Random Most Dysfunctional Band Ramones That Stayed Togeth (14 items)

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  (#3) They All Died Fairly Young, Three Of Cancer, One Of An Overdose

  Only one of the original Ramones made it to 60. Tommy, the band's original drummer, died of bile duct cancer at age 65, in 2014. Joey didn't even make it to 50; he died of lymphoma at 49, in 2001. Johnny died of prostate cancer in 2004, at 56. Perhaps most tragically, Dee Dee, who struggled with drug addiction for most of his life, but in his final years had long periods of sobriety, died of an accidental heroin overdose at 51, in 2002. 
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  (#5) Johnny Ramone Threw TV Sets Off Roofs To Terrify Strangers

  Johnny Ramone was the authoritarian member of the group. He used fear and intimidation to become and remain the band's leader. In an interview, Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, recalls Johnny running the Ramones “like a military operation.  He would verbally abuse Tommy, regularly punch Dee Dee for any minor infraction and had little time for Joey’s OCD.”

  Johnny’s militaristic conduct was reinforced by a history of violent behavior. As he wrote in Commando, his autobiography, "I had been on a streak of bad, violent behavior for two years. I was just bad, every minute of the day." 

  In Commando, Johnny writes of carrying old TV sets to the roofs and dropping them when he saw people walking below, for the sake of scaring them. He also threw bricks through windows for the hell of it, and used physical and verbal abuse to control those around him. 
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  (#1) Dee Dee Ramone Supported His Heroin Addiction By Turning Tricks

  Upon first listen, “53rd and 3rd” is a jaunty, all-age-appropriate tune that’ll have you tapping your foot. If you take a moment to listen to the words, you’ll hear the sad tale of a male escort who always gets picked last on his corner.

  “Fifty-third and third standing on the street

  Fifty-third and third I'm tryin' to turn a trick

  Fifty-third and third you're the one they never pick

  Fifty-third and third don't it make you feel sick?”

  Bassist and songwriter Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin) struggled with heroin addiction throughout his life. When the Ramones began recording and touring full time, he had the cash to finance his habit. Before that, he resorted to other ways to get fast cash; namely, hanging about at a certain Manhattan intersection notorious for solicitation.

  Music journalist Legs McNeil wrote of Dee Dee: 

  "Dee Dee was the archetypical fuck-up whose life was a living disaster. He was a male prostitute, a would-be mugger, a heroin user and dealer, an accomplice to armed robbery—and a genius poet who was headed for an early grave, but was sidetracked by rock ‘n’ roll.”
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  (#10) Joey Suffered From Debilitating OCD That Played A Hand In His Death

  Joey Ramone always struggled with his health. He was born with a tertoma, a tumor the size of a baseball attached to the spine that can contain bone, hair, and teeth. The condition gave him bad blood circulation and increased vulnerability to infections. He also suffered from mental health issues. At one point, he was diagnosed schizophrenic, but Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is the diagnosis that stuck. Doctors once told his mother the condition would grow so bad he would never be able to function in society, and inevitably become a living vegetable.  

  Joey proved the doc wrong when he found the one place he could be calm and in control, on stage. His elongated limbs (not officially diagnosed, but probably Marfan Syndrome), hair-hidden face, and choppy vocals commanded an otherworldly persona. As soon as he stepped off stage, however, he was crippled with compulsions. His younger brother Mickey Leigh recalls how “These voices in his head would say, ‘You didn't close this door right, you gotta do it again.’ He would do it 20 times until it was ‘right’.”  

  It sometimes took Joey hours to walk down a street, causing frequent tardiness to rehearsals, show, and events that exacerbated tension with Johnny. Once, after the band returned from tour in England, Joey insisted on driving back to the airport just to retrace one step.

  In April 2001, Joey died from lymphatic cancer. His death was accelerated on New Year’s Eve 2000, when he decided to return to his chiropractor’s office to see if he closed the door properly the previous day and slipped on an icy sidewalk. He needed hip surgery, which temporarily halted his cancer treatment, which led to his death some short months later on April 15, 2001.
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  (#2) Johnny Stole Joey’s Girlfriend, And The Two Hardly Spoke For 15 of the 22 Years The Band Was Together

  By all accounts, lead singer Joey Ramone (Jeffrey Ross Hyman) was a romantic, and the kindest member of the band. Guitarist Johnny (John William Cummings) was the cruelest Ramone. From the beginning, the two didn't get along. Joey was liberal, Johnny staunchly conservative. Johnny was regimented, Joey’s severe OCD often made him late and unreliable.

  Joey had one great love, Linda Danielle. Joey met Linda at a Ramones show in 1977, and the two officially became a couple while filming Rock and Roll High School. Eventually,  she went on tour with the band. It wasn't long before Johnny made a move; the two eventually married.  After that, Joey’s drinking and coke consumption increased, and he and Johnny only spoke when absolutely necessary. Rumor has it "The KKK Took My Baby Away" was Joey’s hyperbolic lament about conservative Johnny stealing Linda.

  Years later, when Joey was dying Marky told Johnny he should make his peace with Joey. Johnny replied, “He’s not my friend.”
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  (#12) Dee Dee Was Very Briefly In GG Allin's Band

  As Merle Allen, brother of anti-social, sh*t-smearing iconoclast GG Allin, tells it, Dee Dee decided to join the GG's band, the Murder Junkies, when he was kicking around with nothing to do after leaving the Ramones. 

  "I put an ad in the Village Voice, and one day Dee Dee just called me up out of the blue. I had seen him around the Village, and I knew he was just hanging out, he wasn't doing too much, playing in little bands here and there, but when he actually asked if he could audition for us, I almost fell on the floor. So of course I called GG right away and I’m like, 'You’re never going to believe this,' and we had Bill Weber who became really what I would call our original guitar player, and the guitar player that gave us the sound, and played with us up until we got back together recently. They both came and auditioned, and Bill was just a great guitar player and Dee Dee was Dee Dee and we just kind of finished the audition and we were like, 'We’ve got to hire Bill but we’ve got to hire Dee Dee' so we basically hired both of them.

  We rehearsed with Dee Dee and he would come by my place and we would show him stuff. There is a DVD of a couple of different rehearsals with Dee Dee on it that’s in my catalogue and what not. We never actually did a show with him. I think by the time the reality of what was about to hit Dee Dee came about, he decided he was just going to bow out. We never got any explanation from him why he decided not to play, he just one day didn't come to rehearsal and we never really heard from him."

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