Upon Rhino's June 19th re-release of Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket To Russia, and Road To Ruin, we figured we'd try and catch a glimpse of what is was like to be in the studio as those records went to tape. That's where Ed Stasium comes in.
Depending on whom you ask, Ed was either the fifth or sixth Ramone. In there with road manager Monte Melnick and latter-period producer Daniel Rey, Ed joined the happy family at pretty much ground zero when he signed on to record the Ramones' second album, Leave Home. He would go on to engineer and/or produce their next two records, Rocket To Russia and Road To Ruin -- often adding his own playing skills to the mix -- and rejoin the production fold years later for Too Tough To Die and Mondo Bizarro.
Ed's been plenty busy between then and now, twistin' knobs for lots of big-name artists like Talking Heads, Julian Cope, Motorhead, The Smithereens, and Mick Jagger, and nurturing passion projects like his current work-in-progress for Louisiana punk band Squint. These days he'd rather develop artists (remember that?) and cut impassioned tracks for budget-light youngsters than chase the paydays that come with the canned badasses he likes to refer to as "boy bands with tattoos."
Ed's a gentleman and a scholar (check out his weighty contribution to the liner notes to Rhino's Hey Ho Let's Go!: Ramones Anthology. He recently had me out to his L.A. home so we could talk some shop on Leave Home, Rocket To Russia, and Road To Ruin. Here's what he had to say about back in the day:
When you first signed on to engineer Leave Home, what had been your experience of the Ramones?
None whatsoever. I started out being in rock bands in New Jersey and started engineering in a little studio called Venture Sound in Silver Hill-a hole-in-the-basement kinda joint built by Tony Bongiovi and Tony Camello. I worked there for three years, and in '75 I moved up to Canada. Being north of Montreal, I didn't know anything of what was happening in New York. Then [on a trip to New York] I ran into Tony Bongiovi again, and he told me of his grandiose idea to build a new recording studio. He said, 'Why don't you come work for us? You can be chief engineer and produce records with me.' So I left Canada and came down to be the first employee of what was going to be The Power Station.
Tony was approached by Tommy Erdelyi (Ramone) around this same time in '76 to do their second record. I had never heard of the Ramones. I had no idea what they sounded like. I put up the faders and went, 'Oh my God, what is this?' It was shocking. I had never heard anything like that before. At that time I was listening to Peter Frampton, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac-you know, very safe, very nice. I very rapidly acclimated, like, 'Oh, this is really cool. This is what I used to do when I was 14 or 15 years old-just bang on a guitar, turn up the amp, and whack it out.' They were cool songs influenced by The Beatles, Beach Boys, Trashmen-underground kind of shit. I decided I liked it very quickly. I actually thought I was producing that record. I was very shocked when I got Leave Home back and the credit read, 'Tony Bongiovi & T. Erdelyi.' [Bongiovi said,] (high-pitched voice) 'They must've forgot ya, Eddy. Don't worry, we'll get you next time.' And I think they misspelled my name.
How did the recording process evolve over the course of Leave Home, Rocket To Russia, and Road To Ruin?
All the tracking sessions were set up-and-go. For Leave Home they set up to track, we did three songs, and then the rest the next day. It was really quick. We just basically double-tracked the guitars and put Joey's voice on, maybe a little percussion. The reason why the recordings became progressively more complicated was that the boys really wanted to have a hit record. So they deferred to myself and Tommy to augment what the Ramones were. They weren't selling records, so at the juncture of Rocket To Russia, they wanted to start making more of a production number out of it. I remember Johnny bringing in 'God Save The Queen.' He said, 'These guys copied us, and we want to sound better than this.' I said, 'We can sound better than that.' It was Johnny's idea to add acoustic guitar and cleaner guitars to several tracks.
Some of which you played, right?
I played a little bit on Rocket To Russia. I really started playing a lot more on Road To Ruin. On some of the songs I played everything -- even bass -- because that's the way it went. I became the fifth member. Daniel Rey became the fifth member later on, but early on it was me. And Tommy also played some of the guitars on Road To Ruin. Once Rocket To Russia was finished, they really wanted to crack it on the next record. So they were writing differently. They started putting little solos in, adding percussion. We spent the entire summer making Road To Ruin. Johnny basically said, (high-pitched voice) 'Eddy, you and Tommy finish that stuff up, put some good guitars on, and I'll come and listen to it when you're finished.' We did a lot of experimentation on Road To Ruin.
Dee Dee's Lobotomy book has you co-producing the next record, End Of The Century, with Phil Spector; but your credit reads 'Musical Director.' What was the story on that, and how did Phil Spector enter the picture?
Phil always wanted to produce the Ramones, ever since he saw them at The Whisky years before. He was bugging Seymour [Stein, head of Sire Records]: 'I wanna produce the Ramones, I wanna produce the Ramones.' And he was convinced that that record was going to be the biggest record ever made, bigger than Hotel California-the biggest record of his career, of my career, of the Ramones' career.
The boys wanted me there as an anchor, I suppose. At that time I was playing, too. I actually played guitar with the Ramones on all the tracking for that record. I also had to save the day a couple times because of Phil's eccentricities, to say the least. Yeah, I read something in Dee Dee's book like, 'I don't even think I played bass on the record. I left, and I came back and it was all done.' He did indeed play bass on the whole thing. He just doesn't remember (laughs).
Yeah, there's a lot of debauchery in that book, obviously. Did he pretty much park that stuff at the studio door?
I never saw anything crazy going on in the studio. When the Ramones were in the studio, it was work -- especially in Johnny's presence, because he was the taskmaster. The tracking was always done very rapidly; and once the tracking was done, Dee Dee was out of the picture. Maybe I saw him smoke a joint or something, but we all smoked joints back then. He was a great worker. These days I'm always doing bass over, but with Dee Dee, he was always locked with the drums-never had to redo his bass. What you got was what you got.
Around that same time you were working with the Talking Heads. How did the two experiences compare?
Whole different schools. The Ramones were punks on the street, and the Talking Heads were collegiate intellectuals. They were entire opposites on the spectrum. We cut both Leave Home and Talking Heads: 77 at the same studio, a place called Sundragon in New York, a very small, carpeted, dead-acoustic kind of place -- nothing like the places I've liked to work in for the last two decades. I guess you could call it a more intellectual approach [with the Talking Heads]. But, you know, same thing: tracking, overdub, put vocals on, mix it, put it out.
Do you know any bands today that record like the Ramones?
Actually, the band I'm working with right now, Squint. They're not Ramone-esqueî they're not the greatest musicians in the worldî but a great feel. They're not schooled, intellectual musicians, going, (English accent) 'I come from the Yngwie school of guitar playing.'
What was the most valuable thing you learned from working with the Ramones?
Patience. Listening to the artist. Since it was one of the first things I produced, I think the Ramones really helped me shape my production skills, especially in the fact that I helped them bring their vision to fruition. What they wanted to get is what I tried to get for them.
Is there anything that hasn't been said about Joey?
Joey was great. He was one of the most unusual and most enlightening people I've ever known. Always friendly, always up, no matter what the situation. Fought it to the bitter endî was always happyî thought he was gonna beat it. Too bad he didn't get to see these [reissues] come out. He did get to see his face on the cover of Spin magazine. They were never on the cover of Rolling Stone.
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