Joey Ramone Quotes

I will absolutely say that Johnny Ramone was a huge influence on me. I'm a giant Ramones fan.

I think people are too hard on the Pistols. The Pistols started the whole punk thing and never saw much money.

Growing up, we had folk records.

No part of Manhattan these days really has the same vibe I get from a Ramones song or a Velvet Underground song.

People called me the godmother of punk, but I never name myself anything.

I made the big turnaround in the early Nineties when I started hearing all the tenth generation punk bands like Green Day and Offspring and all those people. It just made me fall in love with punk again and remember my roots, and since that time I've always wanted to do more of that kind of music again.

When punk came along, it made perfect sense to me. I found it melodic. The Clash, Buzzcocks.

It's funny I'm talking to 'Rolling Stone' right now, because back then, it was like, 'Punk rock? Put it back. It's just a flash in the pan.'

I mean Black Flag happened. I was lucky. I don't think I could have put together something with one percent of that oomph on my own.

I think punk rock needs an 'Amadeus.'

If you don't like The Ramones, you don't like rock 'n'roll. They're like The Beach Boys without the sea.

When the punk rock thing happened, I thought, 'Right, I have one chance here to be seen as part of some wider social phenomenon.'

The Ramones are not an oldies group; they are not a glitter group. They don't play boogie music, and they don't play the blues.

I saw the Clash in '79 at the Paramount in Seattle, and it changed my whole life.

The Knack were a very, very powerful band, and you got to understand, when they came in, all the punk stuff was still going on. There was an amazing conflict within the scenes.

The first music I heard that made me put away my comic books and make music was original punk.

Hardcore bands were coming out with names like Urban Waste and The Mob, you know, a lot of kind of tough names. So Beastie Boys was the stupidest name we could come up with. And unfortunately, it stuck.

I can't sing that well, but when punk-rock came along, it changed all that.

I love the U.K. folk scene. In the States, nobody knows what to do with me. There's still a very narrow definition of Americana.

That's how I want to be with stuff: I always want to be in country music, first and foremost, forever.

I didn't grow up with classical music. My father was a folk music singer.

The Ramones were not about having a good time. The closest thing probably was maybe Joey and Dee Dee might have had some good times, but it was almost like a work ethic. We were out there to basically to get the fans to see the Ramones.

I did go to fashion college, where I was a little punky, a little Bow Wow Wow. I wore red eyeliner. At the time, Vivienne Westwood was really big, so it was a lot of that. London was having a really big moment. I was mixing vintage with things I had made.

Metallica is a big, huge influence and inspiration. That's who Babymetal aspires to become some day.

I'm punk, but I love gold.