TOMMY RAMONE,
FOUNDING MEMBER AND ORIGINAL DRUMMER
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Real name: Thomas Erdelyi
Date and place of birth: January 29, 1949,
Budapest, Hungary.
Date of passing away: July 11, 2014.
Tommy died because of bile duct cancer, which is also called
cholangiocarcinoma. Bile duct cancer is rare and for example in the USA
with less than 3,000 new cases are diagnosed in each year.
Grave: Tommy's grave is at the New Montefiore
Cemetery. New Montefiore Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located in West
Babylon, Suffolk County, New York, USA. Distance between cemetery and
Bowery (Manhattan, NYC, USA) is around 37 miles / 60
kilometers.
See here my memorial page
to Tommy Ramone.
Ramones career: Started as manager, but become
drummer
and founding member in August 1974 and let Joey sing. Tommy was in the
Ramones and performed with them from 1974 to 1978. His final show as a
Ramones drummer was at Johnny Blitz benefit event at CBGB's in New York,
USA on May 4, 1978. Did continue doing producer works to the
Ramones.
I did many interviews with Tommy Ramone especially to my 3rd book
Ramones: Soundtrack
Of Our Lives. My 2nd book Rock In Peace: Dee Dee And Joey Ramone is
sold-out. These questions are from it.
Jari-Pekka: What were your reasons behind your
decison to leave the
Ramones?
Tommy Ramone: I loved playing the drums and I
loved all the live shows
we did, but being on the road all the time, cooped up in vans, dressing
rooms, hotel rooms was putting me in a major state of depression. In the
recording studio I was free, creative and in control, on the road I was
a confused and abused passenger. It felt as if I was on the verge of a
nervous breakdown. I also felt I could be more productive helping them
write songs and producing the records if I did not have to tour. I was
thinking that if we got a good drummer to replace me, then that would
be the best for everybody. That is what happened, and we went on
to make Road To Ruin, Tommy told me.
Jari-Pekka: Did you help/ recommend to recruit
Marky for your position
as the Ramones drummer and did you actively take a roll in breaking
Marky into the role as the new Ramones drummer?
Tommy Ramone: Marky was our top choice right
from the start and he
turned out perfect.
He was enthusiastic and very cooperative. He had his own powerful style
which was perfect for the direction the Ramones were taking at the time.
I got on well with Marky and we went to work right away in developing a
new sound. We combined Marky's style with a little bit of my style and
came up with the great drums on the Road To Ruin album, Tommy told me.
As a producer: Tommy Ramone was the producer on
six Ramones albums; Ramones (1976), Leave Home (1977), Rocket To Russia
(1977), Road To Ruin (1978), It's Alive (1979), and Too Tough To Die
(1984). Related to recording and producing, he worked mostly with Tony
Bongiovi and Ed Stasium on those early Ramones albums. For the most
part, Tommy used his name T. Erdelyi. Before the Ramones were founded,
Tommy had the opportunity to work with
Jimi Hendrix and Buddy Miles. You can read most extensive information of
Tommy's producer career from
Ramones:
Soundtrack Of Our Lives.
For that my third book, I had several
interviews with Tommy on many different occasions, in all it contains 9
pages of his interviews.
Play on albums: Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket
To Russia
and It's Alive.
Other bands: Tiger 5, Tangerine Puppets, Uncle
Monk (Tommy's duo band, debut album came out in 2006).
Tommy tells of formation of the Tiger this way on one of my interviews
with him on Ramones:
Soundtrack Of Our Lives.
- Ira was in the first band I was in with Richard Adler and Howie Seagal
in the 60's. Originally we were called The Madman and The Warlocks,
after that Tommy And The Tigers, then it became Tiger 5, Tommy told
me.
Something else: Tommy's parents were both
professional photographers. They had survived the holocaust by being
hidden by neighbours.
Tommy, his older brother and parents left Hungary during the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956 and moved to the USA.
Earlier was told that they immigrated to the United States already in
1953 but that is not true. I spoke with Tommy in 2004, if he had visited
Hungary often. He wasn't until they left in 1956. But he traveled to
Hungary in 2008.
- Read of nice release titled The The
Bowery Electric: Un Tributo A Joey Ramone (2004).
- Read nice story of Tommy Ramone and show at the Hungarian embassy,
click
here.
- And you can read another nice story here of Tommy's visit in
Finland in
2008.
See my Tommy Ramone memorial page here on my page.