Richard Hell & the Voidoids -

Richard Hell — aka Richard Lester Meyers (born Oct. 2, 1949) — is an American singer, bassist, songwriter, and poet from Lexington, Ken., who became a fixture of NYC’s Lower East Side bohemian/art scene during the early 1970s. He first recorded with The Neon Boys, a formative version of Television. After a brief stint with Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreakers, Hell formed his own band The Voidoids with drummer Marc Bell (Dust, Estus) and guitarists Robert Quine and Ivan Julian. The band issued a three-song EP on Ork/Stiff in 1976, followed by the album Blank Generation on Sire in 1977. A second album with a different lineup appeared on Red Star Records in 1982.

Members: Richard Hell (vocals, bass), Robert Quine (guitar, 1976-82), Ivan Julian (guitar, 1976-79), Marc Bell (drums, 1976-78), Frank Mauro (drums, 1978-79), Jerry Antonius (bass, 1978-79), James Morrison (drums, 1979), Xavier Sessive (bass, 1979), Fred Maher (drums, 1982), Naúx (guitar, 1982), Michael Paumgardhen (guitar, 1983), Geoff Freeman (guitar, 1983), Charles Wood (drums, 1983), Jody Harris (guitar, 1985), Anton Fier (drums, 1985), Ted Horowitz (bass, 1985), Michael Allison [aka Darshan Ambient] (guitar)

Background

Richard Hell was born Richard Lester Meyers on October 2, 1949, in Lexington, Kentucky. His father, a Jewish experimental psychologist, died when Hell was seven, leaving him in the care of his mother, Carolyn H. Rhodes, who pursued an academic career in Welsh and English literature.

Hell attended the Sanford School in Delaware, where he met Tom Miller (later Tom Verlaine). The two ran away together and were briefly arrested in Alabama for arson and vandalism. Hell left high school and moved to New York City, pursuing poetry and publishing work under his own name and the pseudonym Theresa Stern. Before turning 21, his poems appeared in periodicals including Rolling Stone and the New Directions Annuals. He co-founded Genesis:Grasp, a small press magazine with David Giannini in Santa Fe, New Mexico, before returning to New York and launching his own publishing imprint, Dot Books. His early literary activity established a foundation for the confrontational, avant-garde persona that would shape his music.

Hell’s poetic voice and network reconnected him with Tom Verlaine, leading to the 1973 formation of the Neon Boys, which cut an EP and evolved into Television with the addition of guitarist Richard Lloyd. Television’s performances at CBGB, initially a bluegrass venue on Bowery and Bleeker, spurred a new Lower East Side rock scene, soon dubbed “punk” by local writers. Hell wrote the punk anthem “Blank Generation” during this period. He pioneered a new fashion: spiky ragamuffin hair, ripped shirts, and tight jeans — a counter-image to the era’s prevailing silhouette.

In early 1975, after creative disagreements with Verlaine over songwriting control, Hell departed Television and immediately formed the Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and later Walter Lure. Several demo and live recordings from Hell’s tenure with the Heartbreakers were later released, including on L.A.M.F. Definitive Edition and What Goes Around…

The Voidoids

Bassist Robert Quine was born December 30, 1942, in Akron, Ohio. He studied at Earlham College and earned a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1968 but never practiced. Quine moved to New York in 1971 and worked as a tax law textbook author while attending Berklee School of Music. He practiced guitar to Velvet Underground bootlegs and developed his technique during performances in the band Bruce’s Farm. Quine’s early influences included John Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Stooges, Captain Beefheart, and Brian Eno. He joined Hell in the mid-1970s, bringing a discordant, angular guitar style to the Voidoids.

Multi-instrumentalist Ivan Julian was born June 26, 1955. The child of a Navy officer, he spent part of his youth in Haiti and Cuba before settling in Washington, D.C. He studied bassoon and saxophone before picking up guitar at 14 and performing in a Led Zeppelin cover band at 13. At 17, Julian toured Europe with The Foundations. In 1976, he returned to New York and co-founded the Voidoids, contributing guitar, vocals, and co-writing several songs.

Drummer Marc Steven Bell, born July 15, 1952, in New York City, began playing in local hard rock bands including Dust and Estus. He performed with Wayne County & the Backstreet Boys before joining Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

The Voidoids commenced rehearsals in June 1976 and soon caught the attention of Englishman Jake Riviera, a London pub-rock entrepreneur behind the nascent indie label, Stiff Records.

Another World

On November 18, 1976, Richard Hell and the Voidoids made their vinyl debut with Another World, a three-song EP on Stiff. It features the elusive track “You Gotta Lose” and two songs later re-recorded for their debut album, including Hell’s notorious live staple “(I Belong to the) Blank Generation.”

A. “(I Could Live With You In) Another World” (5:59)
B1. “(I Belong to the) Blank Generation” (2:53)
B2. “You Gotta Lose” (3:29)

Another World appeared in a numbered edition as the seventh Stiff release (Buy 7), slotted between the debut singles by The Damned (“New Rose” / “Help” — the first proper UK punk release) and Plummet Airlines (“Silver Shirt” / “This Is The World”). The b-sides of both appeared with “You Gotta Lose” on the 1977 label comp Hits Greatest Stiffs, which also featured seminal label cuts by Elvis Costello, Motorhead, and The Pink Fairies.

In the US, Another World appeared on Ork, the New York label that issued Televisions’ 1975 debut single “Little Johnny Jewel.” Meanwhile, Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein signed the Voidoids as part of a post-Ramones contract frenzy that included The Saints, Talking Heads, and The Dead Boys.

Blank Generation

Richard Hell & the Voidoids released their debut album, Blank Generation, on August 26, 1977, on Sire.

The album captures the disjointed urgency of New York’s late-1970s punk scene, pairing jagged guitars with literate, detached lyricism. Its sound is rooted in tense, skeletal rhythm and sharp contrasts between precision and collapse, shaped by the interplay of Robert Quine’s angular solos and Ivan Julian’s clipped rhythm lines under Hell’s cryptic, half-spoken delivery.

Hell wrote eight of the eleven songs and co-wrote two with Julian (“Liars Beware,” “Betrayal Takes Two”). The band covers Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Walking on the Water” (John and Tom Fogerty).

The songs range from sardonic self-analysis to nihilistic manifestos. “Love Comes in Spurts” opens with a dual-guitar blast that frames Hell’s fragmented metaphors on lust and detachment. “Liars Beware” layers dual Stratocasters in shifting channels as Julian’s lead work pushes against Bell’s fast, clipped pacing. “New Pleasure” and “Who Says?” continue in fractured rhythms, while “Betrayal Takes Two” combines confessional tension and atonal soloing.

“Blank Generation,” the title track, recasts Bob McFadden and Rod McKuen’s 1959 novelty “The Beat Generation” as an existential statement, alternating descending chord progressions and falsetto “ooh-ooh” refrains. “Down at the Rock and Roll Club” and “Another World” stretch the group’s attack across longer, more improvisatory passages where Quine’s jagged phrasing recalls early free jazz phrasing within punk form.

A1. “Love Comes in Spurts” (2:03) — an opening burst of alternating guitar lines underscoring a sardonic reflection on physical impulse
A2. “Liars Beware” (2:52) — marked by alternating rhythm channels and compressed vocal phrasing
A3. “New Pleasure” (1:58) — a taut, stop-start track built on descending intervals and vocal detachment
A4. “Betrayal Takes Two” (3:37) — a confrontational duet-like exchange framed by slashing rhythm
A5. “Down at the Rock and Roll Club” (4:05) — expands into a jam-oriented form, alternating riffs and feedback squalls
A6. “Who Says?” (2:07) — a terse, rhythmic piece built around questioning repetition

B1. “Blank Generation” (2:45) — the central anthem of self-definition through negation.
B2. “Walking on the Water” (2:17) — a lean, fast-paced reworking of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1968 single
B3. “The Plan” (3:56) — a mid-tempo track that alternates irony and resignation
B4. “Another World” (8:14) — an extended closer marked by alternating solo sections from Julian and Quine over sustained rhythmic tension

Sessions occurred at Electric Lady Studios and Plaza Sound Studios in New York City with producers Richard Gottehrer and Richard Hell. Electric Lady sessions took place in March 1977, with later recordings and final mixing completed at Plaza Sound in June and July 1977.

Blank Generation features cover photography by Roberta Bayley, showing Hell bare-chested with “YOU MAKE ME _______” written across his torso. The back cover, shot by Kate Simon, depicts Hell with the Voidoids.

Destiny Street

Richard Hell & the Voidoids released their second album, Destiny Street, on July 7, 1982, on Sire.

For this album, Hell reconfigured the Voidoids with Quine and second guitarist Naux (Juan Maciel), backed by jazz-punk drummer Fred Maher (Material, Massacre).

Destiny Street expands the Voidoids’ taut punk framework into a sharper, more exploratory sound that merges fractured rhythm and offbeat lyricism with an undercurrent of jazz phrasing. Quine and Naux create a restless harmonic tension beneath Hell’s elliptical, inward lyrics, giving the album a fuller, more intricate texture than its predecessor.

Hell wrote seven of the ten songs and co-wrote two (“Ignore That Door,” “Destiny Street”) with Quine and others. The album includes covers of songs by The Kinks (“You Gotta Move”), Bob Dylan (“Going Going Gone”), and Them (“I Can Only Give You Everything”).

The material alternates between wiry defiance and reflective abstraction. “The Kid with the Replaceable Head” opens in fast bursts of shifting accents, its title suggesting the alienation of identity. “Downtown at Dawn” slows the pace with drawn-out phrasing and layered guitar figures that drift toward nocturnal reverie. “Time” centers on circular lyrical phrasing and syncopated lead breaks, while “Ignore That Door” and the closing title track push the ensemble toward near-freeform interplay, with Maher’s clipped rhythms offset by Quine’s spiraling leads.

A1. “The Kid with the Replaceable Head” (2:24) — a tightly wound opener built on alternating rhythm patterns and sharp vocal phrasing
A2. “You Gotta Move” (2:36) — is a reinterpreted Ray Davies song that originated as “I Gotta Move,” a 1964 Kinks b-side, set here to a brisker pulse and overdriven dual-guitar lines
A3. “Going Going Gone” (2:34) — a terse reworking of Dylan’s 1974 Planet Waves ballad, stripped to stark rhythm and phrased in clipped half-spoken cadences
A4. “Lowest Common Dominator” (2:23) — a fast, compressed piece alternating between tension and release
A5. “Downtown at Dawn” (5:59) — the longest piece on side one, extending into fluid guitar interplay and subdued tempo shifts

B1. “Time” (3:33) — an introspective mid-tempo song marked by circular vocal refrains and incremental harmonic buildup
B2. “I Can Only Give You Everything” (3:57) — originated as a 1966 single by Them, later covered by the Troggs and MC5, here presented in a lean, clipped arrangement
B3. “Ignore That Door” (3:13) — an ensemble piece built around staccato riff exchanges and elliptical lyrics
B4. “Staring in Her Eyes” (4:20) — a slower number featuring sustained phrasing and subtle shifts in tonal color
B5. “Destiny Street” (4:40) — a multi-writer closer where dense guitar interplay converges over a rising rhythmic undertow

Sessions occurred at Intergalactic Studios in New York City with producers Alan Betrock and Richard Hell. Engineer Jay Burnett handled the recording with Marty Thau as executive producer.

Destiny Street features cover photography by Roberta Bayley, depicting Hell alongside lighting designer Anne Militello.

Red Star issued Destiny Street as the final Voidoids release. The album was reissued on CD in 1991 and later revisited by Hell on Destiny Street Repaired (2009), which replaced lost master elements with newly recorded guitars by Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Ivan Julian. A subsequent restoration, Destiny Street Remixed (2021), used recovered 24-track tapes to reconstruct the original mix.

Later Activity

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Richard Hell reestablished himself primarily as a writer. He published poetry collections including I Was a Spiral on the Floor (1988) and Across the Years (1992), both issued by Soyo Publications. His punk-era journals appeared as Artifact: Notebooks from Hell 1974–1980 (Hanuman Books, 1990), and his 1973 novella The Voidoid finally saw publication in 1993 through CodeX.

Hell also appeared in several independent films, beginning with Ulli Lommel’s Blank Generation (1980), followed by roles in Susan Seidelman’s Smithereens (1982), Nick Zedd’s Geek Maggot Bingo (1983), Rachel Amadeo’s What About Me? (1993), and Rachid Kerdouche’s Final Reward. He made a brief cameo as Madonna’s murdered boyfriend in Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), marking his final major screen appearance of the period.

Discography: