Everyone knows Tommy Ramone as the original drummer for iconic punk rock band The Ramones, but word is still getting out that he’s now one half of the alt/punk-bluegrass duo Uncle Monk. Lately, as Uncle Monk, Tommy Ramone — aka Tom Erdelyi — can be found playing mandolin with Claudia Tienan, who plays the guitar (they share vocal duties). But how can anyone forget his legacy as the drummer, manager, and producer of The Ramones? Luckily, traces of those days can still be found in Uncle Monk — innovation, melody, and a back-to-the-basics aesthetic are all still interests of Ramone’s. Yet Uncle Monk is clearly quite a different project; Ramone retreats from the busy city into the comforting, back-road earthiness of bluegrass and old-time music. Even though the days of CBGB are long past, it goes without saying that Tommy Ramone isn’t treading lightly into middle age.
Popcorn Youth: The Ramones are often credited as being the “first punk rock band.” Is Uncle Monk also as concerned with innovation and breaking new ground?
Tommy Ramone: I’ve always been very much into that – I’ve always liked to do something cutting-edge, for something fresh to bring in, finding new directions. I’m always looking for the “next new thing,” I guess I’ve always been like that.
Popcorn Youth: With Uncle Monk, you cite “old-time” music as being an influence. Are you trying to channel a nostalgia for a time that existed before The Ramones — and punk rock — even existed?
Tommy Ramone: initially, that’s what drew me to the music, the nostalgia — sort of “The Mayberry Effect,” sort of an escape — like the Twilight Zone, an imaginary place that’s bucolic, you know? Initially, that appeal was there for me, but I’ve been into this music all my life, I was introduced to it by my older brother when I was young so its always been with me.
Popcorn Youth: You were born in Hungary and raised in Queens, New York. Did you ever feel dislocated from where you were in relation to what you were listening to — that is, bluegrass?
Tommy Ramone: Well, the answer to that is somewhat complex. The roots of bluegrass music come from Europe, so it’s always been there. But my father was also very into country music — he liked that as soon as he came to the United States. So I was introduced to that at a very young age, and that appealed to me. A lot of Europeans find affinity with bluegrass and old-time music, and it’s understandable because a lot of that actually comes from ancient European sources. There’s definitely a connection there, but it really comes from the inside, you know?
Popcorn Youth: What was the initial impetus to form Uncle Monk? To forge a new identity, to show people what you’ve always been about, to set yourself apart from The Ramones?
Tommy Ramone: Initially, as I said, I always liked old-time and bluegrass music. I had a melodic indie rock band about ten or 12 years ago and basically I wanted to bring in the flavorings from bluegrass and old-time music into rock. And so we were doing that, but over the years, we started dropping one electric instrument after another, and enjoying ourselves more. Eventually, it was just the two of us and when we eventually got down to making the record, it was mostly acoustic. (Laughs) It was just sort of an evolution that just happened because it’s what we like doing and it’s what sounded the best to us.
Popcorn Youth: So when you perform live it’s just you and Claudia on the stage, with no percussion at all?
Tommy Ramone: Yes, that’s right.
Popcorn Youth: Is that intentional? You’re so famous for being this great drummer!
Tommy Ramone: Well, I play the mandolin, and that can be a very percussive instrument. The famous “mandolin chop” is basically a percussive element in bluegrass.
Popcorn Youth: What’s that?
Tommy Ramone: It’s called “the chop,” and it helps keep rhythm and sort of acts like a snare drum; it’s a very common element of bluegrass music. What Claudia does is play the bass and guitar at the same time, like the bass strings are for the bass sound, and in an interesting way. It’s different from the record itself; in the record, we play all these [different] instruments, but live we sort of funnel everything into these two instruments, and it creates the whole different thing altogether. By putting all the instruments into just two instruments, somehow you get something else, something extra, which is an interesting phenomenon — one we didn’t anticipate. Our live shows are very interesting, both sonically and how we actually perform.
Popcorn Youth: And when you’re in the studio, are you in charge of production?
Tommy Ramone: Yes, I produce and engineer them. The way we do it, it’s quite comfortable to make a record because it’s basically parlor instruments, so all we need is good microphones and a good amplifier. And with modern recording technology, we’re free to make a good sounding record at our leisure, so that we’ve been enjoying.
Popcorn Youth: Do you think that if you had this modern technology available to you in the mid to late 70s, that would have been something you would’ve taken advantage of?
Tommy Ramone: Oh, definitely. This modern technology is fantastic for freeing up people to create because it used to cost thousands and thousands of dollars to make a record, and plus you had limited use of the studio, so there were time constraints. [Now] the recording process has been made much more like painting or writing, where you could actually do this in your own time frame as opposed to going to a “music factory” and “create” something. But now you can create in a more creative way, like an artist or a writer does. So I think that’s wonderful.
Popcorn Youth: Did you ever see the role of being a producer as being “mature” in the trajectory of being in the rock’n’roll business?
Tommy Ramone: I started as a recording engineer. I started in the late 60s; I used to work at a record plant, which is a state of the art recording studio, and I was fortunate enough to work with Jimi Hendrix, you know? (Laughs) So it was a great place to learn, but I very much was into the recording world before and what happened with The Ramones.
The Ramones was a concept that I had after seeing the New York Dolls and I thought about these people I knew in Queens, New York who I thought would make an interesting band — and that’s how that whole thing got started. Turned out it was better than I could have imagined, because they came in and made all these interesting songs. So that was a plus. But originally, I was only into being a producer and engineering things.
Popcorn Youth: Is the songwriting process in Uncle Monk very different than The Ramones?
Tommy Ramone: There are similarities, there are differences. It is collaborative, but Claudia has a whole different flavor she brings to her songwriting than I do to mine. She has a different outlook and different interests and things, but we combine the two things. Her outlook and my outlook and mix them up with more of a multi-dimensional song. The Ramones I suppose were similar, but they were just different people with different ideas, so they would bring whatever they brought with them. But the process was, I suppose, similar.
Popcorn Youth: How would you describe the fans of Uncle Monk? Is it fans of bluegrass? Fans of you? Fans of Claudia? Fans of The Ramones?
Tommy Ramone: It’s been pretty much all of the above. A lot of people come to see us and go, “Wow, what is that?” They are startled to hear something — and they like it. It’s an interesting phenomenon. The other side of the coin is people who aren’t familiar with us, who basically are into bluegrass and old-time music and just come to see us, and they like it because they like the show we do and the songs. So you get a multifaceted [crowd] and it’s fortunately been very popular for us — knock on wood (Ramone knocks on wood, then laughs).
Popcorn Youth: Is there a common ground shared between punk rock and bluegrass, whether philosophical ideals or more technical, musical aspects?
Tommy Ramone: Oh yes, definitely, there are similarities between indie music and punk rock and old-time music, definitely. Music that’s homebrewed stuff, it’s not schooled. It’s people who get together and they can pick up an instrument and they can start creating really unique, emotionally charged music, without having to go to a conservatory. And they both have earthy energy. The feel of it comes from very close to human nature, so they have that in common. There’s a lot of similarities really. It’s just, one is acoustic, and one uses amplifiers and a lot of volume, but there’s still a major connection.
And such is my aesthetic, as far as what I like. I like things that are very — almost classically — simple, and a lot of meaty substance to it, and I think that’s what you get with old time music.
Popcorn Youth: Have you been touring overseas yet as Uncle Monk?
Tommy Ramone: No, not yet, we started very slowly, last March, at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, and we’ve been growing steadily. We hope to tour the U.S. soon and of course we’d love Europe and wherever they might want to see us in the future.
Popcorn Youth: Reflecting back upon the last several decades, has this felt like where you’ve always wanted to be, or is it all completely unexpected?
Tommy Ramone: No, I wanted to incorporate this type of music since before way back — at least 25, maybe 30, years. But I didn’t expect to go totally acoustic. What I thought I would be doing was a hybrid. But I’ve been in love with it all my life.
Popcorn Youth: Is there a reason why you’ve kept the Ramone last name as your identity?
Tommy Ramone: One was for recognition, and one was possibly because it seemed more suitable for the type of music we were doing, instead of the eastern European name, and also it’s part of my identity. I actually go by both names, but I think it makes it easier for different people to relate to me in different ways, and I’m comfortable with both.
Popcorn Youth: How important did the idea of location play into the idea of The Ramones’ popularity? That is, if The Ramones were conceived not in NYC but Seattle or Chicago would it have impacted how you would develop as a band? Could The Ramones have existed anywhere, or was it somehow intrinsically tied to NYC?
Tommy Ramone: As an identity, who we were, NYC was crucial. We came out of a scene that was influenced by Andy Warhol, the New York underground scene, the New York aesthetic. But we were also influenced by a lot of other things. We were influenced by the Midwest bands especially from Michigan, like The Stooges and the MC5; and also influenced by pop music in general, the history of rock and roll and things like that. But they wouldn’t’ve been “The Ramones” because NY itself was very much integral to what they were. We might have gotten bigger or more famous if we came from somewhere else though, you know? (Laughs) But the culture of NYC was very much inside of us.
Popcorn Youth: It’s often said that part of what The Ramones were reacting to in the mid 70s was the prevalence of disco culture. To what extent that is actually true?
Tommy Ramone: Well, we were reacting to more of what they call “progressive rock.” We wanted to bring back the concept of the three-minute song, which is odd to relate to now, because there’s been nothing but that since. (Laughs) In the early 1970s after FM radio took over, which is great, after The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, which is a great album, all of a sudden everybody tried to make these long songs. And what happened is that as the years went by, things got overblown. And the music got very self-indulgent and the musicianship started getting worse by worse with every band. So they were trying to do this long music with second-rate musicians, and it was this clutter of overblown sort of stylistic things that were going on. And we wanted to bring back the short three-minute song and bring back the feeling of pure rock’n’roll, that was one of the ideas that we had. We had a lot of ideas and thoughts about what was needed to revive music. We thought there was a need for a change.
Popcorn Youth: It’s interesting that you just used the word “revive,” because I’ve also read that you described the innovations of The Ramones at that time as being “futuristic” — that is, no one had done it yet. Could you elaborate on that idea?
Tommy Ramone: I was surprised at the songs that the guys were bringing in — I had never heard songs like that. When they were writing down songs, like “Judy is a Punk,” I heard this thing, something I had never heard before, and that this was something else, that there was another dimension in The Ramones. And that of course was very exciting because I couldn’t even imagine it, because how often does somebody come across something that is totally unique and new? And so I said, “Wow, this is amazing, this is really innovative new stuff,” so that’s what that was all about.
Popcorn Youth: The lean, two-minute rock’n’roll song that you describe has been much more prevalent in the last five or six years. Are there are any specific contemporary bands that remind you of perhaps a latter-day Ramones?
Tommy Ramone: Well, what I see sometimes is somebody coming up with an innovative idea or attempt at something new, so I see little bits and pieces of it. You know, in groups like The White Stripes or even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or countless others that bring in little bits and try to bring in new things and be innovative, so I see it all the time through generations and there’s always a chance that somebody will come along with a great innovative idea that will transform things.
Popcorn Youth: Do you think there could ever be a cohesive musical revolution comparable to punk rock in the 70s, or will it just be the bits and pieces that you just mentioned?
Tommy Ramone: One of the problems might just be that there are too many artists, and it just dilutes the field, and makes it a little bit harder for anybody to stand out. Another thing I wonder if the element of the economy, let’s say, or what’s happening in the world has a lot to do with it, I think it’s a combination of a lot of things. I think for something to develop, you need like … not so many people. In NYC at the time that we came along, it was pretty empty. There were no clubs, there was nothing, there was just a few bands that gathered, literally a handful of bands, that gathered at CBGB with similar ideals. And I don’t know if you needed that kind of environment to come up with something original or new, but certainly when there are thousands of bands competing with each other, things seem to get a little diluted, and also I don’t know if the incentive is much there either. I would imagine they are going for different goals, but who knows. There are so many ingredients things to these, it’s not just one thing or another, it’s a combination of things.
Popcorn Youth: What does it feel like on your side, to be basically legends, myths, officially written down in the books?
Tommy Ramone: It feels a little bit surrealistic (laughs). I feel very honored but also detached from it because in a way it’s unreal. It’s a head scratcher in a way. (Laughs) It’s very disconcerting and confusing and disorienting and all that. (Laughs)
Uncle Monk and the M Shanghai String band will play Castaways of Ithaca Saturday night, Dec. 9.