The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Ramones tour manager Monte A. Melnick (Part Four)

Since I’ve been away for two weeks, working on my book, the next installment of our continuing series with the man who kept Forest Hills’ finest’s touring machine on track is open to the public.

Lord, it’s good to be back! Apparently, a buncha you feel the same, and I appreciate it. Doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about slacking on the updates this whole time I’ve been busy with The Book. Hence the goal is for updates everyday this week, including the start of new interviews with Captain Sensible and Paul Simonon with his new act, Galen and Paul. There should also be some record/TV/book reviews. What’s more none of the interview installments this week will be locked behind a paywall. This way, everyone can dig what paying subscribers enjoy. 

Meanwhile, here’s the penultimate installment of our conversation with Monte A. Melnick, witness to the Ramones’ entire history from start to finish, from his unique vantage point as their lifelong tour manager. Monte’s stories and observations are absolutely compelling, whether you’re a lifelong Ramones fan or not. Reading about the band members’ interpersonal relationships and interests is especially riveting.

TIM: You brought up awhile ago how the various corporations surrounding the various individual Ramones were not getting along. [pause] Well, that’s kinda like the way the personalities themselves were for a long time.

MONTE: Well, initially they were all friends in the beginning. Then the thing with Linda Ramone put a stress on them. [NOTE: Sometime in the early ‘80s, Joey Ramone’s girlfriend Linda Danielle left him for Johnny Ramone, marrying the guitarist in 1984. It was the divisive act in Ramones history. It should be noted that Joey reportedly wrote about this in his song “The KKK Took My Baby Away,” and that Linda was also the subject of the song “She’s A Sensation.” She also figured into “Danny Says” and “Merry Xmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight).”] 

Johnny Ramone gets mad at his Mosrite. (Pic: Sean McCloskey)

But Johnny and Joey realized (they should not) break up the group. The music was more important, getting out onstage. I mean, you play music and I played music. When you step out onstage and it’s going great, and (you get) the feedback from the audience – it’s like a drug. There’s a lot of groups that get offstage, and they want to keep that (feeling) up, so they go to drugs. But they realized the music they were putting out, they could continue to put it out. But they just didn’t socialize later on after the show and all that. They kept it separate. And they didn’t wanna fight and break up the group, because it was working well with the music and the audience and the fans. 

But people say they never talk? They talked. But it was a limited amount. They went over setlists and songs they were doing on albums and stuff like that. They had to talk a little bit. They knew they had to keep it together. They wanted to keep it together, Johnny and Joey.

TIM: It’s like what John Doe told me about how X works, considering they all have wildly varying political views. He said they asked themselves, “What do you consider important? What do you value? Are your politics more important than your music?” 

MONTE: That’s exactly the way the Ramones were! Johnny was a strict conservative, and Joey was a liberal, and they never talked politics! Forget it! Also Johnny became very friendly with Eddie Vedder, who’s [laughs] not exactly anywhere politically near Johnny! But they never talked politics – they talked like baseball and music. They became friends, same as Johnny and Joey – they never talked politics. 

TIM: That’s what I learned from years of interviewing the Ramones after that first unsuccessful attempt. First of all, I knew to interview them separately. Then I knew what subjects to bring up with them. Don’t bring up politics with Johnny, ‘cause my own politics are closer to The Clash’s than his. I knew to talk with him about baseball to really get him going. 

MONTE: That was the key, right there. He had one of the biggest collections of 8x10 autographed pictures of baseball players around. That was his hobby – sending pictures to baseball players, and they’d come back autographed. And on days off, he’d try to hit a baseball park, take in a minor league game or sometimes a major league game even. He was very into baseball. That’s why there was a baseball bat on the logo. Also because of the song, “Beat On The Brat.” But yeah, Arturo put that baseball bat in because of Johnny. 

Joey Ramone wants to know who drank all the Yoo-Hoo! (Pic: Sean McCloskey)

TIM: Right. I knew with Joey to get him talking about music, period – especially The Who. Marky? I would talk to him about muscle cars.

MONTE: [laughs] Yeah, he was into cars! 

TIM: Yeah, I would talk with him about cars or some of his old bands and stuff like that. And CJ? Just talk with him about the Ramones, because he was the world’s biggest Ramones fan! 

MONTE: [laughs] Yeah! Y’know in the beginning, when the Ramones were starting out, they would do press conferences – all four altogether. But later on, when things got a little weird with them, Johnny said, “Look, let’s split up.” So I split up the interviews. We had a number of people coming, so I just split ‘em up. Johnny never did them with Joey. It was maybe CJ and Marky, Johnny by himself and Joey by himself, stuff like that. Or Johnny with CJ. But I had to separate them on interviews later on. 

TIM: I guess the second time I interviewed them, I talked to Johnny and CJ by phone for Guitar World magazine. I asked CJ, “How low does a Ramones guitar have to be slung?” And he laughed and gave me this very technical explanation about how they had to have them that low, because of the constant downstrokes – something to do with ergonomics. I asked Johnny the same question. He said, “Well, when I first got a guitar, I stood in front of a mirror and adjusted it until it looked cool.” [laughs] 

What also struck me about Johnny with that particular interview, he was in the mastering suite working on Loco Live. He started asking me, “How old are you? Are you in college?” At that point, I was about to drop out of college and move to Austin and start getting on with my life. And he was adamant: “No, no no! You really need to pay attention to your education! Maybe you should pick it up again when you move to Austin?” I was impressed with how concerned he was. I always got along with him.

MONTE: Oh, yeah. He was very friendly to interviewers and fans. He appreciated them. He always signed autographs very meticulously – his signature was always meticulous. Because like I said, he collected autographs. So when he signed something, he made sure it was very precise. 

TIM: Tell me something about the Ramones’ backstage rider.

MONTE: We had a 10 page rider with all sorts of things that gradually worked up over the years. In the beginning, I had just a minimal thing, because we were playing small clubs. The bigger we got, we transitioned to a huge rider. There’s a couple of pages in my book (about) the rider. Later, we had a crew rider and a backstage/dressing room rider, also the technical rider for electricity and stage dimensions, etc., etc. But they liked bottled beer, didn’t like cans or pitchers. Yoo Hoo was on there. We also asked for ridiculous things, like socks. Because I realized early on some of these clubs were not reading the rider. So I asked for basic stuff.

#timstegall #timnapalmstegall #timnapalmstegallsubstack #punkjournalism #thetimnapalmstegallsubstackinterview #interview #monteamelnick #ramonestourmanager #ramones #tommyramone #johnnyramone #joeyramone #deedeeramone #markyramone #richieramone #arturovega #cjramone #lindaramone #ramonestourridder #punkrock #punk #foundingfathers #subscribe #fivedollarsmonthly #fiftydollarsannually #upgradeyourfreesubscription #bestwaytosupport