Thomas Erdelyi (born Tamás Erdélyi, [ˈærdeji ˈtɒmaːʃ]; January 29, 1949 – July 11, 2014), known professionally as Tommy Ramone, was an American musician.

[3] In high school, Tommy played guitar in a mid-1960s, four-piece garage band, the Tangerine Puppets, with a schoolmate and guitarist, John Cummings, the future Johnny Ramone.

During the band's earliest documented shows around New York between 1974 and 1975,[18][19] he used an older Rogers set in a dark wood finish that was soon replaced once Danny Fields became their manager.

On October 22, 1977,[21] the band lost most of their equipment after it was stolen following a show in Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom and a new, larger set of Rogers "Big R" series drums was obtained shortly afterward.

Featured on the recordings for It's Alive and Road To Ruin, as well as in prominent performance scenes from the film Rock 'n' Roll High School, the set was later sold to a private collector for $10,500.

In October 2007 in an interview to promote It's Alive 1974–1996 a two-DVD set of the band's best televised live performances[citation needed] he paid tribute to his deceased bandmates: They gave everything they could in every show.

They weren't the type to phone it in, if you see what I mean.Ramone and Claudia Tienan (formerly of underground band the Simplistics) performed as a bluegrass-based folk duo called Uncle Monk.

In The Independent, Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith wrote that "before Tommy left the line-up, the Ramones had already become one of the most influential punk bands of the day, playing at the infamous CBGB in the Bowery area of New York and touring for each album incessantly."

"[34][35] Writing in Variety, Cristopher Morris said: "Tommy's driving, high-energy drum work was the turbine that powered the leather-clad foursome's loud, antic sound.