Early Life
Born Jeffry Ross Hyman to parents Charlotte (née Mandell) and Noel Hyman, they lived in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, where Jeffry and his future Ramones bandmates attended Forest Hills High School. Though happy, Jeffry was more of an outcast. When he was 18 years old he was diagnosed with OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). He grew up with brother Mickey Leigh. His mother divorced and remarried three times.
Jeffry was a fan of The Beatles, The Who, David Bowie and The Stooges among other bands (particularly oldies and the Phil Spector-produced "girl groups"). His idol was Pete Townshend of The Who (with whom he shared a birthday). Jeffry took up drums at 13, and played throughout his teen years. Before he joined the Ramones, he was the singer in a band called Sniper.
Read more about this topic: Joey Ramone
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Our instructed vagrancy, which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and banyans—which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)