Richard Hell | |
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 Richard Hell at Club Citta in Japan, early 90s | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Richard Lester Meyers (1949-10-02)October 2, 1949 (age 76) |
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| Years active | 1972–present |
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| Formerly of | |
| Website | www |
Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949),[1] better known by his stage nameRichard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer.
Hell was in several important earlypunk rock bands, includingNeon Boys,Television andthe Heartbreakers, after which he formedRichard Hell & the Voidoids. Their 1977 albumBlank Generation influenced many other punk bands. Itstitle track was named "One of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock" by music writers in theRock and Roll Hall of Fame listing[2] and is ranked as one of the all-time Top 10 punk songs by a 2006 poll of original British punk figures, as reported in theRough Guide to Punk.[3]
Since the late 1980s, Hell has devoted himself primarily to writing, publishing two novels and several other books. He was the film critic forBlackBook magazine from 2004 to 2006.[4]
Richard Lester Meyers was born inLexington, Kentucky, in 1949.[5] His father was Jewish,[6][7] and anexperimental psychologist researchinganimal behavior. He died when Hell was seven years old. Hell was then raised by his mother,Carolyn H. Rhodes, who came from Welsh and English ancestry.[8] After her husband's death, she returned to school and became a professor.[9]
Hell attended theSanford School inDelaware for one year, where he became friends with Tom Miller, who later changed his name toTom Verlaine.[10] They ran away from school together and a short time later were arrested in Alabama for arson and vandalism.
Hell never finished high school, instead moving to New York City to make his way as a poet. In New York he met fellow young poet David Giannini, and moved toSanta Fe, New Mexico, for several months, where Giannini and Meyers co-foundedGenesis:Grasp. They used an AM VariTyper with changeable fonts to publish the magazine.[11] They began publishing books and magazines, but decided to go their separate ways in 1971, after which Hell created and published Dot Books.
Before he was 21, his own poems were published in numerous periodicals, ranging fromRolling Stone to theNew DirectionsAnnuals. In 1971, along with Verlaine, Hell also published under the pseudonym Theresa Stern, a fictional poet whose photo was actually a combination of both his and Verlaine's faces indrag, superimposed over one another to create a new identity.[12] A book of poems credited to "Stern",Wanna Go Out?, was released by Dot in 1973.[13]
In 1972, Verlaine joined Hell in New York and formed the Neon Boys.[5] In 1974, the band added a second guitarist,Richard Lloyd, and changed their name toTelevision.[5]
Television's performances atCBGB helped kick-start the first wave of punk bands, inspiring a number of different artists includingPatti Smith, who wrote the first press review of Television for theSoHo Weekly News in June 1974. She formed a highly successful band of her own,the Patti Smith Group.[14] Television was one of the early bands to play at CBGB because their manager,Terry Ork, persuaded ownerHilly Kristal to book them alongside theRamones. They also built the club's first stage. Hell started playing his punk rock anthem "Blank Generation" during his time in Television. In early 1975, Hell parted ways with Television after a dispute over creative control.[5] Hell claimed that he and Verlaine had originally divided the songwriting evenly, but that later Verlaine sometimes refused to play Hell's songs. Verlaine remained silent on the subject.
Hell left Television the same week thatJerry Nolan andJohnny Thunders quit theNew York Dolls. In May 1975, the three of them formedthe Heartbreakers (not to be confused withTom Petty's band, which adopted the same name the following year).[5] After one show,Walter Lure joined the Heartbreakers as a second guitarist. Four Heartbreakers demo tracks, recorded while Hell was still in the band, were later released on that band'sL.A.M.F. Definitive Edition reissue. A live album recorded with Hell in 1975 was released asWhat Goes Around... in 1991.
In early 1976, Hell quit the Heartbreakers and started Richard Hell and the Voidoids withRobert Quine,Ivan Julian andMarc Bell.[5] The band released two albums, though the second,Destiny Street, retained only Quine from the original group, with Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar andFred Maher on drums. Hell's best known songs with the Voidoids included "Blank Generation",[15] "Love Comes in Spurts",[5] "The Kid With the Replaceable Head" and "Time". In 2009, the guitar tracks onDestiny Street were re-recorded and released asDestiny Street Repaired, with guitarists Julian,Marc Ribot andBill Frisell playing to the original rhythm tracks.[16] Also in 2009, Hell gave his blessing to the public access programPancake Mountain to create an animated music video for "The Kid with the Replaceable Head".[17] It was the Voidoids' first and only official music video. The cut used for the animation appears on Hell's 2005 retrospective album,Spurts, The Richard Hell Story.
Hell's only other album release was as part of the bandDim Stars, for which he came out of retirement for a month in the early 1990s. Dim Stars featured guitaristThurston Moore and drummerSteve Shelley fromSonic Youth,Gumball's guitaristDon Fleming, and Quine. They formed only to record a 1991 EP and a 1992 album, both titledDim Stars, and played one show in public, aWFMU benefit atThe Ritz in Manhattan. Hell played bass, sang lead vocals and wrote the lyrics for the album.
Hell also guested on the 1993Roller Coaster album by Shotgun Rationale, and co-wrote and sang lead vocals on the song "Never Mind" by the Heads, a 1996 collaborative effort between three former members ofTalking Heads.
The Voidoid, a novella written in 1973, was finally published by CodeX in 1993.[13] It was reissued in 2009 by 38th Street Publishers with illustrations by Kier Cooke Sandvik.[18] His early poetry collections includeI Was a Spiral on the Floor (1988) andAcross the Years (1992), both published by Soyo Publications.[13]Artifact: Notebooks from Hell 1974–1980, a collection of his punk-era journals, was released in 1990 by Hanuman Books.[19][20] In 1996,Scribner published Hell's first full-length novel,Go Now, set in 1980 and drawn largely from his own experiences.[13] Hell released a collection of short pieces (poems, essays and drawings) calledHot and Cold in 2001.[13] His second novel,Godlike, was published in 2005 byAkashic Books as part ofDennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery Series.[13][21] Also published in 2005 wasRabbit Duck, a book of 13 poems written in collaboration withDavid Shapiro. More recent works includePsychopts (2008), a collaboration with artistChristopher Wool, as well asDisgusting (2010) andI Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp (2013).[22]
Hell's nonfiction has been widely anthologized, including a number of appearances in "best music writing"[23] collections.The Toilet Paper Columns (2007) compiled his columns for the Colorado alternative magazineToilet Paper,[24] whileMassive Pissed Love: Nonfiction 2001-2014 was issued bySoft Skull Press in 2015. Hell's archive of his manuscripts, tapes, correspondence (written and email), journals and other documents of his life was purchased for $50,000 byNew York University'sFales Library in 2003.
A mural in Hell's hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, created by students from LexingtonMontessori High School, was completed in June 2019. The mural, located in the city's North Limestone neighborhood, has three parts: two profiles of Hell, and a quote from his autobiography,I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp.[25] "This was in Lexington, Ky. when everybody was a kid. I looked for caves and birds and ran away from home. My favorite thing to do was to run away. The words ‘let’s run away’ still sounds magical to me."[26]
Hell has appeared in several low-budget films, most notablySusan Seidelman'sSmithereens.[5] Other acting appearances includeUlli Lommel'sBlank Generation,Nick Zedd'sGeek Maggot Bingo, Rachel Amadeo'sWhat About Me? and Rachid Kerdouche'sFinal Reward. Hell had a non-speaking cameo role asMadonna's murdered boyfriend in Seidelman's 1985Desperately Seeking Susan.
In 1976, Hell datedNancy Spungen for a few months before she moved to England.[27] Hell was married toScandal'sPatty Smyth for two years during 1985–86, and they had a daughter, Ruby. In January 2020, it was mentioned on Hell's website that he had begun a relationship with novelistKatherine Faw.
Richard Hell: "My father was born a Jew but he didn't believe in that. He didn't have anything to do with religion....[he] raised me as a communist and atheist."
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
