My Take
Richard Hell is one of those figures who I genuinely believe shaped punk more than he ever got credit for — the torn t-shirts, the spiky hair, the whole deliberately wrecked aesthetic that the Sex Pistols would later export to the world? Hell was doing it first on the Lower East Side. His work with Television and then the Heartbreakers laid groundwork that others built empires on, but it's the Voidoids and Blank Generation (1977) that really crystallize what made him singular: a jittery, literate nihilism that felt simultaneously bookish and street-level raw. He's a poet who picked up a bass guitar and somehow made that the most natural thing in the world, and his writing career post-punk — including his memoir I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp — shows the literary chops were always the real throughline.
Overview
Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television, and the Heartbreakers, after which he formed Richard Hell & the Voidoids. Their 1977 album Blank Generation influenced many other punk bands.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Richard Hell
- Name (Japanese)
- リチャード・ヘル
- Reading
- りちゃーど・へる
- Born
- October 2, 1949 (age 76)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Libra / Ox
- Origin
- Lexington, Kentucky, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- singer / songwriter / composer / writer / actor
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Private
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Official sitehttp://www.richardhell.com/
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%83%BB%E3%83%98%E3%83%AB
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.