Jesse Malin cuts an impressively cool figure even on Zoom: tousled hair, a boyish smile, a Ramones T-shirt broadcasting his heritage in the same part of New York City as the punk rockers. In a gentle, slightly bruised voice, he dives right in when I briefly mention my own memories of seeing the Ramones in Dublin. They were, the 59-year-old says, a pivotal reason for his wanting to form a band.
“I was probably about 10 or 11 when I first heard them. I had already been practising to play Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar licks and riffs, and then suddenly the Ramones came along. I was, like, ‘Wow, those chords!’
“So not only did the anthemic pop, quirky humour and the fact that they were from Queens impact me in such a way that they were like a gang I wanted to be part of, but it also encouraged me and empowered me to write my own songs.”
Before the Ramones’ one-two-three-four count-in became part of 1970s punk lexicon, Malin loved Elton John – “the sadness and the happiness in the same melody, and the pointed lyrics of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” – and rock bands such as Kiss and AC/DC.
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But punk “brought it down to the street, a gang level, a community. It was something through which I could find a way to express myself without going to guitar college and writing songs about Vikings and jet planes. The Ramones and other bands spoke to me in a way that made me feel I could also speak their language a little bit.”
Malin details all of this and more in Almost Grown, a vivid, candid and gritty new memoir that stylistically runs along similar lines to his music. “To tell a story like mine, you can’t be all Pollyanna and politically perfect with everything,” he says.
Growing up, he’d see musicians and members of various bands pounding Queens’ pavements, from preppy pop singers such as Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to punks such as Johnny Thunders and Joey Ramone (whom he’d pester with questions about music).
“There was a salt-of-the-earth realness to the place, but it was also a racist, homophobic kind of area that you wanted to get out of and go into Manhattan, which is where the magic was and where you could be yourself.
“Manhattan was where you would not get beaten up for wearing a different type of shirt, a place where you could find stores with records or clothes you couldn’t get in Queens. You felt that you were set free into this zone where you could live cheaply and create.
“The place could be dangerous, however. There were risks and prices that you had to pay, but it was worth it, because if you survived you could create something that might change the path of your life.”
“Survived” is a word that has taken on a particularly significant meaning in Malin’s life. In May 2023, several weeks after celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction, he suffered a spinal-cord infarction, a rare type of stroke in which blood flow to crucial nervous tissue is disrupted.
Severe back pain was immediately followed by paralysis, muscle weakness and sensory loss. Paralysed from the waist down since, Malin now uses a wheelchair. It’s acutely ironic for a performer whose signature move at his live shows was to dive off the stage and wade into the crowd before making his way back to lap up the adulation of his fans.
No sooner had news spread about his spinal stroke than music-industry friends rallied to support him. In September 2024 Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Elvis Costello and Susanna Hoffs, among others, contributed to a tribute album, Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin. Two months later a pair of tribute concerts featured Williams, Costello, Jakob Dylan, Rickie Lee Jones, Steve Van Zandt and more.
In May 2025, he reminds me, he played a gig during Kilkenny Roots Festival. “That was fabulous. Great festival, great people, great town.”
More recently, Malin’s off-Broadway musical, Silver Manhattan: A Musical Guide to Survival concluded a residency at the 100-seat Bowery Palace theatre, not far from the now-displaced CBGB, the venue where, as a 12-year-old, he auditioned for gigs.
On our Zoom call I can see him occasionally grip the arms of his wheelchair and raise himself up and down a few times – mild exercises compared with his strict daily rehabilitation routine, which incorporates robust physical therapy and, latterly, stem-cell treatments.
How’s he doing? “Everybody’s got something, right?” he says, explaining that when he started to make his name, in hard-core punk bands such as Heart Attack and D Generation, he was exposed to the scene’s positive mental attitude.
He pauses to shift in his chair, wincing as he does.
“But getting hit with this? It was life-changing, and it still is. I need help sometimes. I’m still in a lot of pain. I’m still working all the time on my body.”
Music is also medicine, he says.
“I’m grateful that I’m able to sing and play, but it’s different, and I can only do select shows. It challenges me to see and appreciate the city, my friends, my community and my music in different ways. I’ve seen a different side of humanity, of generosity and love that is still mind-blowing.”
But his positive mental attitude must have been seriously challenged over the past three years. Until his spinal stroke he’d been healthy.
“I get dark,” he says. It’s almost as if he’s being tested. “Yeah, someone is saying to the positive guy, ‘Ha, we’re gonna show you. Let’s see if you’re mentally positive after this!’
“Look, mornings and late nights are tough. I have certain medications I need, but I don’t take antidepressants. I try to challenge myself with physical training – and, of course, there’s music – but it’s definitely been way more of a battle to keep the ...”
Malin’s voice falters. After a few seconds he continues.
“I thought I understood the universe in some way. I thought I understood the notion of karma. But I don’t understand it, and I don’t like to guess why it happened. It’s medical, it’s science, it’s physical, but, yeah, it makes you think about the world differently. Some days it feels like it’s a dream. Except it’s not.”
One of the worst things you can do is take things for granted. No one is invulnerable, Malin says, and you have no idea what’s going to happen next. He tells a story about his visit to Dublin in January 2018 to celebrate Shane MacGowan’s 60th birthday at the National Concert Hall.
“He sang one song, maybe two, I can’t recall, but he was in a wheelchair. Your president handed him an award, but Shane couldn’t hold it, so a military guy took it off him and gave it to me. I tried to give it to Bono, because I’m not from Ireland, but he said, no, I had to carry it off the stage.
“Afterwards there was an after-party at some other room at the venue, and people were singing songs. And there in the corner, away from the lights, a nurse beside him, was Shane. He’s one of my heroes, so I just went over to him, shook his hand. I thanked him and told him to keep going.”
Malin thinks about that night when “I’m trying to get up on stage, and I’m in a wheelchair, and how certain people who have inspired me kept going. Even just seeing Shane that one time in Dublin, singing and showing people that you must keep going. I’m paraphrasing someone else’s quote here, but the central idea is right: If you go through hell, keep going over heaven.”
Almost Grown: A New York Memoir is published by Akashic Books
