One of the pioneering acts to surface amid New York’s initial punk explosion in the 1970s, Richard Hell & the Voidoids enjoyed only a short career and never matched the sustained popularity of contemporaries such as the Ramones, Blondie, or Patti Smith. Yet Hell’s brooding, literary lyrics combined with the raw, angular playing of lead guitarist Robert Quine produced a distinctive vision that distinguished the group from its peers, and the modest catalog the band left behind—Blank Generation in 1977 and Destiny Street in 1982—remains among the most potent documents of the CBGB era.
Born Richard Lester Meyers on October 2, 1949, in Lexington, Kentucky, Hell lost his father, an experimental psychologist, at age seven and was raised by his mother, an educator. During adolescence he enrolled at the Sanford School, a private institution in Hockessin, Delaware, where he befriended classmate Tom Miller. The pair fled campus, set a field ablaze in Alabama, were taken into custody, and subsequently expelled. Hell relocated to New York City intent on establishing himself as a poet, placing work in various journals and issuing self-produced mimeographed chapbooks. In 1972 Miller arrived in the city; together they published a volume of verse credited to Theresa Stern, and Miller, already a skilled guitarist, suggested forming a band. He convinced Hell to acquire a bass and learn the instrument; Miller adopted the name Tom Verlaine while Meyers became Richard Hell. Drummer Billy Ficca completed the lineup, which operated briefly as the Neon Boys.
The Neon Boys generated minimal notice, but in 1974, after guitarist Richard Lloyd joined, the musicians rebranded as Television and secured a weekly Sunday residency at the newly opened Bowery club CBGB. As word spread of the emerging Bowery sound labeled punk rock, producer Brian Eno recorded a demo for the group. Tensions between Hell and Verlaine over leadership and song allocation led Hell to exit Television in May 1975; within days he accepted an invitation to join the Heartbreakers, founded by former New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders. The Heartbreakers quickly became a fixture on the local club circuit, yet Hell again grew frustrated by limited opportunities to perform his own material and departed in early 1976 to assemble his own outfit. Taking its name partly from a novella Hell had written titled “The Voidoid,” Richard Hell & the Voidoids comprised lead guitarist Robert Quine, a jazz enthusiast and Hell’s colleague at the Cinemabilia bookshop; rhythm guitarist Ivan Julian, previously of the R&B ensemble the Foundations; drummer Marc Bell, formerly of the proto-metal band Dust; and Hell handling vocals and bass. The group soon ranked among the most discussed acts on the fledgling punk scene, and Hell’s brooding presence prompted one publication to dub him punk’s counterpart to Mick Jagger. Sire Records offered a contract, and Blank Generation appeared in 1977. Although the album drew enthusiastic critical response, its demanding sound found little favor with mainstream listeners, and domestic touring proved difficult because few venues would book out-of-town punk acts.
An English tour supporting the Clash proved troublesome, with audiences reacting with spit and incomprehension while Hell’s heroin dependency triggered repeated withdrawals. The original Voidoids configuration dissolved after Bell exited in 1978 to join the Ramones (adopting the name Marky Ramone), Julian launched the Outsets, and Sire ended its association with the band. During this period Hell portrayed a punk musician named Billy in the 1980 film Blank Generation directed by Ulli Lommel and shared screenwriting credit; he later appeared as the struggling musician Eric in Susan Seidelman’s independent feature Smithereens (1982) and took a small role in her subsequent film Desperately Seeking Susan. Hell assembled a revised Voidoids lineup consisting of himself and Quine alongside guitarist Naux and drummer Fred Maher. Destiny Street surfaced on Red Star Records concurrently with the growing acclaim for Smithereens, yet despite favorable notices the album failed commercially and the band disintegrated once more. In 1985 Hell mounted a final Voidoids tour featuring guitarist Jody Harris, bassist Ted Horowitz, and drummer Anton Fier; a single track from these performances surfaced on the 1990 live retrospective Funhunt, after which the ensemble dissolved without entering the studio.
Following 1985 Hell recorded only occasionally and performed live with extreme rarity, instead concentrating on novels and essays, while the selective Quine contributed to projects by Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and Matthew Sweet among others. The four original members reconvened in 1999 to cut the new song “Oh” for the compilation Beyond Cyberpunk, produced by Wayne Kramer, but Quine’s death in 2004 effectively ended prospects of further reunions. Rhino Records issued a remastered and expanded 40th-anniversary edition of Blank Generation in 2017, prepared with Hell’s involvement.
Hell had long voiced dissatisfaction with the final mix of Destiny Street yet lacked access to the original multitrack tapes for a remix. Locating a work tape containing only the rhythm tracks, he fashioned Destiny Street Repaired, adding fresh vocals and guitar parts by Bill Frisell, Ivan Julian, and Marc Ribot; Insound released the variant in 2009. A decade later three of the four original multitrack masters were recovered, allowing Hell to collaborate with musician and engineer Nick Zinner on a new stereo mix. In January 2021 Omnivore issued Destiny Street Complete, a comprehensive set containing remastered versions of the original album and Destiny Street Repaired, the newly approved mix, and twelve bonus tracks comprising demos and single sides.
