How the Ramones’ debut album came about

“Boston, Styx, Toto – do you remember that we once played a show with Toto?” asked Joey Ramone (aka Jeffrey Hyman) when the band sat down for an interview in 1997. No, the punk manifesto of their debut album really had nothing in common with the glittering excesses of the seventies.

Ramones was recorded at Plaza Sound, a run-down studio inside Radio City Music Hall. “We brought our $50 guitars and recorded the whole album in about a week for $6,000,” says drummer Tommy Ramone (aka Thomas Erdelyi). “It was absurd.”

The mixture that they had probably picked up from the scrap heap of music history seemed no less absurd: Beach Boys-like bubblegum, the guitar storms of the Stooges and the annoying repetition of individual passages influenced by Warhol. The singalong chorus of “Blitzkrieg Bop” is probably the prime example of their casual approach.

Urban roots music

“In ‘Walking The Dog’ by Rufus Thomas there was this line: ‘Hi-ho’s nipped her toes,’” says Erdelyi. “We turned the ‘Hi-ho’ into ‘Hey-ho’.” And cheekily called the hybrid “Urban Roots Music”. Erdelyi knew they were ahead of their time – but had no idea how far.

“When we went into the studio we knew we were doing something important,” he said. “But we had no idea we were going to change the course of music.”