#Ramones drums crack

A lot of British bands wanted to sound like that. Their album had just come out and it had a huge impact on the metal side of punk. Suddenly all of us were out in the courtyard – the bouncers threw us out – and it was the Stranglers and the Finchley Boys against the Clash, the Pistols, the Ramones, Chrissie Hynde and various journalists. We were all snaking out of the venue, which was rammed, and as I walked past Paul, he spat on the ground – a tough guy thing – so I punched him.

After our set, someone gave me a glass of wine and it went to my head. There was a punch-up outside Dingwalls between me and Paul Simonon. We put a lot of people’s noses out of joint, being on that bill. We were bottom of the bill, next were the Ramones, and Flamin’ Groovies were top.

Jean-Jacques Burnel, the Stranglers (bass, vocals) Jean-Jacques Burnel ‘It was handbags at 10 paces’ We’re better than you.” “No, you’re not.” “Yes, we are.” If we had been, the conversation would probably have been something like: “Hello, you’re shit. We were never in the same room at the same time. At Dingwalls, there was a bit of: “Oh, they’re coming over here to our turf, jumping on our bandwagon.” I think they were taken aback by the reaction – things getting thrown all over the place. He tried to imitate them with his playing, but they were a lot faster. Great songs, really catchy, all two and a half minutes long. They were more basic, three-chord rock’n’roll.

#Ramones drums crack

It made us think: “We’d better crack on here.” But the Ramones and the Pistols were different animals, with a different flavour. Ramones was the first so-called punk album. British punk was more political, although the Ramones weren’t as dumb as everyone made out. There were parallels: New York was bankrupt and London was a bombsite, with lots of strikes. Punk exploded into New York and the UK at exactly the same time.