{"id":14963,"date":"2015-06-24T01:00:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=14963"},"modified":"2015-06-20T16:00:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T20:00:09","slug":"blowin-wind-with-cj-ramone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=14963","title":{"rendered":"Blowin’ Wind with CJ Ramone: ” I was a totally metal guy when I was a kid. The way it was in my town, if you weren\u2019t into Manowar you\u2019d get your ass kicked.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

For seven years (and it feels like so much longer than that), CJ Ramone was a driving force in The Ramones. In a time when one of their key founding members, Dee Dee Ramone, jumped ship, it was a youthful, energetic CJ Ramone that breathed a new life into the band and charging them with a new found energy. When the Ramones unanimously decided it was time to say, “Adios amigos” on August 6, 1996, unlike most bands that say “farewell”, they meant it and that was that.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In 2011, CJ Ramone re-surfaced and hit the road with longtime Ramones producer\/friend Daniel Rey and drummer Brent Bjork playing an energized set of Ramones songs including songs that the Ramones had long since ignored such as “Endless Vacation” and “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and brought back to life the excitement and fun of the Ramones legacy to a whole new generation. Not content with just performing Ramones classics, CJ dropped not one but two stellar albums worth of original material between 2012 and 2014, Reconquista and Last Chance to Dance.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In 2015 CJ hi the road to support Last Chance to Dance and on his Atlanta stop of the tour (also featuring Japanese punk girls Shonen Knife) I was honored to have the opportunity to have a drink backstage with CJ after the show and talk to him about the Ramones legacy, his own legacy, and his love for Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath. It was a real honor to sit down with this true living legend and with that being said, I hope you will enjoy my interview with Mr. CJ Ramone.<\/strong><\/em>
\nCJ, welcome back to Atlanta brother! It\u2019s been too long!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it sure has. What was it? 2010? 2011 with Daniel Rey and Brant Bjork.<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

Yeah, that was such an amazing show.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thanks, man. Yeah, I just got done talking with Brant (Bjork; former drummer) today and we\u2019re going to do an album together maybe next year. I\u2019m finally going to get to do a heavy metal record [laughs]. That\u2019s my background so I\u2019m like, \u201cI\u2019m gonna play the shit out of that!\u201d [laughs]<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

Oh yeah. You\u2019ll get to play with your fingers again?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Oh yeah!<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

Ok, I just wanted to take a second and say that doing this 2nd interview with me has totally made this fanboy’s day You are a passionate fan of music yourself. What band are you a total fanboy about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[laughs] Oh man, you mean, like who I totally fanboy out if I met them? Probably Geezer Butler and Steve Harris. Those are the guys that when it came to playing bass that I looked to as who I\u2019m most influenced by. I mean, Dee Dee (Ramone, former Ramones bassist) of course and obviously but as far as my early influences of playing, definitely Geezer Butler and Steve Harris.<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

You were a metal guy growing up weren’t you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all I played. I always listened to punk rock too but there were no punks in my town. I was a totally metal guy when I was a kid. The way it was in my town, if you weren\u2019t into Manowar you\u2019d get your ass kicked. My town was just a completely metal town. All the different bands in town wanted me to play bass for them because I could play any Iron Maiden song from the debut album all the way up to Powerslave so everyone wanted me in their band [laughs]. Those two guys, yeah, I would absolutely fanboy out over. Especially Geezer Butler. I mean, Black Sabbath was the first band I ever liked. I bought all the records and just became a serious fan of.<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

Back in the day, me and my friends used to talk about how you seemed to have this kind of a metal attitude and you really brought that vibe into the Ramones, especially on Mondo Bizzaro. Were you ever told to reel in some of the metal vibe at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing really. The only thing Johnny (Ramone) ever instructed me to do live was to walk up to the front of the stage when he did but I had seen the Ramones so many times that I knew the whole choreography of their show. Everything else I did he never really said anything about. There was one point where my hair got really long and he was like, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you cut your hair?\u201d and I said, \u201cNo.\u201d [laughs] Then I would ask for a raise and if he said, \u201cno\u201d I would just shave my head because I knew it pissed him off. You can look through the Ramones press photos and when my head is shaved, that\u2019s because I had asked for a raise and was turned down for it [laughs]. I never told him why I did and he never really caught on.<\/p>\n

=====================================<\/p>\n

So he was that adamant about giving you a raise?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah, all the way up until we went to Japan on one of our last tours. In Japan, they would absolutely kill it on t-shirt sales and stuff so I knew if we were going to Japan that we were going to make a lot of extra money. Let me hit him up now and maybe he\u2019ll say yes. Nope [laughs]. I started at $350.00 a week in The Ramones. I made more money in the Marine Corps than I did in the Ramones. It was slightly aggravating but realistically I would\u2019ve done it for free. Being in the Ramones is just fucking off the charts. It\u2019s a rock star dream.<\/p>\n