TOMMY RAMONE

'Tommy Ramone' (born 'Tamás Erdélyi', January 29, 1952 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian-American record producer and drummer. He is the last surviving original member of the pioneering punk rock band The Ramones. He is a drummer in many different bands.
Erdélyi grew up in Queens, one of the boroughs of New York City. Tommy and guitarist Johnny Cummings (later to be dubbed "Johnny Ramone") performed together in a mid-60's four-piece garage band called the Tangerine Puppets while in high school. In 1970, the then 18-year-old Erdelyi was a studio intern for the production of the Jimi Hendrix album ''Band of Gypsys''.
When the Ramones first came together, with Johnny Ramone on guitar, Dee Dee Ramone on bass and Joey Ramone on drums, Erdelyi was supposed to be the manager, but was drafted as the band's drummer when Joey became the lead singer and found that he couldn't keep up with the Ramones' increasingly fast tempos. "Tommy Ramone, who was managing us, finally had to sit down behind the drums, because nobody else wanted to," Dee Dee later recalled.^[1]
He remained as drummer, from 1974 to 1978, playing on and co-producing their first three albums: ''Ramones'', ''Leave Home'', and ''Rocket to Russia''. Accounts differ on whether or not he quit or was fired. Tommy expressed in a Citizine interview that he was replaced as both drummer and producer without discussion from the rest of the band. He was replaced in 1978, but handled band management and co-production for their fourth album, ''Road to Ruin''; and returned for the eighth album, 1984's ''Too Tough to Die''. His drumming replacement was Marky Ramone.
Tommy avoided arguing with the rest of the band in the later controversy surrounding song writing credits. Dee Dee, in his books, expressed resentment towards Tommy had it "together" more than anyone else in the band, being able to cook himself dinner and organize his life in a much more functional manner, without the psychosis or addiction problems that the rest of them suffered from. This is also a large part of the schism that pushed him out in '78. In comparison to everyone else in the band, Tommy was quite "normal", though there are accounts of him partying with the band and driving them around in his car in the early days.
Tommy Ramone wrote "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" and the majority of "Blitzkrieg Bop" after bassist Dee Dee suggested the title.
In the 1980s he produced The Replacements' classic album ''Tim''. Tommy is known as a fan of bluegrass music. He is currently touring New York and New Haven, Connecticut with Claudia Tienan, formerly of local underground band The Simplistics, in a new alterna-bluegrass duo the two have dubbed Uncle Monk. They have also recently released their first album.
==Discography with Ramones==

★ ''Ramones'' (1976)

★ ''Leave Home'' (1977)

★ ''Rocket to Russia'' (1977)

★ ''It's Alive'' (1979)

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References

Notes

References

★ Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, ''Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk''.

★ Monte A. Melnick Ramones Tour Manager "On The Road With The Ramones"[1]

Notes

1. McNeil and McCain, pp. 182-183.