John Genzale was born July 15, 1952, and grew up in Queens, NY. As a youngster he played baseball but couldn't join the Little League as it required the presence of the youth's father . Under the name "Johnny Volume", Genzale began performing music in high school with "Johnny and the Jaywalkers"; after leaving that band, he joined "Actress", which featured future Dolls Arthur "Killer" Kane and Billy Murcia. "Actress" became the New York Dolls in 1971 and Genzale renamed himself Johnny Thunders.
After recording two critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful albums — The New York Dolls and Too Much Too Soon — the Dolls broke up. The early Dolls recordings are still in print today and continue to influence young bands with their trash/glam/punk attitude.
POST-New York Dolls
He formed The Heartbreakers with Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan, ex-Demons guitarist Walter Lure and Television bassist Richard Hell, who left soon after to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Hell was replaced by Billy Rath.
With Thunders leading the band, the Heartbreakers toured America and Britain, releasing one official album, L.A.M.F., in 1977. L.A.M.F. is a punk classic that documents the important bridge between the U.S. and U.K punk scenes. The group relocated to the UK, where their popularity was significantly greater than it was in the U.S., particularly among punk bands.
In late 1979 Thunders began performing in a band called Gang War. Other members included John Morgan, Ron Cooke, Philippe Marcade and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. They recorded several demos and performed live several times before disbanding, with Zodiac Records releasing an EP in 1987. Bootlegs of their demos and live performances are circulating; One semi-official live/studio vinyl only LP was released on Zodiac in 1990, credited to Thunders and Kramer and titled Gang War, it is easily available from specialist retailers.
Thunders recorded a number of solo albums beginning with So Alone in 1978. The album was laid down in drug laden sessions with all the swirling turbulence of an atomic explosion. The complex bittersweet sound is a standard that many bands aspire to emulate and it is universally hailed as Johnny Thunders' masterpiece. It featured guests such as Phil Lynott, Chryssie Hynde, Steve Marriott, Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Walter Lure, Billy Rath, and Peter Perrett of The Only Ones. The core of the band on the album included Thunders, Lynott, Cook, and Jones. After its release, Thunders and Sex Pistols ex-bassist Sid Vicious played in the Living Dead for a short time. The CD version of the album contains four bonus tracks, including the single "Dead or Alive," one of Thunders' finest post-Dolls moments.
During the early '80s, Thunders re-formed The Heartbreakers for various tours; the group recorded their final album in 1984.
In 1985, he released Que Sera Sera, a collection of new songs that showed he could still perform convincingly. Three years later he recorded an album of rock and R&B covers with vocalist Patti Palladin, Copy Cats.
Thunders kept performing and recording until his death in 1991, but problems with heroin addiction kept his output and songwriting sporadic during the 1980s.
Thunders always had a loyal following. No doubt there would be many more fans if not for the uneven performances and lack of good publicity. The flood of bootleg recordings has never slowed. Amongst his last recordings were the live concerts in Japan that show a mature, and surprisingly clean, Johnny Thunders.
Johnny Thunders, at rehearsal studio c. 1985-7His final recording was a cover of "Born to Lose" with German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, recorded some 36 hours before Thunders' death.
DEATH: Accident or Foul Play?
Many rumors surround Johnny's death at the St. Peter House in New Orleans, Louisiana in April, 1991. He apparently died of drug-related causes, but was it accidental or the result of foul play? According to the autobiography "Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones", Dee Dee Ramone took a call in New York the next day from Stevie Klasson, Johnny's rhythm guitar player. "They told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards. who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him. He had gotten a pretty large supply of methadone in England, so he could travel and stay away from those creeps - the drug dealers, Thunders imitators, and losers like that."[1]
What is known for certain is that Johnny's room (no. 37) was ransacked and most of his possessions were missing (passport, makeup, clothes). Rigor mortis had set in with his body positioned in an unnatural state, described by eyewitnesses as "like a pretzel," underneath a coffee table. Friends and acquaintances acknowledge he had not been using heroin for some time, relying on his methadone prescriptions. Surprisingly, the police did not open a criminal investigation.
Singer Willy DeVille, who lived next door to the hotel in which Thunders died, described his death this way:
I don't know how the word got out that I lived next door, but all of a sudden the phone started ringing and ringing. Rolling Stone was calling, the Village Voice called, his family called, and then his guitar player called. I felt bad for all of them. It was a tragic end, and I mean, he went out in a blaze of glory, ha ha ha, so I thought I might as well make it look real good, you know, out of respect, so I just told everybody that when Johnny died he was laying down on the floor with his guitar in his hands. I made that up. When he came out of the St. Peter's Guest House, riga mortis had set in to such an extent that his body was in a U shape. When you're laying on the floor in a fetal position, doubled over - well, when the body bag came out, it was in a U. It was pretty awful.[2]
An autopsy was conducted by the New Orleans coroner, but served only to compound the mysteries. According to Thunders' biographer Nina Antonia as posted on the Jungle Records web site, the level of drugs found in his system was not fatal.[1] And according to the book "Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon" by Pamela Des Barres who interviewed Thunders' sister Marion, the autopsy confirmed evidence of advanced leukemia, which would explain the decline in Thunders' appearance in the final year of his life. [2] This also sheds light on the interview in Lech Kowalski's documentary "Born To Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie", where Thunders' sister Mary-Ann's husband says, "Only Johnny knew how sick he really was."
In a 1994 Melody Maker interview Thunders' manager Mick Webster described the efforts of his family, "We keep asking the New Orleans police to re-investigate, but they haven’t been particularly friendly. They seemed to think that this was just another junkie who had wandered into town and died. They simply weren’t interested." Marion claims that the original police report is largely missing and Webster further explains that the Coroner who conducted the autopsy was fired for falsifying a report in another case.
