updated in 2017

For over 10 years there's been a way too long interview on this website, which Danny Ramirez did many a year ago in late 2006. At the time he was working on his second cd Misanthropicus Fanaticus!, that got released on May 21, 2007. It was followed by a couple of gigs in early June 2007 and a handful more from February to May 2008. Since then Danny did a stint performing with an instrumental backing for some years to return to playing live accompanied by his acoustic nylon string guitar in 2012, but had been pretty low on releasing stuff. August 31, 2016, the EP Back With A Dungeon! got posted on Bandcamp, his first release since November 2012.

‘That’s right, and the 2012 release was just one song with Dutch lyrics for an online Sinterklaas compilation. The last real release before Back With A Dungeon! was an online X-mas EP in November 2011. In August 2011 I was still working on a new full-length cd, but I got distracted by the upcoming X-mas season and recorded the X-mas EP instead. It was something that had been on my mind for quite some years, and in 2011 I thought of it just in time to have the EP out before December. One thing that played a role in not releasing the full-length was the fact that I didn’t really wanna go through producing a physical cd again like I did in August 2009, with the release of my third full-length In Concert And Intoxicated!.’

The In Concert And Intoxicated! cd for the most part went unnoticed by the fans, as it was a release of probably just five copies.

‘Summer 2009 I still had a lot of Misanthropicus Fanaticus! cd’s lying around, and I didn’t wanna repeat this. So the third cd was available for only a few months. It contained five new songs and live versions of five Ramirez classics. The new ones were composed around somewhat more personal lyrics about living next to society, rather than the traditional Ramirez lyrics about murderous individuals. This was another reason for the limited amount it got released in. Just two of the new songs of In Concert And Intoxicated! have been done live one time each -- at two gigs in August 2009, right after the cd release.’

A few months before in the same year Danny had changed his acoustic guitar for a backing cd with instrumental versions of his hits, so he only had to sing along with those while performing.

‘This idea was proposed to me in March 2009 by Paul Zwetsloot, who was organizing a festival in April. At first I wasn’t too eager to do this, but a few days later I saw the advantage of having the microphone in one hand and being able to using the other for holding a beer. So after April 2009 I continued playing live with an instrumental backing for about 20 gigs until March 2012.’

June 2012 saw Danny’s return to playing live accompanied by his guitar. After quite some acoustic performances until November 2012, however, the next few years would proof to be pretty quiet for Ramirez.

‘During 2013 and 2014 I only did two gigs and only wrote two songs. This was mostly because Toner Low -- the stoner doom band I play in -- was touring quite a lot in those years, and consequently Ramirez moved a bit to the background of my mind. Up from June 2015 I started doing a solo gig again once every now and then, but it was not until July 2016 that I decided to do another release.’

This resulted in the Back With A Dungeon! EP, consisting mainly of recordings that were planned for the 2011 full-length cd, which got scrapped for the X-mas online EP.

‘Most of the songs that I recorded in August 2011 already were written in August 2009, but so far were not made public. Opening song I Dig A Shallow Grave In Which You Will Decay! already got played live with a different title at the back to acoustic guitar gigs I did in the second half of 2012. There also was the 2008 song I Need Some Bodies! that didn’t fit the In Concert And Intoxicated! cd from 2009, and still had to be released. In order to have a somewhat more recent song on Back With A Dungeon! as well, I added the 2012 song I Might Have Dropped Out Of School And Be A Convicted Sex Offender! that already got played live once in November 2012. Subsequently a couple of 2009 songs as well as some other unreleased ones that I wrote from 2010 to 2015 got reserved for later online EP's. The songs written in 2011 and 2012 appeared on the X-mas EP, the Sinterklaas compilation and the Back With A Dungeon! EP.’

While falling within the acoustic guitar music genre, Danny never resorted to limiting himself by playing a certain style -- such as country or folk. He usually refers to his repertoire as being ‘campfire music’.

‘This term also cleverly illustrates the lack of intricate guitar picking in the majority of my songs. Mostly I am just strumming away, paying more attention to the vocals and the left hand chord settings. Nonetheless, in October 2016 I decided to expand the musical descriptions and tags on my websites with the term ‘outsider music’. As an independent singer-songwriter who is not too keen on the music industry and is not looking to becoming the next mainstream star, I am without a doubt part of the outsider music scene. I also figured it could make people more interested in Danny Ramirez, ‘cause outsider musicians tend to be, well, more interesting than artists playing for popularity. Talking about it, if as a result of this Danny Ramirez was to become too popular of course I would have to remove the tag again.’

Although with a firm basis somewhere in the basement of the music underground, since the 2016 EP Ramirez is on stage again regularly and started posting all of his releases on Bandcamp. His new online EP Outlawed Outsider! arrived in late July 2017.

‘From mid November 2016 until mid February 2017 I had my Winter Dungeon Tour, with gigs in Katwijk, Leiden, Noordwijk -- you name it! To somewhat promote the Bandcamp releases, I played quite some songs of my first album and some songs of the old tapes around the time those were posted on Bandcamp. Many of these songs hadn’t been on the set list in a long time, ranging from 5 to 10 years. Since I still had some older songs that I wanted to put out and wrote a couple of new ones too, I decided to plan a new Danny Ramirez EP for summer 2017. Some songs already got recorded in earlier years, and in March, June and July 2017 a few more studio sessions were done to record some new songs and complete the ones for Outlawed Outsider!. The choice for the title was inspired by my recently found outsider music status. Also, all of the lyrics deal with outside activities, such as burying corpses in your garden until there's no room left to bury more dead bodies, picking up hitchhikers and prostitutes, luring neighbourhood kids in order to strangle them and murdering in a park. The Outsider Tour! kicked off late June, supporting country punk and Hank III band member Joe Buck Yourself, and includes some gigs in other parts of the Netherlands.’

Here’s the interview Danny did in late 2006.

  updated in 2006

For years there's been a way too long interview on this website which Danny Ramirez did many a year ago in March 2002. At that time rumors had spread about Danny being some sort of animal-sacrificing Satanist, or that he finally had turned to murder for real. Back then the singer-songwriter had only been on stage once since 1999, and hadn't been really active otherwise in those years, so questions about his obscure whereabouts had risen. Danny however focused on the recordings for his first cd in his home-studio next to his bath-room. With the year of the release of the Reload Your Gun!-cd (2002) much inspiration came, letting Danny not only to finish the recordings of his debutcd, but also to write over 40 songs. In 2007 his second cd is about to be released.

'The year Reload Your Gun! got released indeed brougth the most songs for me, whilst a year earlier at some point I thought I had said it all. Not many of those 2002-songs appeared on the cd however, just 2. The recordings for Reload! stopped in March 2002, well before its release. But I was quite reluctant of putting too much new songs on it, because I knew my fans digged the old stuff so much. And to be honest, they still do. After writing all those new songs, at first I only recorded 10 of them that I especially wrote for The Night Stalker!-tape. This is a tape about Richard Ramirez, the infamous serial killer from Los Angeles in 1985. Richard Ramirez is also known as The Night Stalker. The tape finally got released in 2004. Initially this was planned for 2003, but due to all sorts of things and priorities this delayed with one year. Two months before its release I had signed a tape-deal with the totally underground-zombies of Total Hell Cult, we signed with our own blood on a human skin-contract written in the victims blood of course. I wasn't really satisfied with the recordings for The Night Stalker!-tape, but THC thought it was good enough by their standards. So I decided to release it under their moniker, as a true underground release. The songs were all written between July and December 2002, and the recordings had started shortly after writing. All rhythmguitars and most leadguitars on The Night Stalker!-tape were recorded almost one-and-a-half year before its eventual release in May 2004. For this tape I made recordings on a several days from X-mas 2002 until January 2004.'

Right after The Night Stalker! got released a short movie was shot, One Day On The Road With Danny Ramirez. Late 2005 the roadmovie appeared on dvd.

'I got shot in the summer of 2004 and after four, sometimes long days there was enough material to create a short movie from. The idea wasn't mine, but Cynthia's and Arjen's. I didn't knew of their plans at all. Ten days before the shooting begun I was handed over the script, like from out of the blue. But that was okay with me. I just did what I like best: being bossed around by a woman, telling me what to do and say, and which direction to walk. And also telling me to take another beer and roll another one, because I still had those in the previous scene. It was great. The dvd also has some bonus shots -- yeah bloopers as well kids! -- yet another biographic story about Danny Ramirez, and an audio-section with some of the 2002-songs I already had played live, some unreleased 2002-stuff no one ever heard before and a new song, a wonderful death-ballad that I wrote especially for the dvd-release. I also remixed two songs from Reload Your Gun!, meaning just leave all recordertracks opened throughout the mixing-process and don't forget to add some gunshots. I guess recording known sing-along-songs, just like with the old stuff on Reload!, again was done for the fans that simply can't get enough of those classics. And they are right, you know, the fans they are always right, you don't want to estrange your fans. The music in the movie is great as well, done by THC (not related to Total Hell Cult) and Arjen from Plutonium Nyborg. In the movie there are some more Danny Ramirez-songs from the Reload!-cd played by me as well. The dvd came out in November 2005, and more about it on www.cas.demon.nl, or mail Danny himself.'

Although he could have easily done so, Danny didn't make the step to engaging in an active acting career like colleague-singers Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears and Madonna. Instead, Danny again went through his long list of unreleased songs, which only had grown since he'd last seen it.

'By 2004 I still had enough 2002-songs left to do more releases and early 2003 had brought me a couple of nice tunes as well, so I thought of an idea I had since 2001. To release a tape with songs only about murderers on a killing spree, entitled On A Killing Spree!. I already wrote some killing spree-related songs between February 2002 and February 2003, so I only had to select them from the list and record them. Early 2005 I wrote the final tune and entered the Ramirez Recording Room. The songs were recorded in the first months of 2005 and released shortly after in April under THC, from the zombies and the blood. It's a tape with 7 short songs because the killing spree-tradition is killing as many by gun in only little time, and like the dvd-songs with much percussion-instruments. It are all short ones, with an average of 2 minutes and 6,66 sec. So the tape could be to Danny Ramirez what Reign In Blood is to Slayer. And the vocals are of sheer brilliance on this Killing Spree!-tape. Most of them with just one, but perfect vocal-track, and no making-it-better-with-backing-vocals whatsoever. I just mentioned Slayer, but frankly Killing Spree! probably contains the most inspired by Bad Religion songs I have ever recorded. To overdo that a little, at the start of the first song I added some kicks of a bass-drum like at the start of the No Control album by Bad Religion.'

Weeks after the One Day dvd came out in November 2005, Danny found himself back in the Ramirez Recording Room like he had found himself there many a time before in his bleak career. And it wasn't to start working on his second cd.

'I left the recording room in April 2005 basically in the middle of recordings for the second cd, because I thought with the dvd-release and the Killing Spree!-tape I had released enough new material for the year. When I went into the studio again it wasn't to work on the cd-songs however, but for a new THC-release. Late December 2005 I recorded the Murder Is Still A Crime!-tape, with songs that I picked from many years of writing, and that deal with things you shouldn't do. You know, there are so much things that you feel like doing, but that you shouldn't do because of the consequences. The songs, they differ a bit from my usual lyrical approach. Nevertheless it could only have been Danny Ramirez who wrote them. On the tape there is this Mass Murder Is Something That You Shouldn't Do At Home!-song with some really old chords-theme that goes back to the Danny Ramirez late 1998 or early 1999 period. I played it on a rehearsal-tape in like the first 6 months of my career and used it quite some time later to write the song. Then there is a couple of 2001-2002 tunes and some 2004-2005 songs. The song Somebody Stop Me Before I Kill More!, was the final usable song that was left from the ones that I wrote during 2001. It was partly recorded in early 2002 as a possible track for the Reload Your Gun!-cd, but the vocal-melody I had in mind back then didn't work and I just skipped the song. Late December 2005 I listened to the 2002-rhythmguitar recording again, and changed the lyrics for the verses. Because the lyrics in the chorus are linked to the coverphoto of the Murder Is Still A Crime!-tape Somebody Stop Me! had to be on it. So I tried different vocal-melodies until I found one that was worth recording, and I think it saved the song from complete oblivion. Among the other songs on the Murder Is Still A Crime!-tape there's a few of the most country-inspired tunes I wrote so far and the sing-along-melodies have returned. With only five songs it's more relaxed and slower compared to the relentless speed I took on on the Killing Spree!-tape. Even the fast songs are actually slow, but sound fast because the others are just so slow. It are very keeping-it-simple recordings. On the whole I mainly recorded only the basic tracks, only the necessary instruments for each song and as little other stuff as possible. There are no solo's at all and some percussion-less songs. But I did experiment more with backing vocals than on the Killing Spree!-tape. Those slower songs really need it sometimes. The Murder!-tape appeared in April 2006. The Mass Murder!-chords may date back a long time, but the songs for the Murder!-tape were all written between December 2000 and December 2005.'

Having expanded his repertoire up to 75 songs in December 2002, the best of all those songs should all have been recorded for the THC-tapes and dvd by now.

'I have released over 50 of my songs by March 2006. Still I have some unreleased 2002-songs left but really not much, only like 3 or 4. Ten 2002-songs I decided to be not good enough, and most of those 10 songs I have never made recordings for at all. But I also have some more unreleased stuff from 1999-2000. In 2001 I only wrote 4 tunes and the best 3 are all released. Since early 2003 I wrote about 20 more songs, so now there's a total of 95 songs with 50+ released ones. Some of the newer songs appeared on the Killing Spree!- and Murder Is Still A Crime!-tapes. Others I plan to record for the second Danny Ramirez-cd, a couple I probably throw away altogether. And you know, sometimes it's just better to write new songs with new ideas and influences. On the second cd there will be mostly new tunes, but it is inevitable that some of the tracks on this album will date back to 2002-2004.'

Many people who miss on the THC-tapes, or don't have a tapedeck any more to play them, would like to hear a new Danny Ramirez-cd. Those with a dvd-player or a computer are busy with the One Day dvd for the time being. Danny's second cd however is nevertheless considered a priority-release by many fans.

'Right after recording the Killing Spree!-tape, I started recordings for a second cd in March 2005. I picked out some of the best 2002-songs and a 2004-one to begin with. I also recorded the song that I especially wrote for the dvd-release. The idea was to put just that one song on the dvd audio-part, but then I thought of releasing the complete second cd on dvd. It was around mid March 2005 that I thought of this. I abandoned the plan when I realized that it wouldn't be a playable disc for cd-players as well as dvd-players, like sometimes you have with audio-cd's that also have a audiovisual bonus-part on it. Then I decided to release the new song, some 2002-songs and Reload!-cd remixes on the audio-part of the dvd. At that point the whole idea of releasing a second cd in 2005 was more or less left behind, because I thought I had enough new releases for the year and had to write some more new songs before I could continue the cd-recordings. The most completely recorded song entitled Full Moon Ritual Mutilation On Dope And Alcohol!, maybe the opening-track of the album, was already done in March 2005. During that month I also did record the rhythmguitars for 3 other 2002-songs planned for the second cd. I'm not sure whether they all will make it to the album though. Throughout 2003, 2004 and 2005 I wrote 8 more to appear on the second cd, so that brings it to a total of about 10 songs. In 2006 the final songs for the second Danny Ramirez-cd got written. The album's title will be Misanthropicus Fanaticus!.'