The punk icons Don Henley never liked: “I don’t understand what the hoopla is about”
For many musicians in the 1970s, punk was everything that they didn’t stand for. Everybody seemed to be happy making carefree music that everyone loved, and then suddenly, people with safety pins through their cheeks were singing about destruction and trying to make a mockery of what rock and roll was all about. While the punk revolution did help many people get over the phoniness of some rock bands, Don Henley thought there was nothing special about The New York Dolls.
When the New York punk icons rose to prominence, Henley was far from the only person to think that. Compared to Ramones and Sex Pistols, this was the glam version of rock and roll taken to its most campy conclusion, featuring songs that relied more on fashion than the actual music being played.
Then again, was it really all that different? I mean, people like David Bowie had already flirted with what the androgynous side of rock and roll could sound like, so it wasn’t that out of the question for someone to put a punk rock spin on it. There was only one problem, and that came down to the fact that no one in the band was properly trained.
As much as the press ate it up, many of the Dolls were not the greatest musicians in the world, and outside of Johnny Thunders, most of them were just looking to make as much noise as possible whenever they got onstage. For Henley, this was the complete antithesis of what the Eagles stood for.
When speaking with Rolling Stone, he figured there was a good reason why his band succeeded, and The New York Dolls were left by the wayside, saying, “Where are they now? You know, all those seminal groups. I don’t get it. I don’t understand what the big hoopla was about. There was always a certain rivalry between New York and LA”.
Granted, it’s not like the New York Dolls didn’t have a point when calling out people like the Eagles. For all the great music they made together, there were just as many times when Henley’s melodic prowess could get a bit too saccharine for a lot of people’s tastes as if he was trying to spoonfeed you everything he believed in rather than actually sing a song for everyone to enjoy.
For everyone who didn’t get it, there were still many rock icons who completely understood what The New York Dolls were going for. Aerosmith would occasionally rub elbows with the punk icons, and Kiss even had the idea of making more effeminate stage makeup before The Dolls showed up on the scene.
And for all the bickering between both sides of America, that sound did eventually cross over to the Sunset Strip when hair metal bands began cribbing the style of The New York Dolls unashamedly. Given how many milquetoast songs were born out of that, though, maybe Henley had a point about them being a bit too overhyped in the grand scheme of things.