Shortly after the disintegration of the New York Dolls in 1975, guitarist Johnny Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan formed the Heartbreakers (not to be confused with Tom Petty's Heartbreakers). The original lineup consisted of the duo plus former Television bassist Richard Hell. The group played regularly in New York City, becoming part of the early CBGB punk scene. Thunders assumed the vocal duties, while the music was quite comparable to the trashy rock that the Dolls patented, except that just about every song was about either the pursuit of the opposite sex or drugs (all the bandmembers were addicted to hard drugs, so much so that at one point, Thunders considered changing the band's name to "the Junkies").