The first time I saw the Ramones was in a magazine called Rock Scene. Here were these four guys in ripped jeans and leather jackets, and to me, a little kid living in Queens, the same place they were from, they were like a gang. I bought the first record after hearing Blitzkrieg Bop on the radio, and I would jump around my apartment, practically bouncing off the walls to the speed of that thing. It was the fastest music I had ever heard. And it had that connection to New York—I found out later on that Dee Dee lived in my neighborhood and used to cop drugs at my school.
I came to know Joey after I started playing with D Generation. He had so much passion for our band. He’d come out to shows, introduce us before we went on and hang out. We went on tour together and sometimes he’d sing with us on any Ramones song we wanted to do. When D Generation broke up and I started my solo career, I had nowhere to go and was between labels and Joey gave me some money to do some recordings. That’s the kind of guy he was. He gave so much to music and to the people around him. A lot of people you meet in this business, their thing is either money or drugs or sex. Joey was just passionate about rock’n’roll. Towards the end, when he got very sick, he didn’t want to take a tube down his throat because he was afraid it would mess up his vocal chords. He still wanted to go out and play shows.
I remember one time the two of us were walking through Rockefeller Center on our way to watch U2 perform on Saturday Night Live. People on the street crowded around Joey, and everyone was so loving and respectful. We went backstage before the taping and the guys in U2 treated him like royalty. He was just this force. To me he was my funny friend who would call me up with all these crazy ideas, but then I’d remember that he was a Ramone. Over the years the band’s legacy just keeps growing stronger. If they were still around today they’d be selling out Madison Square Garden.
Jesse Malin is the former singer and songwriter for D Generation. His third solo album, Dreamers, will be released in January 2007.
