Billy Rath Lives!

"The Heartbreakers were a R&R band NOT a punk band...PLEASE get this right/straight! It just happened that the punks loved us, but so did the rockers and the skinheads, etc. We were a New York street Rock ‘n Roll Band. We were/are lovers, not anarchists’/politicians‘!"

That's Billy Rath talking -- he who replaced Richard Hell on bass in the Heartbreakers and subsequently dropped off the face of the Earth, is apparently alive and well (although minus a foot), and will be touring the UK with his band Billy Rath's Street Pirates this summer. Read his first-ever interview with Soundcheck magazine here.