Tommy

Tommy Ramone was born Thomas Erdelyi In Budapest, Hungary but grew up in Queens one of the boroughs of New York City. Like his friend Johnny he was a student at Forest Hills High, and together they played in a band called The Tangerine Puppets, Tommy played lead guitar.

It was not too much later that the enterprising young Euroboy entered the music biz working at the Dick Charles recording studio, a place that gave birth to most of the staff for the original and prestigious Record Plant, where he was assistant engineer on the Jimmy Hendrix staff, this was the days of The Band of Gypsies.

By the time The Ramones started practicing Tommy and a partner (Monte Melnick) had a studio called Performance Studios where he allowed the young Ramones to come and rehearse. In those days Joey played the drums and Dee Dee sang lead but as Tommy's involvement with the band increased he soon realized Joey's potential as a front man, and when they could not find anybody to replace Joey on the drums Tommy became the Ramones drummer.

"Before that I'd never been behind a drum set in my life," said Tommy, who now was managing the band and was also a member.

As their career got on the fast track Tommy put on another hat and started to produce their recordings and was the associate producer for their first album Ramones and shared the producer's title with Tony Bongiovi on the followers Leave Home and Rocket to Russia.

This is how during his stay with the Ramones Tommy was a force on both management and creative aspects of the band's all-important Classic Period From 1974 to 1977 that includes the first three albums containing some of the best and most often performed songs on the band's live concerts.

When Tommy decided to return to "civilian life" his choice of course was music production. The artists he has worked with include The Replacements, Redd Kross, The Rattlers and The Talking Heads. In 1984 he produced one more album for the Ramones Too Tough To Die a fitting title to a reunion of old friends.

Source: Officialramones.com