Johnny Ramone, lead guitarist will New York punk legends The Ramones, has died aged 55 after a 5-year battle with prostate cancer. Joey, whose real name was John Cummings, died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home yesterday afternoon.

At Johnny’s bedside when he passed away were his wife, Linda, Ramones creative director Arturo Vega and musicians including Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and Rob Zombie, who all performed at a Ramones tribute concert on Sunday night (12th).

Johnny is the third member of that band to die, following singer Joey Ramone from lymphatic cancer in 2001 and bassist Dee Dee Ramone who took a drug overdose the following year.

Formed in the 1970’s at the beginning of the punk scene (some might argue they were the beginning of the punk scene), The Ramones official split up in 1996 after releaseing 21 studio and live albums. Songs like Blitzkrieg Bop, Teenage Lobotomy and I Wanna Be Sedated showed off the band’s tongue-in-cheek nihlistic attitude and also their trademark “one-two-three-four” introductions.

“We couldn’t write about love or cars, so we sang about this stuff, like glue-sniffing. We thought it was funny. We thought we could get away with anything,” Johnny Ramone once told an interviewer.