iSound

Richard Hell was born Richard Meyers and raised in Lexington, KY, but dropped out of high school in 1966 to come to New York and make his way as a poet. In New York he bought a used table-top offset printing press and began publishing books and magazines under the imprints Genesis : Grasp and then Dot Books. Before he was twenty-one his own poems were published in numerous periodicals, ranging from Rolling Stone to the New Directions Annuals. Wanting more direct, physical relief though, he started a rock and roll band with his best high school friend, Tom (Miller) Verlaine. This band, The Neon Boys (1973) (three songs released by Overground on e.p. CD in Britain, 1991), evolved into the group Television, which band Richard left in 1975 before the group recorded their first album. He then immediately joined with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, who had just departed the New York Dolls, to form the Heartbreakers, which Richard also quit after one year and before recording a studio alb...