Richard Hell & the Voidoids

Richard Hell and the Voidoids
Richard Hell and the Voidoids in 1976. Left to right: Ivan Julian, Robert Quine, Richard Hell and Marc Bell.
Background information
Origin	New York City, United States
Genres	Punk rock
Years active	1976–1979, 1982–1984, 1990 (Japanese tour only), 2000 (recording only)
Labels	Sire Radar Red Star ROIR Shake
Associated acts	The Neon Boys Television The Heartbreakers Dim Stars Ramones Misfits Lou Reed Matthew Sweet Sonic Youth
Past members	See below

Richard Hell and the Voidoids were an American punk rock band, formed in New York City in 1976 and fronted by Richard Hell, a former member of the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers.

Kentucky-born Richard Meyers moved to New York City after dropping out of high school in 1966, aspiring to become a poet. He and his best friend from high school, Tom Miller, founded the rock band the Neon Boys which became Television in 1973. The pair adopted stage names; Miller called himself Verlaine after Paul Verlaine, a French poet he admired, and Meyers became Richard Hell because, as he has said, it described his condition.

The group was the first rock band to play the club CBGB, which soon became a breeding ground for the early punk rock scene in New York. Hell had an energetic stage presence and wore torn clothing held together with safety pins and his hair spiked, which was to be influential in punk fashion—in 1975, after a failed management deal with the New York Dolls, impresario Malcolm McLaren brought these ideas back with him to England and eventually incorporated them into the Sex Pistols' image.

Disputes with Verlaine led to Hell's departure from Television in 1975, and he co-founded the Heartbreakers with New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders. Hell did not last long with this band, and he began recruiting members for a new band. For guitarists, Hell found Robert Quine and Ivan Julian—Quine had worked in a bookstore with Hell, and Julian responded to an advertisement in the The Village Voice. They lifted drummer Marc Bell from Wayne County. The band was named "the Voidoids" after a novel Hell had been writing.