Marky Ramone Discusses His Forthcoming Memoir

12/29/2014
. (Classic Rock) Drummer Marky Ramone will release his memoir, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone, on January 13 via Simon & Schuster. Marc Bell was a heavy rock veteran before he joined The Ramones in 1978: he was a member of pioneering American metal outfit Dust, auditioned for the New York Dolls following the death of Billy Murcia in late 1972, and went on to play with rock's first transsexual singer, Wayne Country And The Backstreet Boys, and influential punk band Richard Hell & The Voidoids.

The memoir traces Bell's history - from growing up in Brooklyn to making music, teaming up with The Ramones, getting fired from the band as he battled alcoholism, his road to recovery and subsequent return to the punk icons, with whom he would play 1700 shows before the group retired in 1996.

Marky tells Classic Rock Revisited: "The book goes through the whole gamut of my life. It is not just about the Ramones. I talk about being with Richard Hell and the Voidoids and when we toured with The Clash in '77. I got the firsthand look at how the punk scene was evolving there for four and a half weeks on that tour. This book is very comprehensive."

Marky replaced Tommy Ramone, who produced several of the band's seminal albums. The drummer says he brought a new heaviness to his first Ramones project, 1978's Road To Ruin, the band's fourth release.

He explains: "I had to. Why? Because they already did their three-chord wonder albums, the first one, Leave Home and Rocket To Russia. They needed to advance a little more. They needed to sound heavier, not just punk heavy, but rock heavy. In the end that's what it's all about." Read more here.

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Copyright Classic Rock Magazine- Excerpted here with permission.

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