DeeDee Ramone

An instrumental figure in the rise of the punk movement, bassist/songwriter Dee Dee Ramone was the driving force behind much of cult heroes the Ramones' repertoire before embarking on an unpredictable solo career which veered wildly from hip-hop to tribute bands to visual art. Born in Fort Lee, VA in 1951 to an American soldier father and German mother, Douglas Glenn Colvin spent most of his childhood frequently relocating before moving to New York at the age of fifteen where he first became drawn to the seedier side of life. Inspired by the primitive garage rock of The Stooges and The New York Dolls, he teamed up with John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman to form the Ramones in 1974, where like his fellow bandmates, he adopted a new moniker: Dee Dee Ramone. Initially the lead vocalist, Ramone quickly switched to the bass after acknowledging that his vocals weren't up to scratch, and also became the group's most prominent songwriter, penning several of their most-well known hits including "53rd and 3rd," "Chinese Rocks" and "Poison Heart." An integral part of the New York CBGB scene, the Ramones helped to shape the punk sound with a run of late '70s albums which stripped rock n roll down to its bare essentials. However, Ramone began to grow tired of the band's leather-clad image and back-to-basics sound, and following a brief misguided venture into hip-hop with a much-maligned LP (Standing In The Spotlight) recorded under the guise of Dee Dee King, he officially left the group in 1989. Ramone's solo career was nothing if not eventful, with short-lived stints in punk outfits Sprokett, The Spikey Tops and Dee Dee Ramone & The Chinese Dragons, as well as a brief spell in transgressive punk rock icon GG Allin's backing band The Murder Junkies. Ramone's most successful venture arrived in the shape of Dee Dee Ramone I.C.L.C., which saw him team up with former Misguided bassist John Carco and Dutch drummer Danny Arnold Lommen, to record the 1994 LP, I Hate Freaks Like You. Ramone allowed some of the material intended for their unreleased sophomore to appear on The Ramones' 1995 final album, Adios Amigos, and following two more solo efforts, 1997's Zonked! and 2000's Hop Around, proved once again that he wasn't afraid to revisit his past by forming a tribute band, The Remainz, alongside latter-day Ramones C.J. and Marky, and his second wife, Barbara Zampini. Following their 2000 covers album, Greatest & Latest, Ramone's career veered off in another direction when he collaborated with punk veterans Youth Gone Mad for an eponymous album; he also collaborated with their frontman Paul Kostabi on several hundred paintings. Just months after joining the surviving members of The Ramones on stage for their 2002 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Dee Dee Ramone was found dead in his Hollywood apartment at the age of fifty, with a heroin overdose later confirmed as the official cause.