Joey Ramone Meets The Offspring

ATN contributing editor Joey Ramone goes one on one with Offspring singer Dexter Holland

I got a call from Brett Gurewitz (Bad Religion), owner, visionary & Guru of Epitaph Records; the current coolest and most successful punk rock label. Would I be interested in interviewing Dexter Holland for Rip Magazine (where this interview first appeared). I'd become a big fan after getting turned on to their current record, Smash, by my friend Ena Kostabi of Youth Gone Mad. "Come Out and Play (You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated)," blew me away. Very infectious, exciting, fun, catchy songs with lyrics containing a social conscience, that also reflect their disenchantment with the country they've inherited.

I brought my good friend George Seminara (filmmaker/video director of the Ramones, Live, King Missile, Snow) in on the interview for inspiration and support and my pal Joan Tarshis ( Hits, Stereophile, Request) helped me with the editing. Hope ya dig it.

Joey Ramone: I've always felt that punk rock in general is a left-wing music form and as our country swings farther to the right, it seems quite ironic that punk rock seems to be picking up so much steam. What do you think?

Dexter Holland: Well, I don't know. I think you're right that the politics are going farther to the right, right now, but music's a good reflection of what the people feel. I think that people are getting more and more fed up with those kinds of things. I think maybe in the Reagan years, he was able to gloss over everything and make everyone feel like everything was okay. Maybe Clinton just isn't able to do that and people are realizing that things are pretty fucked up. I think maybe people are more receptive to this kind of music [punk]. It talks about some of the stuff they think about.

Ramone: How did growing up in Orange County shape you?

Holland: Orange County is a real conservative place. I think that's what made a lot of bands start­­kind of seeing a lot of boring shit around you. It almost gets desperate. And punk was coming out around that time and it was real energetic. I was into it and at that time there weren't a whole lot of people into it. It was a real weird thing; you had to be a freak to like it or something. I just got in it for the energy of the music and the things they wrote about. It was like way different from Michael Jackson or whatever else was popular back then.

Ramone: How does life compare now to then?

Holland: Living in Orange County? I think it's gotten better. I think the things that are going on with punk music are a lot more popular now. The things they used to sing about were things that only applied to a small group of people­­maybe that's why it was so small. Now the rest of the country is finally getting it or realizing that it applies to everybody. Punk bands are singing about reality.

George Seminara: How do you feel about this bankruptcy of Orange County?

Holland: (Laughing) Everybody's been asking us about that and telling us that we have to do a benefit for Orange County since we grew up there. Get them out of the hole.

Ramone: How does that affect you?

Holland: Well, I don't think it's gonna. I'm not a county employee but I guess if I ever need to call 911, maybe no one's going to come anymore. So we'd better arm ourselves.

Ramone: Become a survivalist. Get a bazooka!

Holland: That's right. Maybe I should move to Long Beach!?

Ramone: By the way, I just want to tell you I'm a big fan of your band.

Holland: Oh, wow., thanks a lot. It's really flattering. I saw the Ramones play back, well now it's not like the early days for you, but it was 1984. The first time I ever saw you guys was at USC, 'cause I used to go to USC. You guys played in the Bovard Auditorium and it was great. It must feel good to you being at the start of it? I would actually say that you were at the start of it because the Stooges were still kind of rock-and-rolly sounding.

Ramone: Well Johnny Ramone kind of started a whole new guitar sound and style and everybody kind of picked up on that­­down strumming and bar chords and all.

Holland: I used to listen to some of your songs over and over again to try and figure out what it was that made them so good. Like "Sedated." Were there actually a couple of different guitars goin' on there? It sounds like one guitars holding the strings and not playing?

Ramone: On the break, there's a one note guitar solo, so there were two guitars on that.

Holland: It must be cool to know that something you were in on­­before anyone else­­has turned out to be so popular. Does it make you feel vindicated, like "I was right all along?"

Ramone: Yeah. It makes you feel good. What was the first song you learned how to play?

Holland: I never took guitar lessons but I looked into the Ramones a little bit later because as a kid I didn't have a whole lot of access to punk. I was more exposed to the Orange County bands because they were local. We just decided that we were gonna start a band. We didn't have any instruments so we bought guitars. It took me four months to learn how to play bar chords. I didn't even know what they were! So my first song would have been something that you could play with one string. James Bond, maybe. That's probably what it was.

Ramone: How do you feel about the whole Nazi skinhead thing?

Holland: I'm totally anti-Nazi. I've almost gotten beat up for saying so when we've played live and stuff. But you've got to stand up to it. There's two things I'd like to say about it, though. I think the media, a lot of times, blows it out of proportion. I live in Huntington Beach and it's not as bad as people make it out to be. It's just a small bunch of guys that make it seem it's worse than it is. And the other thing is­­I have some skinhead friends that aren't Nazi at all. They're really cool. It's important to mention that there are a lot of cool skinheads, too. People that read magazines think "skinhead equals bad," and it's not always like that. I mean the original skinheads were ska boys, right?

Ramone: Right.

Holland: The Nazi skinheads have ruined too many of our shows just by standing in the middle of the pit and intimidating everybody else. It's really lame.

Ramone: It's lame, fucked up, there's enough hate, senseless violence and negativity out there but that's all that some people have going for themselves.

Holland: And it makes up their whole identity. It's really sad.

Ramone: It's low self-esteem.

Holland: There you go. But we don't draw too many skinheads anymore. I think we're too wimpy for them.

Ramone: They follow Green Day now.

Holland: I don't know. I think Green Day might be too wimpy for them, too!

Ramone: Were you just on tour recently?

Holland: Yeah. You know we put out another record before this one, on Epitaph, and it did kinda good. It got us kinda known and sold about fifty thousand copies. We were really excited about that. When we put out Smash­­it got right on the radio and then things kind of exploded for us.

Ramone: So KROQ broke it.

Holland: Yeah. KROQ did it. Then it started getting all the other stations and it was selling, too. That made MTV decide to give it a shot, and then it just kinda kept on going. All of a sudden it was like, "You guys gotta tour." So we've been on the road pretty constantly since June (1994). And we have to go out for another four or five months.

Ramone: One thing I find to be a real plus with your success and with Green Day is that hopefully, kids will want to play punk rock, too. It's really healthy right now.

Holland: I can turn on KROQ and hear all hard guitar songs. It's kinda cool and it makes it fun to listen to it again. This is what it must have been like back in the 60's when radio played pop and Motown and the Beatles. I mean, there was all this great music that was called pop that didn't have a bad connotation like pop does nowadays. Maybe things will get back to a little more of that: when things are really kind of imaginative and kinda hip.

Ramone: Yeah, that would be a nice change.

Holland: Yeah, for sure. Even AOR and Top 40 radio is playing Green Day, and stuff! It's crazy.

Ramone: You guys have the leverage nowadays. You've got their heads in a noose. What's the sickest thing that's happened to you on the road?

Holland: Oh man! Done by the band or by the audience?

Ramone: How 'bout the audience.

Holland: There's been a couple of them. There was this one show we played at a ski resort, on the side of the mountain, in the summer. Some kid, for the fun of it, lit his arms on fire and started running around the slam pit. He thought it was funny because he had some kind of protective thing on. But all of a sudden it got out of hand and his shirt caught on fire. He was rolling around on the dirt and people were trying to stamp him out. He wasn't hurt but you never know what's going to happen.

Ramone: What about with the band?

Holland: I remember drinking one night, making bets and we gave our roadie 50 bucks to eat an ashtray, to lick it absolutely clean. And then we filmed it while he puked it up all over the place.

Ramone: Our drummer eats bugs for money.

Holland: Oh my gosh!

Ramone: So how do science and punk rock mix?

Holland: They don't very well. I use to not tell anybody in school that I was in a band because I figured my teachers would fail me instantly for not being dedicated enough. I kept them separate. I'd do the school thing and then when it was time to go on tour, I would just make up some excuse like, "My Grandma's sick. I gotta leave for a month." And I would just take off and go on tour. I managed to swing that for a long time until this year when we've had to go out every month. I just took a leave of absence. I was studying Biology, Genetics actually. I had to put the whole thing on hold because this was an opportunity I didn't want to pass up. I've got this Rolling Stone in front of me and Steven Tyler chose our record as one of his picks. Isn't that amazing? It's kind of scary. When Steven Tyler likes it then, I don't know, maybe we're doing something wrong.

Seminara: You can look at it both ways.

Ramone: Maybe you guys could go out on tour with each other?

Holland: Yeah, maybe, huh? Kinda like this is our first record that my mom's liked, so I thought maybe I was doing something wrong then, too? If your mom likes it, then it kinda goes against the whole theory of punk rock, you know?

Ramone: Yeah, but there's some moms that are pretty hip.

Holland: I guess so.

Ramone: My mom likes Motörhead and the Ramones.

Holland: She does? Really? That's rad.

Ramone: She's a wild one. She's an artist. I'm sure she'd like you guys also.

Holland: Tell her "Hi" for me.

Ramone: do you like to do on your day off?

Holland: I stay in bed. I'm usually pretty worked from touring and stuff. So, I like to stay in bed and watch Jenny Jones Oprah and drink Yoo Hoo's. Speaking of Yoo Hoo, I heard that you guys have 10 cases of Yoo Hoo on your rider.

Ramone: Yeah, it's a must. That's where we get all our essential vitamins and minerals so we can get up there and do what we do. Without that Yoo Hoo, I don't think we could do it.

Holland: I'll have to try that on the road and see how it works.

Ramone: It might be rough singing and drinking Yoo Hoo, though, 'cause all the mucus, you know. I had to give up drinking Yoo Hoo cause of the mucus; kind of a sticky situation. So, you told me that your favorite TV show was Jenny Jones? Which one did you like best?

Holland: I like the ones where they guys go out with these girls and they think they're girls but they're really guys. You got to check out that show, Joey. I go right from Jenny Jones to Sally Jessie to...

Seminara: Would you do one of those shows?

Holland: I don't know. If I had something interesting to talk about, maybe.

Ramone: You know they'd ask you: "What's with that Bo Derek hairstyle?"

Holland: That's true. I'd probably get in trouble.

Ramone: So, who's your favorite band, besides Aerosmith?

Holland: I like a lot of the alternative stuff. I really like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and stuff. I think that music's pretty cool right now.

Ramone: If you guys were a movie, what movie would you be and why?

Holland: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest because I always wanted to dress up like Nurse Rachet! Oh man, you're really putting me on the spot with some weird ones here.

Ramone: If your band were an animal which animal would it be... (They both crack up and the interview ends.)

By Joey Ramone, from Addicted To Noise