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- [00:00]
Narrator/Host
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Elvis. Listen, I spend, like all of you do, an obscene amount of time trying to manage my life in this modern digital world that we all live in. Life is already complicated. And when your health and weight loss goals take a back seat because you can't figure out what your insurance company is going to allow you to do or not do, it's easy to get frustrated and to give up and to feel stuck. Well, RO has a solution for you. Their insurance checker is built to unstick you in this moment. Okay? It's free, it's simple, and it's built to help you move forward. Figure out what you need, figure out what you have at your disposal, and figure out how you can best impact your health. Rose Insurance checker is going to let you know if you're covered for GLP1s for free. All right? All right. If you want to see if you're covered or not, just submit your insurance card and RO will take care of the rest. No paperwork, no hassle, no calling somebody who sounds like they're upset at you just because you picked up the phone. No waiting on hold. Ro's free insurance checker will send you a comprehensive report of your coverage details so that you can make a decision. That's right. For your goals, go to ro co Disgraceland for your free insurance check. That's ro code Disgraceland to see if your insurance covers GLP1s for free. Go to ro co safety for boxed warning and full safety information about GLP1 medications. All right, 2026 is almost here, and I'm going to try and save more money this year than I normally do because I want to travel more than I normally do. I want to spend more time with my family, checking out new spots around the country that we haven't been to. In order to do this, I gotta save more. I have to be way more efficient with my finances, which is why I'm using Monarch. Managing your money does not have to be a struggle this year, guys. Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your financial life and your whole life easier. I can see exactly where my money's going to, what I'm spending on, what I need to be spending on, and what I don't need to be spending my money on. I mean, you guys know what it's like, this digital world that we live in. We're constantly signing up for services, subscriptions, all kinds of stuff that we think we need. And we might need it temporarily, but ultimately we don't need it in the long run. But you know, you wake up 10 months later and you realize you just spent a thousand dollars over the course of almost a year on something that you didn't need. Monarch is the go to tool for a New Year's financial reset. You can use the Monarch app to review your spending throughout the year, especially throughout the holidays. You can set fresh budgets for the new year. Get ready for 2026. I love their automated weekly money recap that they give you a window into for saving for my future financial goals. Monarch makes it super easy when more easier than ever to stay financially fit in the short and in the long term this new year achieve your financial goals for good. Monarch is the all in one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use code disgraceland@monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% of your first year@monarch.com with code disgraceland. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about heartbreakers. It's about a hotel room and a body on the floor. It's about corporate rock dreams and punk junkie nightmares and the distance between the two. It's also a story about conspiracy theories and rock and roll myths, about self fulfilling prophecies and stacks of missing cash. This is a story about Johnny Thunders. Which means it's a story about great music. Some of the greatest and most authentic music to come out of the punk era and beyond. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called second line stompbox mk2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to you're in Love by Wilson Phillips. And why would I play you that specific slice of Nepo cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on April 23, 1991, and that was the day that Johnny Thunders was found dead in a New Orleans hotel, his money, guitars and clothes gone and the rest of the story already beginning to write itself on this episode. Rock and roll myths, self fulfilling prophecies, Heartbreakers, junkies and Johnny Thunders. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. When you think of a musical icon who was the walking, talking definition of how rock and roll looks and sounds and feels, which is to say, raw, switchblade sharp and effortlessly cool and who also possessed both street tough swagger and deep vulnerability, you think of Johnny Thunders. He's your favorite rock n roller's favorite rock n roller. Whether you're down with Joe Strummer, Nikki Sixx, Paul Westerberg, the Colts, Billy Duffy, or Social Distortion's Mike Ness. First in the New York Dolls and later in the Heartbreakers and his own solo career, Johnny Thunders distilled rebellion, attitude and God given musicality down to a high proof red hot essence. But one of the reasons that Johnny Thunders was this mythic avatar was because he embodied the whole package of rock and roll. The good, the bad and the ugly. He was an addict, he was self destructive, and at the age of 38 he was dead. Chapter one the body in room 37 the St Peter House Hotel, these days known as The Inn on St. Peter, sits on the corner of St. Peter and Burgundy streets in the heart of the French Quarter in New Orleans. Built in the year 1805, it's a quintessential quarter Crescent City building with Spanish style architecture and a wraparound second floor balcony. It was here on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 23, 1991, that housekeeper Mildred Coleman was going from room to room, making her usual rounds, swapping out towels and trash bags and so on. At 3:30 she arrived in room 37. She knocked on the door. There was no answer. The room number stuck out in her mind because earlier that morning at around 8am the front desk clerk had called room 37. After a series of loud, disturbing noises, the occupant had answered and the noises had ceased. But now there was an absence of sound coming from inside the room. Mildred knocked again and nothing. Now this wasn't unusual. Hotel guests were in and out at all times of the day and night. So she pulled a key from her pocket, slid it into the lock, turned the handle, and pushed the door open. The rank smell of sweat hit her nose first. And there was something else too, something rancid, but she couldn't put her finger on it. The room was a mess. The sheets had been ripped from the bed and what appeared to be empty prescription pill bottles were strewn across the floor. And then Mildred saw him. The occupant of room 37, one John Gonzale, aka Johnny Thunders. He was lying on the floor, stuffed halfway under the dresser. His body was bent into a shape like the letter U. Mildred gasped, instinctively throwing her hand up to cover her mouth, and the next thing she knew she was screaming. Across the street from the St. Peter House, singer songwriter Willie Deville, formerly of CBGB Mainstays Mink Deville sat on a stoop outside his apartment strumming an acoustic guitar. Just one year prior, Willie had beaten Johnny to his dream of coming to New Orleans, making an R B record with local musicians. But now it was Johnny's turn to beat Willie. Johnny Thunder's over here. Burning out. While Willie deville merely faded away, Willie watched as police cars began flooding the corner outside the hotel. A short while later, the cops carried Johnny's body out. Willie had seen a lot of things, but he'd never seen a body contorted into a shape like a pretzel before. It was so undignified. But Willie knew his friend deserved more. And he also knew that rock and roll was nothing without its myths. So when the local press started to sniff around when they asked questions, Willie deville lied and told them that Johnny had died with his guitar in his hands. In reality though, Johnny Thunder's guitar was gone. Johnny had been robbed blind, or so it appeared. But New Orleans PD they didn't care about a dead junkie's missing stuff. All they were interested in was closing the case and closing it fast. So that's what they did. Six days later, on April 29, the city coroner's office investigator John Gagliano told the Associated Press that Johnny Thunders had died of an overdose due to the quantity of methadone and cocaine found in his body. In their eyes, it was open and shut. A drug fiend is as a drug fiend does and all of that. Some of Johnny's friends, like Willie deville across the street with his guitar, weren't all that surprised. For others, however, not only was the cop's conclusion wrong, it had all the signs of a cover up. And that's when the truth came calling. Dee Ramone picked up the phone While scratching away at his bed head. His bleary eyes could hardly make out the time on the clock. Yeah, he snarled into the receiver. Dee Dee, a voice was saying, it's Stevie. At this, Dee Dee Ramone sobered up a bit, enough to comprehend what Stevie was about to tell him. Stephie Classen was the other guitarist in Johnny Thunders touring band at the time of Johnny's death. Indeed knew he was hurting. Dee Dee, for one, had his own complicated relationship with Johnny Thunders over the years. Years ago, that little shit had stolen Dee Dee's song Chinese Rocks and made it his own. And then when he was deep in the throes of junkie addiction, Johnny Thunders, well, he reverted to junkie compulsions, like stealing Dee Dee's shit so that he could sell it for more drugs. And at some point, Dee Dee Ramone had just had Enough. So he poured Drano or Clorox or some chemical cleaning agent he couldn't exactly remember. He poured it all over Johnny's stuff. And then he pissed on Johnny's clothes. And then the piece de resistance, he took Johnny's guitar, one of those cheap Les Paul juniors that he loves so much, and he broke that in half. These were the thoughts running through Deedee Ramone's head as Stevie was telling him all about what had happened at the hotel in New Orleans. That when the cops got to Johnny's room, all they found were empty bottles of methadone and a single syringe floating in the toilet. Everything else was gone. His guitars, those nice silk suits that he bought on the road, his drugs, his passport. And here was the real kicker. Thousands of dollars in cash just disappeared. We're talking 10, maybe $20,000 total. And the pieces of trash who stole all those things. These vultures disguised as so called friends. They made Johnny Thunders their mark. As soon as he rolled into town wearing those nice threads, his pockets lined with money, they took him out, stroked his ego. This punk poet laureate who never really got his due, especially here in the States. But he got it that night. And once they gave it to him, once they lulled him into a doped up complacency with hero worship and drugs. That's when they went in for the kill. It was true what the cops said. Johnny did die of an overdose. But the overdose wasn't delivered by his own hand. He was given a hot shot by some thieving degenerates. To put it plainly, Johnny Thunders was murdered.
- [14:02]
Narrator/Host
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Narrator/Host
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Advertiser 2
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- [14:31]
Stassi Schroeder
See terms.
- [14:33]
Advertiser 2
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- [15:32]
Stassi Schroeder
I am your host Stassi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the Official Podcast what's the most unhinged thing of Season three?
- [15:40]
Jake Brennan
Steven because he's so evil I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone face consequences is it's intoxicating.
- [15:47]
Stassi Schroeder
The writers just know how to trick ya.
- [15:50]
Advertiser 2
There's always a twist in this show.
- [15:51]
Jake Brennan
It's nothing you would expect.
- [15:53]
Stassi Schroeder
Tell Me Lies the official podcast now streaming and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies on Hulu and Hulu on Disney.
- [16:05]
Jake Brennan
Chapter 2 Born to lose Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers who the fuck are those guys? We're the Heartbreakers. Jerry Nolan, one of Johnny's closest friends and his drummer. First in the New York Dolls and now a member of Johnny's new band, the Heartbreakers. The original Heartbreakers, that is not that big toothy Tom Petty and his so called Heartbreakers. Jerry Nolan, he was reading all about this Tom Petty character in the paper and getting more more and more pissed off with every word. It was 1976. Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers were everything that Tom Petty's Heartbreakers were not. Tom Petty was the corporate rock dream. Johnny Thunders was the punk junkie nightmare. No one wanted to sign Johnny Thunders and his band. They were dopers and dropouts and weren't to be trusted. They missed shows, they shot heroin. Never mind they were playing some of the most thrilling rock and roll in the world at the time. As one critic wrote in the UK after seeing a Heartbreaker show, quote the band plays rock and roll like guns fire bullets like steamrollers, flatten tarmac like thunder rolls like trees fall like hell like you've never heard before. Unquote. It's ironic because besides the music, all the other things that made Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers super authentic were the same things that made them a bad influence investment. They were as Johnny sang in one of his trademark songs, Born to Lose. Tom Petty clearly could not relate. Tom Petty, Jerry Nolan said, was born to be punched it, Johnny said, let's call Ourselves the junkies instead. Are you kidding, man? We'll never get airplay with a name like that. Who needs airplay? Johnny laughed. I'd rather get a reaction. Getting a reaction, getting attention. That was the true meaning of rock and roll in the eyes of Johnny Thunders. And when attention finally came, it didn't come from America, but instead from across the pond, first in the form of the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, who got the Heartbreakers booked on a tour with the Pistols in the Clash, and then via Chris Stamp and Kim Lambert, the who's former managers who signed the Heartbreakers to their label, Track Records. Johnny and Jerry, along with guitarist Walter Lore and bassist Billy Rath, who'd replaced original member Richard Hell, soon found themselves in a London recording studio making a record. That record, lamf, which was a notorious New York City graffiti tag that warring gangs used to scare each other off with, and which stood for Like a Motherfucker, which is also permanently inked on my arm. But I digress. LAMF should have been one of the biggest records of the newly emerging punk rock movement when it was released in 1977. I mean, it is one of the greatest. But it's not as ubiquitous as records by the Ramones, the Clash and the Pistols. And there are a few reasons for this. One, the band wrestled over how the record should sound, which resulted in a really muddy mix when it was first pressed. Two, LAMF never got a US release. In fact, it wasn't issued stateside until just a few years ago, and Three Track Records went bankrupt shortly after the album hit store shelves. Unlike Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers did not survive. They were over before Tom's second album even dropped. And so Johnny Gonzale, a one time teenage baseball prodigy from Queens who gave the cold shoulder to major league scouts so that he could court a life out on the skids, where Self Sabotage was a badge of honor. A boy who rechristened himself Johnny Thunders and the Nom de rock stolen either from a DC Comics character or a kink song, depending on which version of the story speaks to you today. The great Johnny Thunders made his equally great solo debut album, so alone in 1978 at the age of 25. So alone is tremendous stuff. It's got instant classic original songs like youe Can't Put yout Arms Around a Memory, it's got covers of tunes by surf and girl groups like To Shantees and the Shangri Las, and it's got supporting performances by a who's who of Rockers at the time, the Pretenders, Chrissy Hine, the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook, Din Lizzy's Phil Lynett and Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and Humble Pie. But like Lamf before it, so Alone never got released in the States. And despite the noise being made out on the margins by punks like Johnny Thunders, 1970 was actually ruled by the Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever in Billy Joel's 52nd Street. At least in America, whatever. America could have its Tom Petty, its Billy fucking Joel, and it could have John Travolta peacocking down the streets of Brooklyn. Johnny Thunders, meanwhile, went looking for action in a part of the world that paid him some well deserved respect and that paid him in cash. And it was there that Johnny wasn't just a hot ticket, he was front page news. 1982 Stockholm, Sweden. Johnny Thunders tried to ration out the dope so that it would last him three, four days at least. But this time, just like every other time, he couldn't help himself. He did it all, and doing it all doesn't mean he did too much. He knew what he could tolerate, exactly how much would get him off without taking him too far over the edge. But now, as the plane hit the tarmac, he was no longer holding, and none of the other guys in the band were either. He downed the last of the methadone like a cold cherry Coke. And speaking of coke, Coke, the powdered kind, that was gone too. Someone had told him that Sweden put little stashes of Valium in the medical emergency boxes on airplanes. So now he and his bass player at the moment, Luigi Scorcha, were trying to break open the little red box like a couple of dopesick prospectors at the head of a rumored gold mine. And they were doing this despite the very loud and urgent protesting of the stewardesses, who were reminding Johnny and Luigi in broken English, the passengers were not allowed to tamper with the emergency kits. The stewardesses figured something like this would happen. Johnny Thunders had been in the country for only a few days and already he was the talk of the town, as they say, but not in a good way. The local papers said it all. A drugged human wreck, read one such headline in stark black font, and another simply said burnt out, wasted. Just days earlier, Johnny had performed on a popular primetime Swedish television show. He showed up three hours late to the taping, only to stumble around the stage, slithering, slouching, sliding into the audience and slurring his words, and there was a tinge of resentment in every single word he spoke and every move he made. As if he'd forgotten that this country, this show, this packed house, unlike some other places back home, they all actually wanted him there. It was like he looked out at the crowd and suddenly was somewhere else. The punk junkie nightmare was never ending. And now here was Johnny Thunders, the villain and the victim, stepping off the plane in Stockholm, thinking he was about to go play another show, only to walk into the arms of several impatient police officers who had been notified ahead of time by the concerned stewardesses. Johnny had no dope, not even that elusive fabled stash of Valium. And if they were taking him away, then the tour was canceled for sure. Which meant Lesto coming in. All while that other, more famous heartbreaker, Tom Petty, was writing a big video hit on the Idiot box with his song, you got lucky. Johnny laughed just thinking about it. Yeah, Tom, you're one lucky fuck. One lucky MTV approved fuck. And Johnny, Johnny was born to lose. That wasn't just a song or a manifesto. It was a prophecy. But was it a self fulfilling one? As the weeks and months and years rolled on, that's what audiences wanted to know. And that's what drew them to the shows more than Johnny's talent or his legend or any of it. They wanted to be there when it happened, Watching it like a car wreck in slow motion. Watch Johnny lose control. Watch Johnny fall down. Watch Johnny die. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word.
- [24:54]
Advertiser 1
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- [25:21]
Advertiser 3
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- [25:53]
Jake Brennan
Chapter 3 Hard Times and the Big Easy. Johnny Thunders was in Japan, but he was dreaming of New Orleans. He was playing his friend Willie deville's latest album, Victory Mixture on repeat on the tour bus. Willie made the record in New Orleans with local legends like Dr. John Alan Toussaint and the Meters. You never know that the guy singing these tunes got his start playing grimy New York institutions like Max's Kansas City. Willie sounded like the real article and what he created with the this record was exactly the sort of thing that Johnny had wanted to do for some time now. But Johnny had no time at the present. He was preparing to record an album of 60s cover songs with some Japanese musicians, and he had plans for an acoustic album as well. He continued to use, but once again his supply had run out and he became so dope sick that he had to be checked into a hospital in Tokyo. If doctors there saw the lump on his neck, they didn't say anything. People were used to seeing all kinds of abnormalities on Johnny's skin. Heartbreaker Walter Lore once said that Johnny's arms and legs were covered in so many track marks that they looked like pizza slices, which means that some strange new lump was going to have to work overtime to really stand out as a problem. Besides, Johnny had other problems, like this need for a fix. He hopped a plane to London, picked up a prescription of methadone that was waiting for him, and then it was on to Germany, where he was booked for a couple of shows. When all was said and done, he had a decent amount of cash on his person, somewhere between 10 and 20 grand, and he also had a little time off. And as the musical gumbo of Willie Deville played once more on the tour bus's stereo, Johnny knew exactly where he was going going to go next. By the time Johnny Thunders arrived in New Orleans for what would be the last night of his life, the evening of April 22, 1991, he was both everywhere and nowhere. His style, his swagger, even just the way he held the guitar was reflected across the entirety of the rock spectrum, from Guns N Roses, Izzy Stradlin to Johnny Marr of the Smiths to a veritable rogues gallery of big hair having chart mainstays like Motley Crue and Bon Jovi. But although his influence ran deep, it ran silent too. Few knew that Johnny Thunders was such an inspiration on 1980s and 1990s rock and roll, and fewer still knew his name. It wasn't for lack of trying. At one point he formed a new group called Gang War with wayne Kramer, the MC5, who was fresh out of federal credit prison at the time. And later he assembled another group Called Cosa Nostra with a few of his former heartbreakers. Neither band lasted. The simple reason, as brother Wayne Kramer once put it, was due to the fact that, quote, Johnny was impossible to work with because he had another job that was more important than that other job was his dope habit. It kept him scrambling from plane to plane, gig to gig, one cash payment to the next, always cash. It kept him ignoring the sores, the lumps, the pains that had at this point become commonplace. And when the money stopped coming in for a spell, when he blew it all on another cold, sweaty palm full of handshake drugs, he got desperate. And desperation made him ugly. It's been alleged that he once hunted down his estranged wife, Julie, who had long since bailed with their two kids and who was also pregnant with a third. And when he found her, he beat her up and stole her welfare money. That's how low his other job made him go. And tonight, Johnny was going even lower. Tonight he was going to find out that there really was a bottom. And when he hit it, there was no coming back. Johnny Thunders bellied up to the bar and ordered a brandy. He could hear someone singing outside, some random reveler out there in the middle of the street. From elsewhere, the strains of a Dixieland jazz band floated on in the wind. That's what he loved about this town. Music ran through New Orleans blood. New York was similar, but his hometown had become hazardous to his health. He knew all the right places to get all the wrong things in New York. And he knew exactly who to talk to for a bindle of this or a vial of this that. Here in New Orleans, like in Japan or Germany, the temptation wasn't so easy to locate. Or so went the magical thinking of the punk junkie nightmare. Because temptation, vice, bad decisions of all kinds, Johnny attracted these things like a magnet. The all black suit he was wearing only emphasized his ghastly white skin. And the sweat running down the sides of his gaunt face told a story of desire, submission, mission and detachment. He turned to his left and then to his right. And here was temptation and vice sitting on either side of him at the bar. Here were two brothers, Mark and Michael Ricks, two locals Johnny had met when he checked into the St. Peter House Hotel. Two guys now getting shitfaced with the flush. Johnny Thunders. They weren't alone. The brother's friend Stacy, Michael's ex, came along to see where the night would take them. She had 70 bucks burning a hole in her pocket from turning tricks earlier that day on the seedier side of the French Quarter, the same side they were all on now, the side where you could get whatever you wanted for a couple of bucks. For a few bucks more you could get more than you ever thought possible. Johnny knocked back the rest of his brandy, slammed the glass down on the dirty bar in front of him and turned to his his new friends. Where to next? Pat o' Brien's Kagan's? The night was young. In fact, in Johnny's line of work, there was only night. Hours later, once the sun had come up and the shadows of temptation and vice had disappeared for yet another day, Johnny Thunders was dead. Almost immediately there was pushback on the official party line provided by New Orleans police that based on the amount of methadone and cocaine in Johnny's body, it was a clear overdose. Which is what the city coroner's office investigator John Gagliano told the public at a press conference six days after Johnny's death. For many in Johnny's circle, including his one time guitarist Stevie Clayson, who allegedly called Dee Dee Ramone shortly after Johnny's body was found, the cops were full of shit. Reported sightings of the Ricks brothers, Mark and Michael walking around New Orleans wearing chicken Johnny's clothes only fueled the going theory that Johnny had been given a hot shot by low level street criminals so that they could rob him. But Mark and Michael Ricks had been interviewed by the police and were subsequently released from custody. In the Times Picayune stated in an article that contrary to the word on the street, not everything was taken from Johnny's room. In fact, some of his guitars as well as some of his cash were still there. Weeks later. However, on May 18, the City of New Orleans released their full autopsy and toxicology results and what was found turned the whole thing upside down. Now those official results did prove that Johnny had tested positive for methadone and cocaine, but the revelation here was that there were only small amounts of both, nowhere near the levels it would have been necessary to kill him. By releasing the full results, the city had effectively contradicted itself, rendering John Gagliano's conclusion of overdose to be nothing short of impossible. So if it wasn't a hotshot, then how was Johnny Thunders murdered? Lsd say he was drunk, a little fucked up on methadone and cocaine, and then was knowingly or unknowingly given a dose of acid. The interaction between the drugs could have caused him to panic, his heart to race, triggering some sort of cardiovascular stress that pushed him over the edge again. According to Dee Dee Ramone, the LSD hotshot, for lack of a better term, is what Stevie Classen told him had been administered to Johnny that night. And this theory was stoked when just a short while later, in early 1992, New Orleans cops picked up Michael Ricks, who was charged and convicted of first degree robbery after he pulled a gun on some tourists in the French Quarter who had refused to buy drugs off him. And what exactly was Michael Ricks pushing at the time of his arrest? Lsd. All right, guys, earlier in this episode, I briefly mentioned Gang War, the doom punk slash rock and roll hybrid band that Johnny Thunders formed with Wayne Kramer, the MC5. We didn't have enough time here in this full episode to get into the story of Gang war. How they came to be, why they burned out so fast, and why they had to be escorted by police out of the city of Boston. And just why on earth, a guy like Wayne Kramer, who had just gotten out of prison and was looking for a second chance, just why would he hang that second chance around a guy that so many could see was already gone? You can hear all about this in this week's brand new mini episode of Disgraceland. But to do that, you have to be an All Access member. Just go to Disgracelandpod.com to learn more and to sign up and start listening right now. All right, let's get back to our story on Johnny Thunders. Chapter four, Pirate Love. When he died, Johnny Thunders was still the living embodiment of the rock and roller. Only now, instead of representing the promise of rebellion and liberation that lie at the core of the rock and roll heart, he was the flip side of that particular coin. He was the haggard, pitiful result of all the rebelliousness, the inevitable tragedy, the very thing that every teenager's mother feared would come to pass when their boy ran off to join a band on the Lower east side or wherever. A cautionary tale dumped on the doorstep of history by the addictions that plagued him. But there was more to Johnny Thunders than that. And there it was in his autopsy. Specifically, the autopsy report revealed that Johnny had been suffering from cirrhosis, from lymphoma, a pulmonary edema, and leukemia. The fact that Johnny Thunders had leukemia was later confirmed by one of his final girlfriends, a Swedish hairdresser named Suzanne Blomqvist. Johnny and Suzanne had one daughter together. And shortly after her birth in 1987, Suzanne said that Johnny was diagnosed with the deadly disease. This would explain the lump on his neck. And honestly, it explains what happened in room 37 of the St. Peter House Hotel in New Orleans. Johnny's body, his immune system have been systematically weakened by illness, by cancer and by chronic hard drug use. And so the most likely scenario is not that he was given a debilitating dose of LSD that led to his death, but simply that his body finally gave out, helped along by non lethal amounts of methadone and cocaine. Was he hanging out with certain members of the New Orleans underworld who may have stolen from him after he took his last breath? Yes. Did the cops use the overdose angle to investigate a little less than they should have? Probably. But was Johnny Thunders murdered?
- [37:45]
Advertiser 3
No.
- [37:46]
Jake Brennan
Johnny Thunders was consumed by his lifestyle, the bad and the good, walking the walk, walking that razor's edge between self mythology and self destruction. That's where he lived and what he sang about in songs like One Track Mind and Pirate Love, which next to Born To Lose was the unofficial Johnny Thunder's anthem for those who refused to compromise themselves creatively or authentically. The conspiracy theories that said he was murdered only proved that others expected him to go out in a blaze. A knife, a needle, a gun, a hot shot, something dramatic and something befitting the punk junkie nightmare he turned his life into. The truth, however, is much quieter than all that. And it's much sadder too. His body just couldn't carry the weight of his myth any longer. And in the end, that's the part that couldn't be stolen. Like his clothes and his guitars and his money. Jack. Johnny Thunders died in room 37 in disgrace. And so alone. But the myth he created walked right out the door like a motherfucker. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right, guys, thanks for riding along with us and Johnny Thunders here. This is. It's a weird story from just one of the greatest eras of rock and roll. The first era of punk rock. Guys, you can only listen to one generation punk rock band on the next road trip you take. Who's it going to be? Is it going to be Johnny Thunders in the New York Dolls? Is it going to be the Sex Pistols? Is it going to be the Clash? Who else? Television, Talking heads, those 70s sort of first wave punk rock groups. Which one do you ride hardest for? Give me a call, 617-906-6638. Let me know which first generation punk artist you love the most and why. Hit me up voicemail and text email@gracelandpot. Guys, you want more disgrace and want to add free Disgraceland? You want those extra mini episodes like the story we have on Johnny and Wayne Kramer coming up. Got to get the mini episode content. Gotta go to Patreon. Gotta go to Apple Podcast to become an all access member of Disgraceland. You get ad free listening. You get extra exclusive content. Go to Disgracelandpod.com to sign up. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com rate and you review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.
- [40:47]
Stassi Schroeder
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