WEBVTT - Johnny Thunders: Murder or Overdose? 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:21.400 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:25.680 story about heartbreakers. It's about a hotel room and a 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.160 body on the floor. It's about corporate rock dreams and 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.760 punk junkie nightmares and the distance between the two. It's 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.000 also a story about conspiracy theories and rock and roll myths, 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:43.159 about self fulfilling prophecies and stacks of missing cash. This 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.600 is a story about Johnny Thunders, which means it's a 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:52.120 story about great music, some of the greatest and most 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.360 authentic music to come out of the punk era and beyond. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.160 Unlike that clip I played for you at the top 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.640 of the show that wasn't great music. That was a 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:06.000 preset loop for my melotron called second Line Stompbox MK. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:06.839 Two. 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.200 I played you that loop because I can afford the 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:14.399 rights to You're in Love by Wilson Phillips. And why 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.479 would I play you that specific slice of Nepo Cheese? 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.520 Could I afford it? Because that was the number one 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.280 song in America on April twenty third, nineteen ninety one, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:28.319 And that was the day that Johnny Thunders was found 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.399 dead in a New Orleans hotel, his money, guitars, and 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.680 clothes gone and the rest of the story already beginning 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:42.040 to write itself. On this episode rock and Roll myths, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:47.280 self fulfilling prophecies, Heartbreakers, Junkies, and Johnny Thunders. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:49.640 I'm Jake Brennan. 0:01:50.000 --> 0:02:17.400 In this this disgrace slant. When you think of a 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.200 musical icon who was the walking, talking definition of how 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.680 rock and roll looks and sounds and feels, which is 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:29.360 to say, raw, switchblade sharp and effortlessly cool, and who 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:34.040 also possessed both street tough swagger and deep vulnerability, you 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.320 think of Johnny Thunders. He's your favorite rock and rollers, 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.600 favorite rock and roller, whether you're down with Joe Strummer, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.720 Nikki six, Paul Westerberg, the Cults, Billy duffy Ear, social distortions, 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.760 Mike Ness first in The New York Dolls and later 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:55.000 in The Heartbreakers. In his own solo career, Johnny Thunder's 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:59.760 distilled rebellion attitude and god given musicality down to a 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:04.400 high I proof red hot essence. But one of the 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:09.080 reasons that Johnny Thunders was this mythic avatar was because 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.000 he embodied the whole package of rock and roll, the good, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.600 the bad, and the ugly. He was an addict he 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.639 was self destructive, and at the age of thirty eight, 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:29.160 he was dead. Chapter one. The body in Room thirty seven. 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.680 The Saint Peter House hotel, these days known as the 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.920 Inn on Saint Peter sits on the corner of Saint 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.800 Peter in Burgundy Streets, in the heart of the French 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.840 Quarter in New Orleans. Built in the year eighteen oh five, 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.760 it's a quintessential Crescent City building with Spanish style architecture 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.600 and a wrap around second floor balcony. It was here 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.000 on the afternoon of Tuesday, April twenty third, nineteen ninety one, 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.800 that housekeeper Mildred Coleman was going from room to room 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.400 making her usual rounds, swapping out towels and trash bags 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.840 and so on. At three point thirty she arrived in 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.440 Room thirty seven. She knocked on the door. There was 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.599 no answer. The room number stuck out in her mind 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.119 because earlier that morning, at around eight am, the front 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.880 desk clerk had called Room thirty seven after a series 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.280 of loud, disturbing noises. The occupant had answered and the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.000 noises had ceased, But now there was an absence of 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.080 sound coming from inside the room. Mildred knocked again and nothing. Now, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.719 this wasn't unusual. Hotel guests were in and out at 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.560 all times of the day and night. So she pulled 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.080 a key from her pocket, slid it into the lock, 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.400 turned the handle, and pushed the door open. The rank 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.680 smell of sweat hit her nose first, and there was 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.120 something else too, something rancid, but she couldn't put her 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:59.240 finger on it. The room was a mess, the sheet's 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:02.039 been ripped for the and what appeared to be empty 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.839 prescription pill bottles were strewn across the floor. And then 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.640 Mildred saw him, the occupant of Room thirty seven one, 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:17.760 John Gonzale aka Johnny Thunders. He was lying on the floor, 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.920 stuffed halfway under the dresser. His body was bent into 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:26.719 a shape like the letter U. Mildred gasped instinctively, throwing 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.360 her hand up to cover her mouth, and the next 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:37.720 thing she knew, she was screaming. Across the street from 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.320 the Saint Peter House, singer songwriter Willie Deville, formerly of 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.320 CBGB Mainstay's mate, Deville, sat on a stoop outside his apartment, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.400 strumming an acoustic guitar. Just one year prior, Willy had 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.760 beaten Johnny to his dream of coming to New Orleans 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.880 making an R and B record with local musicians. But 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.200 now it was Johnny's turn to beat Willie. Johnny Thunders 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.320 over here, burning out while Willie Deville merely faded away. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.560 Willie watched as police cars began flooding the corner outside 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.560 the hotel. A short while later, the cops carried Johnny's 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.440 body out. Willie had seen a lot of things, but 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.400 he'd never seen a body contorted into a shape like 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:20.080 a pretzel before. It was so undignified. But Willy knew 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.960 his friend deserved more, and he also knew that rock 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.359 and roll was nothing without its myths. So when the 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.919 local press started to sniff around when they asked questions, 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.120 Willie Deville lied and told them that Johnny had died 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.560 with his guitar in his hands. In reality, though Johnny 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:43.159 Thunder's guitar was gone, Johnny had been robbed blind, so 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:47.479 it appeared. But New Orleans PD they didn't care about 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.200 a dead junkie's missing stuff. All they were interested in 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.040 was closing the case and closing it fast. 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:55.640 So that's what they did. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:07:00.000 Six days later, on April twenty ninth, the City Corners 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.360 Office investigator John Gagliano told the Associated Press that Johnny 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.520 Thunders had died of an overdose due to the quantity 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.440 of methadone and cocaine found in his body. In their eyes, 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.480 it was open and shut. A drug fiend is as 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.000 a drug fiend does, and all of that, and some 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:20.360 of Johnny's friends, like Willie Deville across the street with 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.800 his guitar, weren't all that surprised. For others, however, not 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.120 only was the CoP's conclusion wrong, it had all the 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.760 signs of a cover up. And that's when the truth 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:41.480 came calling. Dede Ramone picked up the phone while scratching 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.680 away at his BedHead. His bleary eyes could hardly make 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.960 out the time of the clock. Yeah, he snarled into 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.960 the receiver. Dede. A voice was saying, it's Stevie. At 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:57.040 this Dede Ramone sobered up a bit enough to comprehend 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:58.320 what Stevie was about. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:07:59.160 To tell him. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.680 Stevie was the other guitarist in Johnny Thunder's a touring 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.920 band at the time of Johnny's death, and Deede knew 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.840 he was hurting. Dede, for one, had his own complicated 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.520 relationship with Johnny thunders over the years. Years ago, that 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.360 little shit had stolen d De's song Chinese Rocks, made 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.800 it his own, and then when he was deep into 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.560 the throes of junkie addiction, Johnny thunders well, he reverted 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.440 to junkie compulsions like stealing Dde's shit so that he 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.400 could sell it for more drugs. And at some point 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:33.600 d d Ramone had just had enough, so he poured 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.040 Dreno or chlorox or some chemical cleaning agent he couldn't 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.720 exactly remember. He poured it all over Johnny's stuff, and 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.560 then he pissed on Johnny's clothes, and then the piece 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.000 there was the stalls. He took Johnny's guitar, one of 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.360 those cheap less Paul Juniors that he loved so much, 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.600 and he broke that fucker in half. These were the 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.120 thoughts running through d de Ramon's head as Stevie was 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.240 telling him all about what had happened at the hotel 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.360 in New Orleans. That when the cops got to Johnny's room, 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:02.840 all they found were empty bottles of methadone and a 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.559 single syringe floating in the toilet. Everything else was gone, 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.640 his guitars, those nice silk suits that he bought on 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.480 the road, his drugs, his passport, and here was the 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:18.600 real kicker. Thousands of dollars in cash just disappeared. We're 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.079 talking ten, maybe twenty thousand dollars total. And the pieces 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.319 of trash who stole all those things, These vultures, disguised 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.920 as so called friends. They made Johnny Thunders their mark. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.800 As soon as he rolled into town wearing those nice threads, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:37.880 his pockets lined with money, they took him out, stroked 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.839 his ego, This punk poet laureate who never really got 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.560 his due, especially here in the States, but he got 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.080 it that night. And once they gave it to him. 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.080 Once they lulled him into a doped up complacency with 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.040 hero worship and drugs, that's when they went in for 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.920 the kill. It was true what the cops said. Johnny 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.200 did die of an overdose, but the overdose wasn't delivered 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.120 by his own hand, and he was given a hot 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:07.200 shot by some thieving degenerates. To put it plainly, Johnny 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:40.240 Thunders was murdered. Chapter two, Born to Lose, Tom Petty 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.160 and the Heartbreakers. Who the fuck are those guys? Were 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:49.200 the heartbreakers? Jerry Nolan, one of Johnny's closest friends and 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.960 his drummer, first in the New York Dolls and now 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.439 a member of Johnny's new band, the Heartbreakers. The original 0:10:56.480 --> 0:11:00.200 Heartbreakers that is not that big toothy Tom Petty, his 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.480 so called Heartbreakers. Jerry Nolan. He was reading all about 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.079 this Tom Petty character in the paper and getting more 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.680 and more pissed off with every word. It was nineteen 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:15.320 seventy six. Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers were everything that Tom Petty's 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:16.480 Heartbreakers were not. 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:18.320 Tom Petty was. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.040 The corporate rock dream. Johnny Thunders was the punk junkie nightmare. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.000 No one wanted to sign Johnny Thunders and his band. 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:28.960 They were dopers and dropouts and weren't to be trusted. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.560 They missed shows, they shot heroin. Never mind, they were 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.320 playing some of the most thrilling rock and roll in 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.280 the world at the time. As one critic wrote in 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.360 the UK after seeing a Heartbreakers show, quote, the band 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.000 plays rock and roll like guns, fire bullets, like steamrollers, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.720 flat and tarmac like thunder, rolls like trees, fall like 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.760 hell like you've never heard before. Unquote. It's ironic because 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.760 besides the music, all the other things that made Johnny 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.959 Thunders and the Heartbreakers super authentic were the same things 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.880 that made them a bad investment. They were, as Johnny 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.640 sang in one of his trademark songs, born to Lose, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.959 Tom Petty clearly could not relate Tom Petty, Jerry Nolan said, 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.600 was born to be punched. Fuck it, Johnny said, let's 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.600 call ourselves the junkies instead. Are you fucking kidding man? 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.560 We'll never get airplay with a name like that. Who 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.760 needs airplay? Johnny left, I'd rather get a reaction, getting 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.400 a reaction, getting attention. That was the true meaning of 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:32.680 rock and roll in the eyes of Johnny Thunders. And 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.840 when attention finally came, it didn't come from America, but 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.080 instead from across the pond, first in the form of 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.520 the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, who got the Heartbreakers 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:44.679 booked on a tour with The Pistols and The Clash, 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.319 and then via Chris Stamp and Kim Lambert, the Who's 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.280 former managers who signed the Heartbreakers to their labeled track records. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.160 Johnny and Jerry, along with guitarist Walter Lore and bassist 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:59.840 Billy Rath, who'd replaced original member Richard Hell, soon found 0:12:59.880 --> 0:13:05.760 them in a London recording studio making a record. That record, LAMF, 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.520 which was a notorious New York City graffiti tag that 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.160 Warren gangs used to scare each other off with and 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.400 which stood for like a motherfucker, which is also permanently 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.440 inked on my arm. But I digress. LAMF should have 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:19.600 been one of the biggest records of the newly emerging 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.560 punk rock movement when it was released in nineteen seventy seven. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.120 I mean it is one of the greatest, but it's 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.160 not as ubiquitous as records by the Ramones, the Clash 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.720 and the Pistols. And there are a few reasons for 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.319 this one. The band wrestled over how the record should sound, 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.120 which resulted in a really muddy mix when it was 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:43.360 first pressed two LAMF never got a US release. In fact, 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.000 it wasn't issued stateside until just a few years ago. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.440 In three Track Records went bankrupt shortly after the album 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:55.960 hit store shelves. Unlike Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.880 did not survive. They were over before Tom's second album 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:05.920 even dropped, and so Johnny Gonzale, a one time teenage 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.839 baseball prodigy from queens who gave the cold shoulder to 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.960 Major league scouts so that he could court a life 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.560 out on the skids, where self sabotage was a badge 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.920 of honor, a boy who re christened himself Johnny Thunders, 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.120 anome de rock stolen either from a DC Comics character 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.760 or a Kink song, depending on which version of the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.680 story speaks to you today. The Great Johnny Thunders made 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.160 his equally great solo debut album, So Alone, in nineteen 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.360 seventy eight, at the age of twenty five. So Alone 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.800 is tremendous stuff. It's got instant classic original songs like 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.680 you Can't Put your Arms Around a Memory. It's got 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:43.040 covers of tunes by surf and girl groups like the 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.040 Chantas and the Shangri Las, and it's got supporting performances 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.600 by who's who of rockers at the time, the Pretender's 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.080 Chrissy Hine, the Sexpistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook, Did 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.560 Lizzie's Phil Linet, and Steve Marriott from The Small Faces 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:01.040 in Humble Pie. But like Lamf before it, So Alone 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.280 never got released in the States, and despite the noise 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:06.840 being made out on the margins by punks like Johnny 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:11.240 Thunders nineteen seventy eight was actually ruled by the Beg's 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.360 Saturday Night Fever in Billy Joel's fifty second Street, at 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.920 least in America. Whatever America could have its Tom Petty, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.680 it's Billy fucking Joel, and it could have John Travolta 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:28.600 peacocking down the streets of Brooklyn. Johnny Thunders meanwhile, went 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.480 looking for action in a part of the world that 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.680 paid him some well deserved respect, and that paid him 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.120 in cash. And it was there that Johnny wasn't just 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:44.640 a hot ticket, he was a front page news nineteen 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:49.360 eighty two, Stockholm suite. Johnny Thunders tried to ration out 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:51.640 the dope so that it would last him three four 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.480 days at least. But this time, just like every other time, 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.960 he couldn't help himself. He did it all, and doing 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.680 it all doesn't mean he to too much. He knew 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.600 what he could tolerate, exactly how much would get him 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.040 off without taking him too far over the edge. But 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:10.760 now as the plane hit the tarmac, he was no 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.200 longer holding, and none of the other guys in the 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.040 band were either. He downed the last of the methadone 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.880 like a cold cherry coke. And speaking of coke, coke, 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.480 the powdered kind that was gone too. Someone had told 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.960 him that Sweden put little stashes of valume in the 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.760 medical emergency boxes on airplanes. So now he and his 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.840 bass player at the moment, Luigi Scortia, were trying to 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:34.800 break open the little red box like a couple of 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.480 dope sit prospectors at the head of a rumored gold mine. 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.760 And they were doing this despite the very loud and 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.640 urgent protesting of the stewardesses who were reminding Johnny and 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.840 Luigi and broken English, the passengers were not allowed to 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.000 tamper with the emergency kits. The stewardess has figured something 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.480 like this would happen. Johnny Thunders had been in the 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.080 country for only a few days and already he was 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.400 the talk of the town, as they say, but not 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.000 in a good way. The local papers set it all 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:06.240 A drugged human wreck, read one such headline, and stark 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:12.240 black faunt and another simply said burnt out wasted. Just 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:15.880 days earlier, Johnny had performed on a popular primetime Swedish 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:16.640 television show. 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.040 He showed up three hours late to. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.600 The taping, only to stumble around the stage, slithering, slouching, 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.320 sliding into the audience and slurring his words. And there 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:28.280 was a tinge of resentment, and every single word he 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.159 spoke and every movie made as if he'd forgotten that 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.720 this country, this show, this packed house, unlike some other 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.600 places back home, they all actually wanted him there. It 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:40.560 was like he looked out at the crowd and suddenly 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.840 was somewhere else. The punk junkie nightmare was never ending, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.680 and now here was Johnny Thunders, the villain and the victim, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.920 stepping off the plane in Stockholm, thinking he was about 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.520 to go play another show, only to walk into the 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.919 arms of several impatient police officers who had been no 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:05.520 id ahead of time by the concerned stewardesses. Johnny had 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.640 no dope, not even that elusive, fabled stash of value, 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.080 and if they were taking him away, then the tour 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:17.480 was canceled for sure, which meant Lesto coming in. All while, 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.679 that other more famous heartbreaker, Tom Petty, was writing a 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.080 big video hit on the Idiot Box with his song 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.920 you Got Lucky. Johnny laughed just thinking about it. He 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:33.080 had Tom, You're one lucky fuck one lucky MTV approved 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:41.200 fuck and Johnny Johnny was born to lose. That wasn't 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.920 just a song or a manifesto. It was a prophecy, 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.240 but was it a self fulfilling one? As the weeks 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.800 and months and years rolled on. That's what audiences wanted 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.560 to know, and that's what drew them to the shows. 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.600 More than Johnny's talent, or his legend or any of it. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.239 They wanted to be there when it happened, watching it 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:07.480 like a car wreck in slow motion, Watched Johnny Lou's control, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:17.600 watched Johnny fall down, Watch Johnny die, We'll be right 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:27.440 back after this. We're We're, We're Chapter three, Hard Times 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:33.520 and the Big Easy. Johnny Thunders was in Japan, but 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.399 he was dreaming of New Orleans. He was playing his 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:40.600 friend Willie Deville's latest album, Victory Mixture on repeat on 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.040 the tour bus. Willy made the record in New Orleans 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.640 with local legends like Doctor John Alan Hussaint and the Meters. 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.040 You never know that the guy singing these tunes got 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.600 to start playing grimy New York institutions like Maxis Kansas City. 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.720 Willy sounded like the real article, and what he created 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.280 with this record was a exactly the sort of thing 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.520 that Johnny had wanted to do for some time now, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.679 but Johnny had no time at the present. He was 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.560 preparing to record an album of sixties cover songs with 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.920 some Japanese musicians, and he had plans for an acoustic 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.840 album as well. He continued to use but once again 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.960 as supply had run out and he became so dope 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:22.720 sick that he had to be checked into a hospital 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.320 in Tokyo. If doctors there saw the lump on his neck, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.880 they didn't say anything. People were used to seeing all 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.880 kinds of abnormalities on Johnny's skin. Heartbreaker Walter Lore once 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.159 said that Johnny's arms and legs were covered in so 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:41.680 many track marks that they looked like pizza slices, which 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:43.800 means that some strange new lump was going to have 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:48.280 to work overtime to really stand out as a problem. Besides, 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:51.639 Johnny had other problems like this need for a fix. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:52.800 He hopped a. 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.480 Plane to London, picked up a prescription of methadone that 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.880 was waiting for him, and then it was on to Germany, 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:00.960 where he was booked for a couple of shows. When 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.320 all was said and done, he had a decent amount 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:06.639 of cash on his person, somewhere between ten and twenty grand, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.800 and he also had a little time off, and as 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.480 the musical Gumbo of Willie Deville played once more on 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.119 the tour bus's stereo, Johnny knew exactly where he was 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:21.359 going to go next. By the time Johnny Thunders arrived 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.240 in New Orleans for what would be the last night 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.760 of his life, the evening of April twenty second, nineteen 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.719 ninety one, he was both everywhere and nowhere. His style, 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.439 his swagger, even just the way he held the guitar 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:38.000 was reflected across the entirety of the rock spectrum, from 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.879 Guns n' roses is he straddling to Johnny Marv the 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.240 Smiths to a veritable Rogues gallery of big hair having 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.320 charp mainstays like Motley Crue and Bon Jovi. But although 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:53.040 his influence ran deep, it ran silent too. Few knew 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.920 that Johnny Thunders was such an inspiration on nineteen eighties 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.800 and nineteen nineties rock and roll, and fewer still knew 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.720 his name. It wasn't for lack of trying. At one 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.800 point he formed a new group called Gang War with 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.600 Wayne Kramer, the MC five, who was fresh out of 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.160 federal prison at the time, and later he assembled another 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.560 group called Kosinostra with a few of his former heartbreakers, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.320 and neither band lasted. The simple reason this brother Wayne Kramer, 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.760 once put it was due to the fact that quote 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.080 Johnny was impossible to work with because he had another 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:30.399 job that was more important Unquote. Then that other job 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.639 was his dope habit. It kept him scrambling from playing 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.879 to plane, gig to gig, one cash payment to the next, 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.160 always cash. It kept him ignoring the sores, the lumps, 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.159 the pains that had at this point become commonplace. And 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:48.440 when the money stopped coming in for a spell, when 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.439 he blew it all on another cold, sweaty palmful of 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:56.040 handshake drugs, he got desperate, and desperation made him ugly. 0:22:57.119 --> 0:22:59.199 It's been alleged that he once hunted down as a 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:02.320 strange wife Julie, who had long since bailed with their 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:04.960 two kids and who was also pregnant with a third, 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:07.359 and when he found her, he beat her up and 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:08.879 stole her welfare money. 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:10.919 That's how low. 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.520 His other job made him go, and tonight Johnny was 0:23:15.560 --> 0:23:19.080 going even lower. Tonight he was going to find out 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.239 that there really was a bottom, and when he hit it, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:27.960 there was no coming back. Johnny thunder Is bellied up 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.280 to the bar and ordered a brandy. He could hear 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.679 someone singing outside, some random reveler out there in the 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:36.560 middle of the street. From elsewhere. The strains of a 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.119 Dixieland jazz band floated on in the wind. That's what 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.880 he loved about this town. Music ran through New Orleans's blood. 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:48.080 New York was similar, but his hometown had become hazardous 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:50.879 to his health. He knew all the right places to 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.119 get all the wrong things in New York, and he 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:55.560 knew exactly who to talk to for a bendal of 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:58.840 this or a vial of that. Here in New Orleans, 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.639 like in Japan in Germany, the temptation wasn't so easy 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:06.439 to locate, or so went the magical thinking of the 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:11.399 punk junkie nightmare. Because temptation vice bad decisions of all kinds. 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:15.800 Johnny attracted these things like a magnet. The all black 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:19.520 city was wearing only emphasized his ghastly white skin, and 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:21.960 the sweat running down the sides of his gaunt face 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:26.480 told a story of desire, submission, and detachment. He turned 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:29.400 to his left, and then to his right, and here 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.240 was temptation and vice sitting on either side of him 0:24:32.240 --> 0:24:37.480 at the bar. Here were two brothers, Mark and Michael Rix, 0:24:38.080 --> 0:24:40.439 two locals Johnny had met when he checked into the 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:44.000 Saint Peter House Hotel. Two guys now getting shit faced 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:49.520 with the flush, Johnny thunders they weren't alone. The brother's friend, Stacy, 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:52.000 Michael's X, came along to see where the knight would 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:55.080 take them. She had seventy bucks burning a hole in 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:57.320 her pocket from turning tricks earlier that day on the 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:00.199 seatier side of the French Corner, the same side they 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:03.520 were all on. Now, decide where you could get whatever 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:06.360 you wanted for a couple of bucks, For a few 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:09.400 bucks more, you could get more than you ever thought possible. 0:25:10.440 --> 0:25:12.879 Johnny knocked back the rest of his brandy, slammed the 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:14.920 glass down on the dirty bar in front of him, 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:18.560