Dexter Holland and Joey Ramone on Why the Kids Aren't Alright

In the wake of first Columbine, and then the recent violence at Woodstock, musicians - particularly loud, aggressive bands - have come under fire of late for possibly inciting violence in today's youth.

In part two of CDNOW's "punk summit" (part one debuted previously) between the Offspring's Dexter Holland and the legendary Joey Ramone, the leaders of two of the loudest, most aggressive groups of the last two decades offer surprisingly insightful views into teenage violence and music's role as the scapegoat for this.

And of course, they talk about life on the road, their obligations to the people who buy their music and the end of the Ramones.

Holland: I think an interesting side of the band that people don't talk about as much is that you did songs that were completely the opposite of your aggressive music. You did more sensitive songs, like "Merry Christmas, I don't Want to Fight," or covering "Needles and Pins." I think that was a cool side of the band to see.

Ramone: As far as the personalities of the band, it's like multiple personalities. There's a lot of different sides of the band, it's not just one thing.

"Part of what frustrates me is there's such a niche of people, adults mostly, looking to find someone to point the finger at. They want to have someone to blame. They want to blame Marilyn Manson." - Holland

Holland: An important part of being a band is not just being the same exact thing all the time.

Ramone: Yeah, that's a bore. That only lasts for so long.

Holland: Would you guys ever consider playing together again?

Ramone: I don't want to play anymore. I would consider it for some special occasion, but it would have to be something very special. After almost 23 years of pretty much non-stop touring…towards the end, things weren't going all that well inside the band and for me it just wasn't fun anymore. We kept going, nobody wanted us to stop, but it just wasn't enjoyable. The fun part was playing the shows; the fans were great, but the other 23 hours of the day weren't that much fun.

Holland: I can't imagine doing it for that amount of time. Certainly no one could fault you for wanting to stop after 23 years, because it wasn't like you guys were on big buses and limos all of that time.

Ramone: Yeah, if there was more separation maybe that would've saved things. It's just that we traveled together, we'd always be together and it just wasn't cool. Having to cut costs financially - it's not that it keeps you humble or anything, we were always down to earth types - but it just got to be too much. And it's weird too, sometimes I feel bad for kids, they come up and they say, "Oh, I never got to see the Ramones, I was too young." It makes me feel bad.

Holland: That's nice to hear. People in bands always joke, "We're doing it for the kids, ha-ha. Hardly, we're in it for the money." It's nice to hear you genuinely think about the kids. That ultimately is why you're there.

Ramone: That definitely has a lot to do with it.

Holland: God bless 'em for being genuinely into the music, that's a really special thing. I almost feel the obligation…like we have to go back to South America right now because there's a lot of kids down there and they'd like to see you. You almost feel bad not doing as many shows you could.

Ramone: But then you need time for yourself too, and you want to be able to savor all the work you put into it. There was no time to even savor it, we were always working, and that's not good. Those guys, I don't now what was going on in their lives, but they never wanted to be home, they always wanted to be on the road. You gotta have a life, too. I understand you have a record out. The Ramones would tour whether we had a record out or not, we'd always be out there.

Holland: We've been out for eight months on this record and I'm feeling like I want to take a break. We've got four tours stacked up in front of us right now. That's not hitting places multiple times. One's South America, one's Europe, one's Japan and one's the US. It's like "Oh my gosh, where's the end of this?" You want to play these places because you feel like you should.

Ramone: Is this (Americana) your biggest record?

Holland: Actually, it is.

Ramone: So you should stay out (they both laugh). Don't come back until you've played... this is the time to be out.

Holland: You're right.

Ramone: It's a great record, I really like it. I like that title, "The Kids Aren't Alright," a lot.

Holland: Thanks a lot. I wrote that one by driving through my old neighborhood one night, I was thinking about the kids who had lived in all these houses and as I started thinking about them, I thought, "This person ended up in jail, this person died." I started thinking, "This sounds like a song."

"The fun part was playing the shows; the fans were great, but the other 23 hours of the day weren't that much fun." - Ramone

Ramone: Is that a play off of the Who song?

Holland: Well, just the title.

Ramone: It's true, the kids aren't alright, because they're all screwed up today.

Holland: Of course, I had no idea we'd all have this Columbine stuff six months later. Maybe it was a thing that was kind of coming.

Ramone: It was just percolating. It's really crazy today. When I was a kid and I was feeling down, I put on the Stooges to snap me out of it. That's what would soothe my demons.

Holland: Part of what frustrates me is there's such a niche of people, adults mostly, looking to find someone to point the finger at. They want to have someone to blame. They want to blame Marilyn Manson.

Ramone: Oh yeah, well that's really sick. I read the thing where they were pointing the finger at you guys about that song title...

Holland: Right, "Cool to Hate."

Ramone: It's always been like bands that are scapegoats for them, like the Beatles with "Helter Skelter."

Holland: With a song like "Cool to Hate," if they had bothered to read the lyrics, which of course I'm sure they didn't, it talks about how it's not cool to hate. It's stupid that people think the cool thing to do is to just not like anything. In the same way, they used to complain about the Dead Kennedys' lyrics, in a song like "I Kill Children." Of course they didn't realize that wasn't what it was about.

Ramone: They just look at things at face value.

Holland: It kind of makes you want to say, "Maybe you should think more about how you're parenting your kids."

Ramone: Definitely. The kids have no outlet. This is how they express their frustration, with guns, which is crazy. It's crazy that they're so accessible.

Holland: It's a different world. And I think as a parent, maybe you should recognize what your kids are going through. Instead of saying, "Well, you guys didn't know what it was like, because we had WW II and we had to walk up hills to school in the snow ..." well kids today have to deal with completely different things. Even ten years ago, they had to deal with the threat of nuclear extermination, but nowadays it's AIDS or getting shot at school with a machine gun.

Ramone: That's pretty sad, when you can't even go to school without worrying about getting killed. It's pretty sick. I'm glad I don’t go to school now.

Edited by Steve Baltin, from CDNow

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