There are only a few musicians in the history of rock that we can recognize almost instinctively when we hear the first chords of their guitar. Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards or Jimmy Page are just some of the names featured on this list of legends written in gold letters in the bible of rock and roll. With dirtier and clumsier spelling, but with the same legitimacy to belong to this list of stars, comes the name of John Anthony Genzale (July 15, 1952), better known as Johnny Thunders.

Thunders is the great damn poet of punk. The furious electrification of his guitar paved the way for the spread of bands such as the Sex Pistols (Steve Jones bluntly admitted that he copied his style), the Clash or the Ramones. This is largely to blame for the restoration in the seventies of the rawest sounds rhythm and blues and rock’n’roll classical.

With both the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders was a key player in shaping the punk scene in London and his native New York. Hedonistic and extravagant, over the top and provocative, his propensity for debauchery, chaos and, above all, his addiction to drugs forced the major record companies to flee, doubting his professionalism and determination.

In 1986, the Madrid public became aware of the lottery associated with attending one of his performances. He appeared on stage stoned offering a caffeine-free show compiled in Santiago Alcand’s chronicle for Country.

“Johnny Thunders screwed up in his speech at the Astoria, does not believe the real thing. And someone who stood there for two hours complained at the end: “I paid 2,200 pelas, and they gave me only a quarter and a half thunder,” Alcanda says in his article.

Thunders’ heroin addiction was no secret, and the sad image he carried with him in the mid-80s found relief only in the expensive suits he wore. Besides music, two of his big hobbies were fashion and drugs.

Billy (Murcia) and I gave him a joint to try, and the next day he brought a pound of weed, he overdid it, it was Johnny.”

Sylvain Sylvain, Johnny’s partner in the New York Dolls

His dated dandy appearance, his halo of tragedy, and his marginalization by much of the music industry have turned the New York musician into something of a Dorian Gray punk.

Songs like identity crisis, Looking for a kiss (New York Dolls); Born to lose or I want to be loved (The Heartbreakers), talk about the dirty and uproarious proto-punk sound he put so much into with his guitar. Lyrics laced with frustration and angst contributed to this punk discourse centered on no future, no identity and no hope. However, Thunders’ musical contribution is not limited to this genre, the New Yorker has toned down his style on the solo stage, exposing the melancholy and intimate sensibility hidden behind a rough and decadent exterior.

Despite his addiction problems, Thunders never stopped making music and never fell for the old trick of making drugs powerful or inspiring. “Drugs help me get through all the hassle I have to go through before I get on stage, but they don’t help me write or play,” the musician explained in an interview.

Painfully warm tenderness of songs, like Hurt me, don’t ask me questions or Society makes me sadto show how only the sound of his semi-muffled voice and the strumming of an acoustic guitar is necessary to personify suffering drug addicts on an ongoing basis. The work of the Thunders is chaos, lack of control and alienation, but it is also a relic of a constant emotional war with oneself.

Once a journalist asked how often he takes drugs, Johnny replied: “I can tell you how often I quit: every day.”

The addiction, deterioration, and humiliation that can form a story of a debauched life of excess are inevitably part of Johnny Thunders, but apart from those stories, what remains as time goes on will be his music. As Sylvain Sylvain tells in Looking for Johnny (Danny Garcia, 2014): Bob Dylan said he’d like to write You Can’t Embrace a Memory.