it for some reason, you know they had to make it look like that. So I just went in and I played and that was it you know. John approached me in Max’s Kansas City when I was with Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Clem Burke from Blondie. So he thought I was too obvious so he took me to the side and goes, “You know do you want to be in the band?” I go, “Yeah, of course, that’s why I came up here.” And they gave me a copy of the lie show that I had to learn on a drum pad plus the demos of “Road to Ruin” that I had to learn. So I had to learn all this in one month. The live show and then that first album I would do with them. So I would just sit in my room and practice, two headphones and a cassette deck and just do the whole thing. That was May of ‘78. 

SLUG: So during this time it was like The Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders and all that? 

MR: Yeah, at that time it was The Heartbreakers, Patti Smith, Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, uh let’s see, Robert Gordon was there… who else? You know Richard Hell and The Voidoids are still together without me. And it was like a whole new thing. This new punk rock movement. 

SLUG: But you guys weren’t really like The Clash or anything like that I mean it’s kind of an American…

 MR: It was English. 

SLUG: Punk rock New York thing. 

MR: Yeah, that was English. They sensationalized, the press sensationalized Safety 10 for, you know all the negativity of it and right away it was dying. Because at the time you had Fleetwood Mac, you had Johnny Fawkner, you had Disco Duck, you had all this shit. That was really what was happening and this was the main stream. And a lot of people didn’t want to play it. So a lot of people hated the fact that you know, the term “punk” was a threatener. Leather jackets, dumb sneakers, Dungarees you know rock stars were wearing bell-bottoms, boots with heels on them, flowery shirts and you know all this crap, you know. So that’s why I totally stayed with—you know a lot of people remember that. You know we were aliens. Nobody would let us play anywhere, the radio didn’t play us but we managed to get our fans. Yeah we were different from The Clash and Sex Pistols, but The Clash and Pistols came to see the band in ‘76 in London. They didn’t have any albums out yet and they were in the audience watching Ramones. Yeah they copy Ramones. Seditious idolized Eddie Ramone. The American starter. And if it wasn’t for Ramones going over there all these punk bands wouldn’t have started in England. And the term Punk was already phrased before the band went to London.

 

SLUG: Well all the songs are like “Homicide,” “999,” pretty much Ramone revisited. 

MR: Yeah, you know fast, one, two, three, four, with no short songs on the jackets. You know whatever, but so this was 1977 when I toured there with The Clash and The Voidoids. And The Clash just got together in ‘77. Early ‘77. And Ramones already had their third album out. So American punk rock is definitely Ramones. You sing about girls, beach, beach parties, you know, cars, you know just humorous things, funny things, Ramones weren’t political. The Clash and Sex Pistols were political because they were told to be like that so they would sell a lot of records by Malcolm, by burn our roads, stating that there was a niche that they could hit with that. They weren’t political, they didn’t give a shit. They like money. They’re into money. 

SLUG: So Sid idolized Ramones. 

MR: He idolized Dee Dee Ramone and loved Ramones. I knew Sid. He played the role, he liked to drink a lot. So did I, but it was a role thing. 

SLUG: So during this time when you guys were playing you were doing CBGB’s and Max’s and stuff like that or? 

MR: Yeah, we were playing like in California, we were playing England, we were playing France, you know, Chicago, New Jersey, a lot of different places, because you know, the band started getting bigger. You know we started getting people calling for us to play there. So we started accumulating our fans throughout the world now. you know then eventually we started going to Australia, Japan, New Zealand even. Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, Denmark, all those places. 

SLUG: So this is prior to which album then? 

MR: ‘78, ‘79 we spent a lot of time doing Rock n Roll High School after “O’Soul” came out. 

SLUG: Before you go on, at that point and time what were you thinking of as Ramones? Were you thinking we’re the biggest punk band around? We’re going to outlast everybody? 

MR: No, no I had no idea. 

SLUG: And you guys were pretty young at that time though right? 

MR: Yeah, well, you know when I joined Richard Hell I was only 21-years-old. I mean I was basically out of high school for a year or two only. So you know at the time Phil Spector thought it was going to be a big deal. 

SLUG: Everybody in the band didn’t like this album? 

MR: Well everyone thought it could have been better. John hated it. Dee Dee hated it, I didn’t like it that much and Joey thought it could have been better. The song selection was good but the production was, you know. And I don’t like the single they chose, “Baby I Love You.” They should have used either “Rock’ N” Roll High School” or they should have used the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio” as a single. But they didn’t. So this was ‘80 and everyone’s a little upset because the album wasn’t as good as it should have been and took a lot of time making it and took a lot of stuff from Phil. He was my drinking buddy in California so I loved the guy. But it didn’t effect the work. His attitude, Phil’s attitude was always like, I’m the boss. I do what you say. But it was like that with Ramones. It was like that with his other artists. So he could cut that shit with us. So there was a lot of friction between us and I think that if the engineer spoke up a little more the album would have been better. The engineer had some different ideas than Phil but he was afraid of going against him. So this is ‘80. So life goes on. You know we had a song writing for the next album, Pleasant Dreams. And I think at this point we might have changed managers. Gary Kurfirst from Danny Fields. So we did Pleasant Dreams. 

SLUG: Spell that last name for me. 

MR: Kurfirst. He’s our manager now. He owns Radioactive Records which we just got on four or five years ago. Four years ago. So getting back to 81 we were writing songs for Pleasant Dreams. We did the album in New York and we backed a guy Glen Gouldroom from Tennessee. He’s the producer. He was like a British invasion writer. He did a lot of those hits. Yeah, The Cars and you know this acceptable white-wash punk. I would call it. 

SLUG: Such as? 

MR: The Cars, I mean they were good for what they did. But you know, it was just acceptable pop punk. Blondie was going disco with her disco songs. The Sex Pistols were already broken up. The Clash was trying to get bigger. They started playing with The Who at Shea Stadium and then they broke up. You know I became good friends with Mick Jones because we toured together in the ‘70s. We hung out together. So they broke up. What was left? Ramones, The Heartbreakers continued going on but they weren’t really making any impact. Only maybe in the major cities, like New York, California. You know so punk was sort of like not being accepted because it was too extreme at the time. Like anything else that comes out it was too extreme. You know so 81 and 82 came along and you know things weren’t too good within the band. There was a lot of fighting, a lot of drinking and a lot of finger pointing. Well, at the time, I guess so. And it’s funny because when MTV was started they wanted our videos. And we gave them our videos. As MTV grew they didn’t want our videos anymore. They banned Psychotherapy and Green Day ripped it off, the hospital scene. They ripped it off, I mean it’s obvious. It’s okay because I like Green Day. You know I think they’re okay for a new punk band. But you know we really didn’t get the justice we deserve. You know you pioneer, you blaze a trail, and you get shitted on. So ’82 was dead. I was really upset I was drinking a lot. Joey and John didn’t get along. John took Joey’s girlfriend away from him and ended up marrying her a year ago, whatever. And you know obviously that created a lot of bad vibes. I mean I’m good friends with Joey but that’s what happened. I think that started a lot of bad vibes internally within the band. That major incident. And you know it’s sad because, I think if John didn’t do that I think they still would have been talking today. But you know sometimes when girls are involved this shit happens. 

SLUG: So in ‘83, you left the band.

 MR: ‘82 ½, ‘83 we just finished the Subterranean Jungle album. That was after Pleasant Dreams. I was drinking vodka at the sessions hiding it. You know Dee Dee was on. So Dave approached me. He was amicable. ‘You better leave. I go, I know you’re right. I can’t handle this shit anymore. You know I got to get out, I got to enjoy myself and the booze was taking over.’ So from ‘83 to ‘87 I was out of the band. I didn’t’ want to have anything to do with music business. I just wanted to have fun.

SLUG: So what did you do for four years?

MR: I just traveled around the world, well around the country.

SLUG: You didn’t play with anybody? 

MR: Well I’ll get to that. For two years from ‘83 to ‘85 I was like enjoying myself drinking, going to clubs, bullshitting everyone. You know going to Bermuda or going to Holland, going to Los Angeles. I got in car accidents, I ended up in jail, I was driving drunk, chased by the police. I was in institutions, infirmaries, a real nutcase. You know, nobody wanted to hang out with me, my wife wanted to leave me. I was fucked up, you know. The judge goes to me, You again. I was in front of the same judge three times. 

SLUG: Yeah, not good.

MR: Not good. So you know, in jail, fingerprinted, mug shots everything. I’ve said to myself what’s more important, this shit or playing the music. So I had to give it a good look. I stopped, I had to dry out. I started seeing things crawling on the walls. You know bats coming after me. Dinosaurs in my backyard. And it was so real. This was shit I saw, so I said, “whoa.” So I went on the wagon. So I’ve been on the wagon for ten years already. 

SLUG: Really? You haven’t drank for ten years? 

MR: Ten years.

 SLUG: Wow. 

MR: So now, Richie Ramone, the drummer who took my place. So I joined the band in ‘87. I did the Pet Sematary album in ‘89. But before that we did tours, you know. We had the one with Pet… uh I forgot what album “Pet Sematary” was on.

SLUG: Did you get to meet Stephen King or anything? 

MR: Yeah. 

SLUG: Is he a cool guy? 

MR: Yeah, he’s cool. Weird but very cool. You can see it in his eyes right away. Very weird. So that was that and we got the song to Pet Sematary and that was quite a lot. That was a good song. 

SLUG: What was it? The top ten? 

MR: Top ten list he has. And I went on and I did the drum roll to it. 

SLUG: Oh, okay. 

MR: And you know what’s his name? I can’t remember his fucking name. 

SLUG: Anton Fig? 

MR: Yeah, he wanted me to do it. You know and the Letterman’s people and I went down and did it. That was ‘89-’90. Then they went on Letterman and did “Pet Sematary”. Just him and Joey. John and Joey did it. Cause at the time they didn’t allow groups on. It was a union thing. But The Stones get played. The Stones are on MTV, VH1. You know what I’m saying. So that’s the difference. They sell millions of records, we sell hundreds of thousands of records. We have an old album which is Ramones. Which I think at this point sold 550,000. I know, I know. A bunch of fucking wimps that were afraid to play with us. Because you know the ‘Old Mighty Ramones’ you know, strong energetic bands, you know a lot of these bands grew up on us and they were afraid to open up for us. So that’s what happened with the Lollapalooza. Perry Farrell was managed by my manager. With Jane’s Addiction. He left the management but the management sued him for leaving and he still got part of the money from Perry, which Perry didn’t like. Perry started Lollapalooza. And our manager probably had a hard time getting us on anyway because of that. Why should Perry Farrell help Gary who’s Ramones manager make any money? So that’s all politics too. So now all these bands, and we’re breaking up March 15th for sure, this coming March. 

SLUG: Nirvana, it was Nirvana, everybody wanted to talk about Nirvana.

MR: We have kids coming to our shows who are anywhere from 14 to 18 now. We have a new audience, we see it growing. Where were they before? You know where were these kids who were into you know… the reason why we weren’t played over the radio we weren’t played over MTV and punk wasn’t important anymore until ‘92 or ‘93. Then Green Day came out, The Offspring came out. Big Ramones fan, named his kid Ramona. One of the Green Day guys, I think The drummer named his kid Ramona. Took speed and all that stuff. A lot of them tried to imitate the Clash too. So you know, I did a solo answer. I’m against It, we did an old Ramones song. It’s coming out on a compilation in October. I play the drums and I sing and play guitar.

SLUG: Why didn’t they put it on the new album? 

MR: Because it was just a punk compilation of bands that are going to be out on that one compilation. Good friends of ours, good friends with Tim. We call each other and speak to each other when we’re on the road. Now this is new punk. So a lot of the people are looking back and going, well who started it? So it’s all this… that always happens in music. So they look back… 

SLUG: How come you haven’t… I mean I know you might like those guys and you think that music’s okay but how can you have any respect for a band like The Offspring? 

MR: I don’t have respect for Offspring. I just feel that I’d rather listen or watch a band like The Offspring than some shitty smartass, lame heavy metal band. That was out in the 80’s that tried to imitate Led Zeppelin or Van Halen. You had so many of these fucking shit ass, chain wearing, bullshit, ahhhhhhh sounding bands. That tried to act— 

SLUG: Grim Reaper. 

MR: Yeah, they tried to outdo Cinderella. They tried to outdo Eddie Van Halen. Outdo you know Robin Flann, White Lion. Give me a fucking break man. You know, now when Nirvana came along and Green Day it was great. Because there were bands like the Ramones. Bands like the Pistols, bands like the Clash who hated this shit when they came out. So like I’m getting back to Rancid, Green Day and The Offspring. I’m glad those bands are here. Because at least they’re not relying on samples and they’re not trying to do 20 minute drum solos and 10 minute guitar solos. And the singers don’t sound like they have their fucking fist on their balls being clenched. 

SLUG: So you’re not a big Queensrÿche fan I take it?

MR: Ah, gosh. No, I wouldn’t go to that even if somebody paid me. I wouldn’t. 

SLUG: So these guys are playing all this new punk rock and you’re okay with that. Even though they aren’t you know… don’t you think they should be saying, Ramones and bands like that are the only reason that people, at least my age, have any recognition of what they’re doing. And probably a lot of the reason they’re getting talked down about it is cause people my age know about Ramones. 

MR: Right, right. A lot of people don’t have respect for them. Because they know they’re ripping off that era. But you know, music goes around, comes around. What are you going to do? 

SLUG: Who ripped off The Beatles? 

MR: You know what I’m saying. You know what I mean. Like you had Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis. The Beatles ripped them off. The Beatles ripped off black music. But at least the Beatles had their own style. Green Day and these other bands are good for what they do but it’s more imitation and style. I don’t think they will be as important as  Ramones are or were, or whatever. Or the Pistols were or The Clash were. Because they did start something. Totally new. Nothing like Alien, nothing else was like that. 

SLUG: Do you think that Kurt Cobain would be another if he hadn’t blown his head off? 

MR: Yeah. 

SLUG: As much? 

MR: For that segment of time in the grunge era. Grunge died when he died. I thought they were the best of what they did in that grunge era. And I think when the Ramones end I think punk rock is going to go too. Because that’s the staple that’s holding the old to the new. And without that staple, I think you know, everything else is going to seem artificial. 

SLUG: Why March 15th? 

MR: That’s when John wants to leave the band. Life could go on for years. Joey… 

SLUG: Why not March 14th or? 

MR: Because that’s probably the last day. John wants to retire. He wants to do nothing. 

SLUG: Is that like your last tour date or something?

MR: Yeah, I think so. 

SLUG: Oh, okay, so it’s not some date he pulled out of a hat. 

MR: No, he wants to retire, move to California. Joey wants to take a year off and decide what he wants to do. I already did and recorded my own album. 

SLUG: Really? 

MR: With my own band. 

SLUG: When was this? 

MR: Ah, this has been the last year. Because I saw this coming. I saw them always, you know a lot of bickering and still no talking and then them getting upset that they have to go on the road. Meanwhile a lot of bands would love to be in this position. 

SLUG: But you guys tour your asses off. 

MR: But I enjoy it and I’m grateful for this. A lot of people should be more grateful for their, you know, their situation. 

SLUG: Better life than working 9 to 5.

MR: That’s right. So because of this I said to myself one day: Well, you know, you can write, write some songs. So I wrote some songs. I got together with my singer and friend and writer, Skinny Bones, who writes some of the songs with me. Mondo Bizarro, he wrote those songs with me and this one he wrote. 

SLUG: Mondo Bizzaro? 

MR: That was an album before, a studio album. 

SLUG: But, I mean Skinny Bones, the guy, where’s he from? 

MR: He’s from New York.

SLUG: No other band? 

MR: Yeah, he has other bands but he’s known as a very unusual individual in New York. He’s a jack of all trades. He can produce, engineer, play guitar, play the drums, sing, everything. But we get along real well and I have him in my bed as a singer, guitar player, and writer with me. I’m very lucky to have him. 

SLUG: What’s the name of the band?

MR: The Intruders.

SLUG: The Intruders. Yeah, that seems ridiculous. To be in the same band. 

MR: Believe me, that’s what happened. 

SLUG: Is it something I should… 

MR: Don’t even bring it up to Joey. 

SLUG: When I interview Joey I shouldn’t even mention it. 

MR: No, don’t mention the girlfriend. Because…

SLUG: It will end the interview.

MR: Because, I swear to God, I should drop dead now, that’s the reason. That’s one of the reasons, 90% of one of the reasons. Plus, I’m a democrat, Joey’s a democrat, John and CJ are republicans. Independent, CJ republican. Johnny liked Reagan, and I hated Reagan. John liked Bush, I hated Bush. 

SLUG: Johnny Ramone liked George Bush. 

MR: He also likes Rush Limbaugh. I hate the bastard. 

SLUG: You’re kidding me. 

MR: No, this is what makes Ramones the Ramones. I lean toward democratic liberal ways. For all the bad shit, I like Clinton. I think he’s…

SLUG: Best president we’ve had in a long time. 

MR: He was better than Bush and Reagan. I hate Newt Gingrich. He’s a greedy, self-centered mama’s boy. 

SLUG: The only thing you have to say about republicans is Senator Bob Dole.

MR: This is Bob Dole. Bob Dole is a leftover politician from the Nixon era. He finally got his little niche to become president. The guy to me seems very evil. He doesn’t do anything for the poor. He wants to take welfare away from people who really need it. And the blacks aren’t the main people who get welfare. It’s the white world. Really a lot of them who need it. A lot of people kind of lean on the black and say it’s their fault. Everybody has to shit on everyone else. Republicans are using this as a theme. You know, screw the poor, fuck the homeless, who needs them, think of yourself, me, myself and I. You know like the 80’s yuppie movement shit. Meanwhile… 

SLUG: Saturated by Ronald Reagan. 

MR: Yeah, yuppies got down in ‘87. They were greedy, showing their wealth to everybody. Now they’re lucky if they get fucking jobs, a lot of them are waiters. And to me they fucking deserve it. Because they were creepy bastards. You know they look at me, okay you fucking long-hair and your sneakers. What are you, some fucking asshole?

SLUG: Climb into the 80’s.

 MR: Meanwhile this guy has to fucking punch time clock, kiss his boss’s ass and I’m probably better off than the guy is in reality. But I don’t flaunt it in front of him. I don’t wear my fucking gold rolex and drive a foreign Mercedes Benz and wonder why people don’t have jobs in America. So that’s why I don’t like the republicans.

SLUG: I couldn’t agree more on that one. 

MR: It’s a two party system. That’s what we’re used to. So now you have a republican congress and senate who are ruling today and look what you see. Taking away people’s rights. Abortion rights. They’re taking away your rights to… your first amendment rights. They’re chipping away at that. The thing is less than half the people voted in America. So how much percentage did they really get when they want. Now if the people woke up that didn’t vote, get off their asses and vote, they’d be out of office. Because I think a lot of people are going to realize where they’re coming from. 

SLUG: Oh yeah, and it only takes a brick to fall on your head a couple of times before you figure it out. I mean stupid people, you know. 

MR: Yeah, it’s bad. They’re playing on people’s fears and they’re winning. So that’s what John is into and CJ basically. 

SLUG: Amazing that you guys stick together. 

MR: I know, Joey and me did a benefit for Jerry Brown in New York City. We did a live show, me, him, Skinny Bones, Daniel Ray and some other people. Daniel Ray is our producer. We did a live show in front of 5,000 supporters of Jerry Brown. We wanted Jerry Brown. We thought Clinton was too much to the right. But he’s better than the two evils. And we did an abortion rights concert in the Ritz in New York City and we gave the money over to charity for that. I think it was the Planned Parenthood. So that’s what makes Ramones.

SLUG: Is there any truth to the story why it was named the Ramones?

MR: Paul McCartney used that and then he split out of it. Up until now everyone’s getting along but knowing it’s the end. So you know we’re just going along doing what we got to do. You know there’s laughs, funny things happen. 

SLUG: Is it a little sad? 

MR: No, not sad.

SLUG: Well, maybe sad’s bad. Maybe sentimental. 

MR: I could go on, Joey could go on. But I think CJ wants to end it, so does John. That’s why I think me and Joey will be doing something together, not as Ramones, but maybe his brother will be in the band. Maybe another guy from another band will join us. It will be an offshoot of Ramones. We’ll do Ramone songs but we’ll do material too. That he’ll write or I’ll write. 

SLUG: It won’t be Ramones? 

MR: No, maybe it will be Joey Ramone and friends or a band name featuring. But Johnny’s not going to play anymore. CJ I think wants to become a Harley-Davidson motorcycle mechanic. I think he wants to put out records with his own band Los Guzaros. 

SLUG: How good of a guitar player is Johnny Ramone? 

MR: He’s the best of what he does. 

SLUG: Well, yeah, that’s given. But I’m talking about in the public eye, I mean you’ve got the guitar player guys that go… 

MR: But they can’t do it either. 

SLUG: Exactly. But how good is he? 

MR: Technically, not good at all. But you get another guitar player to do all that for an hour and 15-20 minutes up there, it can’t happen. 

SLUG: I mean there’s no disputing, at least in my mind, who’s the best rhythm guitar player anyway. 

MR: Right, what he does is the best. A lot of drummers also are technically great… (both talking at once)… When the guy comes to shows he… how do you do that. I go I don’t know. I just do it. 

SLUG: Just straight forward drumming. 

MR: That’s it. You know, eight notes and this is hard. Instead of doing this… what every real drummer does. I’m doing this… That’s what we do. We create that wall of sound through eighth notes. That is more than quarter notes. You fill in the spaces more.

SLUG: And you see a band for instance like Queensrÿche, got two guitar players and a bass player and drummer and a keyboard player and they’re ding samples that doesn’t sound as big as the Ramones.

MR: That’s why I couldn’t stand those bands. They used all those samples and they relied on computers. We did a show with U2 in Spain. We opened up for them unfortunately. I hate them. In front of 20,000 people in Spain and we’re—

SLUG: I hate when I’m interviewing somebody and they say they like somebody that I really hate. But I’m glad… 

MR: So I’m walking around backstage. They’ve got all this computers. What the fuck is all this? Then I realized they’re getting all this sound. The drum is hitting a symbol and you hear a drum sound instead. They’re all programmed. What you hear U2 doing, half of it’s on a computer. That’s cheating the people. I hate that. I want to make sure the band is what you hear. I never like them anyway. Then I realized and it really confirmed what I believe. 

SLUG: What do you think about Henry Rounds? 

MR: He’s making the most of it. He’s one I don’t think would have got commercial. I don’t think he would have been a cop in a movie. People say, ah, I’m never going to do that. I’m tired of this establishmentarianism. But then somebody comes up to you with a hundred grand and goes you want to be in a movie, you want to do a commercial? Sure, yeah, I’ll do it. So Henry Rounds, he’s sort of real. But given the temptations in a capitalistic society you’re going to go for it. 

SLUG: The reason I brought him up is we have this new article called “Famous Fuckers” and we’re asking them all the same six questions and I’ll ask them to you, too. But one of the questions is, Who is making money selling records that shouldn’t be allowed to? And his answer was U2. 

MR: His answer. Oh, me too. Henry Rounds, I think he’s good for what he does. You know with the big neck and the rough looking guy, good body, punk head. That’s fine, you know. But he wasn’t there in the beginning. What he do come out in ‘82-’83. He’s not an original but he’s good.

SLUG: Hull? What about ‘em? 

MR: Hull, I think she’s okay. I think, well if it wasn’t for his death she’d be nowhere. But I think I like her much more than Madonna. I hate Madonna. She’s better than that other fucking band, what other girl group is that? 

SLUG: Do you want to do the “Famous Fuckers” questionnaire? 

MR: Yeah.

SLUG: The first question is, If you could sleep with any girl in the world, who would it be? 

MR: Cindy Crawford, I met her.

SLUG: Who’s the biggest asshole in the music business? 

MR: Biggest asshole in the music business that I can think of. Oh boy, let me think for a minute. I think one of the guys in Dokken. The guy with the blond hair.

SLUG: Don Dokken the singer? 

MR: Yeah, those guys. 

SLUG: Who would you never, ever sleep with? 

MR: The guy from Mötley Crüe, the original lead singer. 

SLUG: Oh, Vince Neil. He’s the biggest asshole. Did you meet him or something? 

MR: I just can’t stand the fucking guy. I can’t fucking stand him.

SLUG: That’s funny. He may see you and get in a fight with you. 

MR: Oh, that’s okay. Anytime. At first I’ll try to talk my way out of it. 

SLUG: Who would you never sleep with no matter what?

MR: Patti Smith. 

SLUG: Patti Smith, why? Don’t want to talk about that. Okay, I’ll cut that one. Who’s making money selling records that shouldn’t be allowed to? 

MR: Besides U2? 

SLUG: Besides U2. 

MR: Eric Clapton. A big rip off of black blues, and he said in an article a while back, it has nothing to do with me. We all get the blues. The guy’s a big fucking ungrateful ass, English kiss-ass asshole. Who else should stop? Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. 

SLUG: They should just quit because they’ve had it.

MR: Yeah, quit, forget about it and Robert Plant should sing low notes now. No more high notes. And Jimmy Page should be the only guitarist up there not to have a second guy to back him up with the shit playing now. 

SLUG: They’re milking it.

MR: Yeah, I’m not knocking him for it. If they have the ? let them do what they got to do. If it makes most people happy then I’m not what to say, don’t do it or do it. I’m just telling you what I feel. What else? 

SLUG: Best record in 1995. 

MR: Best record in 1995 so far? 

SLUG: Maybe not best, your favorite. 

MR: Give Me Salvation. I like that. And “I Don’t Want to Grow up”. I think honestly if I had heard that song done the way we’re doing it from another band I’d buy the single. 

SLUG: In my opinion, regardless, I mean I don’t care what you think about me, but regardless of whether you’re in the Ramones or not I think that’s the best album of the year. Not because… I mean I may think that there’s been a bunch of shitty albums cause I don’t think there’s been that many good ones. 

MR: Oh, I’ll tell you what the shitty albums are? Jungle I hated. I hated the Brain Drain album with “Pet Sematary” on it. I hated those two the most. I didn’t like the Phil Spector album that much. I like Road to Ruin, I like Mondo Bizarro, I like this one, I like Rocket to Russia and I liked all the others. But this new album of Ramones now I have to say saved their asses. Because out of a one through ten I gave it a nine. 

Read more from the SLUG archives here:
Mark Lanegan: August 1995
The Ramones: September 1995