Ramona’s manager Johnny Mcelhone knows the music business.
Altered Images recorded for Columbia Records, Texas for Universal, and Johnny was central for both bands. So when it came time to sign Ramona, the Brighton, England based band he co-writes with and co-manages, he was smart enough not to waste his time reinventing the over-populated on line world but with the complete first album in pocket, signed the band to Columbia Records. One of the biggies.
Here is what he gained.
1. By not needing the labels help for recording he didn’t need to go in debt to the label to record it.
and
2. By having a functioning already touring band there is another thing he doesn’t need to lean on the label for.
And what he gains is.
1. Big, big, big time distribution
2. The entire music industry immediately taking the band seriously.
3. Publicity.
While Ramona is a grassroots operation they are only a grass roots operation to a certain degree. This is cracking a rock band 101. Ramona are a high end melody, smashing looking, pop tunes bearing early 80s inspired rock band on the verge. Imagine Blondie in June 1976 releasing “X-Offender” with Blondie the first album to be released in December 1976. Ramona have released the single “How Long” and Ramona the first album is waiting to be released next year. That is precisely where Ramona are today.
And Johnny, who is the co-leader of Texas with the very attractive Sharlene Spiteri, knows about breaking a band with a knock out centerpiece.
This time round it is Karen Anne. Karen is a model attractive bleached blond on the tallish side, and unless you are as lucky as I am and downloaded the New Wavey smash “How Long” without having the slightest idea who they were, you may find her distracting.
Standing on the corner a block away from the late CBGB’s with Ramona drummer Freddie West, Karen notes: “I wanted a four piece and I met Johnny in London when I was living up there and we sort of started working together. He was in Altered Images and then Texas. So Johnny co-wrote and produced the album which will be called Ramona – off a all the best sort of first albums type name.” Blondie and The Ramones to name two. “We don’t have anything to say… I mean, we do, but we’re not trying to make a statement really, just this is who we are…”
Karen isn’t exactly cagey… though she won’t tell me her last name (Anne is a contraction of it) and, er, are 17 year olds really runaways? ” I left Brighton when I was 17 thinking that, you know… I always wanted to be in music, a songwriter. I guess I really didn’t know where I wanted to fit in in the industry but I knew I wanted to do it so I lived up there (in London) for five years, going crazy in the end. Running about, living in 11 different apartments.”
Her voice is lighter and, hardly a shocker, more English than her singing voice, she is tall and very thin and very, very pretty (prettier than these pics) when she wants to be. There is a willowy English Rose about her and she sways when she speaks. “I was playing with different people just trying to get further up the ladder I guess. It was good. For the last five years I was working with different people and getting used to being in the studio and writing. I performed live here and there: a lot of acoustic stuff, actually, but it wasn’t what I wanted to be, I wanted to be in a band. A grassroots put a band together, play in our local town and see.
“In London it was hard to get the right people together, everybody has their own agenda. Brighton was better for finding people with similar tastes and ideas. And I ran out of money… and that’s the real reason!” she says laughing.”I had to go back!”
Karen has a great laugh , and I crack her up and I like that in a woman!! And she is self-deprecating, a characteristic that will do her well in her chosen career. And last summer she was back in Brighton: “I moved back to Brighton, I moved in with my Dad. he moved out of town and I was twenty-five, freaking out about everything. And I went out to this club in Brighton which was on the beach, just to try and meet people, and I saw this boy just standing there and I thought “Oh wow, he looks amazing” . That’s the guitarist Charlie. “The reason he isn’t here now is because he is off with some girl. He hasn’t spent a night in his hotel room since he got here.”
Karen, Miss Innocent, is only interested in Charlies musical prowess: “So I went up to him and I said ‘do you play anything?’ and he said ‘I play guitar’ I didn’t realize, I thought he was really innocent because I have no idea as well. So he is giving me all the eye, he’s like ‘yeah, right, write my number down’. He was a real lady killer, I didn’t realize.
“So we met up two days later and started writing together and we wrote a song called “Gorgeous Garbage” Which you haven’t heard but you’d like it I think. It’s inspired by this Blondie book ‘Making Tracks’, it’s quite an old book, and there is this bit where she’s saying when she used to live around here she would find leather jackets and stuff in the rubbish and she said New York has the most gorgeous garbage.
“I love the whole scene. I have probably over romanticised it in my head but a little before punk, the Velvet Underground, Edie Sydwick, Max’s Kansas City…”
Meanwhile Freddie West was working in an office: “Karen had asked me to form a band once and to be fair I wasn’t in a position to even think about it. I had the same thing, left Brighton for Uni, lost my mind a bit, spent too much money, so I had to go and ground myself a bit. I went back to Brighton and got a job. In my head I was like ‘oh sod it, no more music, no more nothing’. Of course that was rubbish, it’s where my hear
t lies.”
t lies.”
Karen: “We were lucky, we are a band of failed runaways…”
Ramona’s heart lies in New York City, Karen text’s me when she is back in England promising she will be back soon. And they were in town to play Burberry’s Fashion Night out -one of those gigs where if you caught em you believed in em. So media coverage is coming (Nylon wrote about them the other day) but that is the slow move of a band breaking big. Still, the party line is Ramona is a Brighton band and they are thinking locally and leaving the global to take care of itself. Johnny iterates the claim over brunch and Karen explains: “In Brighton we are one of the main bands, but we just want people to discover us themselves. Like word of mouth.
“‘How Long’ is released tomorrow but we wanted it to come from Brighton and we’ve just started to get really good press there, like we’re on the cover of the local ‘what’s on’. It’s a student town so all the new students are in town and we’re gonna be on the cover of “The Source Brighton Guide” so that’ll be good.
Freddie: “We play around town but we don’t wanna do it too much. There are bands who try to get a buzz and what they try to do is get a residency and they’ll be playing 2 or 3 times a month to empty rooms.
Karen: “We’ve been around the country, we’ve done a coupla festivals. We’re in the Guardian, just did our first gigs last month where there’s press.”
rock nyc writer and 4thelovemusic promoter Woody Fuller had a coupla gigs lined up for the band but Ramona couldn’t do them because a) they had no electric equipment and b) they had no time but Johnny would be the c) factor. He is biding his own time and waiting for the stars to allign right for the band. It is a very Taoist concept: a case of allowing Ramona to be what they are and allowing the band to move forward at its own space. A long term strategy learnt from DECADES of experience, and a lesson in building a fan base from a solid foundation.
So let’s see what Ramona have going for them
1. Terrific live band
2. Clutch of great songs
3. Knockout lead singer and three good looking guys behind her
4. An album in the tank.
5. Signed to Columbia
Anything else?
Karen: “We love what we do, if we had our way we would tour constantly.
Freddie: “Being in a band is the most relaxing thing in the world. Zoning out in the tour bus.”
Karen: “Then when you go home you realize you have no social life”.
When your job is your life and you love your job, you are gonna spend your life in it.
Ramona is a group.
They are gonna be a big, big group.