Richie Ramone

Richie Ramone (born Richard Reinhardt on 11 August 1956) is an American drummer best known for his five year stint as the drummer for the punk rock group the Ramones.

Richie Ramone joined the band around the time of the release of Subterranean Jungle in late 1982 and appears in two music videos from that album, although he did not play on the record itself. He also worked on the albums Too Tough to Die, Animal Boy and Halfway To Sanity. He also has one live album which was recorded on February 25, 1985 called Ramones Smash You: Live ’85. He penned the songs "Smash You," "Somebody Put Something in My Drink," "Humankind," "I'm Not Jesus," "I Know Better Now" and "(You) Can't Say Anything Nice."

He left the band abruptly in August 1987 allegedly because of a dispute over money. According to interviews in the film End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, he quit after the three original members refused to evenly share the money from t-shirt sales with him. Subsequently, Ramone worked on some of Dee Dee's solo recordings. He was briefly replaced by Elvis Ramone (aka Clem Burke of Blondie and Romantics fame): after Elvis played just two gigs, Richie's predecessor Marky Ramone rejoined the band and stayed until the band broke up in 1996.

Ramone is still very actively involved with music, as a composer and instrumentalist. In August 2007, he debuted a classical composition entitled "Suite for Drums and Orchestra" (based on themes from West Side Story) with the Pasadena Pops. Ramone was both the featured soloist and the concerto's co-composer. The work was commissioned by Pops music director Rachael Worby.

In September 2007, Ramone filed a federal lawsuit entitled Reinhardt v. Wal-mart Stores, Inc. et al. in the Southern District of New York. He alleged that the copyright on the six tunes he wrote for the Ramones had been infringed when the band's management licensed the band's recordings for sale as digital downloads. The defendants were Wal-mart Stores, Inc., Apple, Inc., RealNetworks, Inc., Taco Tunes, Inc., Ramones Productions, Inc., Estate of John Cummings, Herzog & Strauss, and Ira Herzog (i.e., he was suing the band, its managers, its publishing company, and three leading sellers of digital downloads.) Judge Shira A. Scheindlin dismissed the case in May 2008, on the grounds that no copyright infringement had occurred, even though she acknowledged that there might be other unsettled issues between Richie Ramone and his former band.

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