Nick Cooper Decock Reminisces His Time Playing In Marky Ramone And The Speed Kings
Interview by GINGER COYOTE
I received an email from Nick and became fascinated by his book I ♥️ Ramones The Life And The Times Of The Speed Kings after hearing about what the book details. I suggested doing this badass interview.
Punk Globe: Tell us about your new book ‘I ♥️ The Ramones’. You told me that you were on the road with a Ramone.
Nick: The book is kind of my rawk’n’roll memoir. I started playing music around ‘79/’80 and as a kid, I dreamed of becoming a rock’n’roll star. In the sixties, my mom looked like one of the Ronettes and my dad could have been in the BeeGees. So I guess I was destined for a career in the music business hahaha. Over more than forty years I played in a lot of bands, released a dozen of albums, and even more singles. Then for more than 10 years, I ran a merchandise company doing screenprinting for bands like Speedealer, Demented Are Go, Horror Pops, and Slim Jim Phantom just to name a few. During that time I also had my own Kustom Kulture Klothing brands Rawkahula and RawKahuna. The last two years I got into writing and in 2023 my first book Faded Glory Boy about my early punkrock years in the eighties was released. I started writing without the intention of becoming a real “author” but much to my surprise the book sold faster than lightning and in less than six months there was a reprint. So I got a taste for writing and my new book “I Heartbreak The Ramones” was the obvious follow-up. Somewhere along my musical journey, I walked into Marky Ramone and we spent a couple of years doing music together. We toured several times in Europe, Japan and the US and over three years. Those years were jam-packed with highs and lows and I experienced some sort of a punk rock spinal tap. I just needed to get that story on paper and now 20 years after the demise of Marky Ramone & The SpeedKings, the book is finally here.
Punk Globe: Give us a rundown about the book. I realize from the title it details playing in Marky Ramone and The Speed Kings. Give us the dirt!
Nick: The original working title of the book was “I HATE THE RAMONES” which is a very bold statement. But that is the way I felt at times. Of course, I don’t hate the band as such, but that whole Ramones circus had quite an impact on my personal life. Being in a band with a Ramone means that somehow you are always indebted. Although we wrote all our own original songs and our sound was way harder than what the Ramones were all about, still the kids needed their fix of Ramones songs wherever we played. And we obliged but too many times it felt like being a jukebox or a cover band. And I never had the intention to be in such a cover band.
Anyway, the book itself tells the story of what happened between 2000 and 2004. We recorded some albums and toured the world. The kids loved the band but the critics spit us out. Some of the things we experienced were out of this world and among the best times in my life but all the good stuff also had a backside. The ups were stellar, the downs were disastrous and I wanted to document what really happened in those years. I have absolutely no regrets and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. So the book was not intended to settle scores. Some of the stories are blunt, embarrassing or just plain hilarious but never vindictive. My fellow band members contributed their side of things and it became multidimensional. The book also has over 400 unpublished photos that give a behind-the-scenes look. Someone told me: “Reading the book feels like being part of the roadcrew. When you close your eyes you actually feel like being on the road with the band”. The fun thing is that I am still left with almost 50 hours of movie footage that covers a lot of the shit in the book. Who knows this might turn into Spinal Tap II – the punkrock movie one day.
Punk Globe: Tell the readers how you met Marky Ramone.
Nick: Back in 2000 I met Marky Ramone and the Intruders when my band played support for one of their shows in Europe. That night Marky ended up in my place and the Intruders used our backline for the rest of the tour. Marky and I really connected. When my local band faced a European tour and no drummer a couple of months later, I called Marky to join in. It was quite a desperate attempt but much to my surprise he said yes. It was the start of a journey that would last for almost four years. After the European Tour, he disbanded the Intruders and we started Marky Ramone & The SpeedKings.
Punk Globe: You and Marky formed The Speed Kings which was called Marky Ramone and The SpeedKings. Who else was in the band and what did they do?
Nick: The first line-up (2000) I had with Marky was when he joined my local band The Buckweeds. After that first tour we became the “MARKY RAMONE GROUP” (2001) and played some try-out shows. The name didn’t stick because of some legacy stuff so I turned it into MARKY RAMONE & THE SPEEDKINGS (2002-2004). “SpeedKing” comes from the legendary Ludwig “Speedking” drum pedal, but also from the Deep Purple song “Speedking” and also refers to the hotrod, rockabilly rawk direction we were into.
The longest-lasting lineup consisted of Marky on drums, Dee Jaywalker (who played a tour with Walter Lure) on guitar, Jack Meyer (of the Belgian KBD punk band Revenge88) on bass, and me on guitar and vocals. Dee who had a huge rockabilly influence and was part of giving us a more Social Distortion sound than the Ramones direction.
Punk Globe: You are located in both Belgium and in Italy. You and Marky toured extensively in Europe, Japan, and America. Tell us about the tours. Was Marky easy to tour with?
Nick: Nowadays I reside in both Belgium and Italy but back in the day I lived in Belgium. Marky was very demanding to say the least since he had his Ramones and R’N’R Hall of Fame Inductee reputation to hold up to. Compared to the Ramones we were in fact a bunch of nobodies. When he started playing with us, we received a grade after each show. He wanted us to average an 8. “When you guys are down to 6, I’m outta here”, he always said.
Mark is an incredible drummer and I gained massive amounts of experience by playing with him. On the other hand, I combined being a band member with the role of tour manager, booker etc and Marky could be a pain in the ass. In comparison with the Ramones, we were kindergarten level and the circumstances to play in were not always of Ramones stature. He had a hard time being realistic about things sometimes and that’s bound to make someone a little overly chipper.
The hardest thing for me was that I was the one who had to deal with this and sometimes I really felt like being a babysitter. When you wanna play rock’n’ roll that is not what you sign up for. But you take things as they come. Managing this kinda shit doesn’t make one popular. You can’t do good for everyone I learned. If that would have been my intention, I should have started an ice cream stall.
Punk Globe: Marky Ramone and The Speed Kings lasted for 3 years. What did you do after the band disbanded?
Nick: While we had the SpeedKings on one side, Marky became part of Jerry Only’s Misfits troup, the band that had Dez Cadena and Keith Morris for a while. For Marky, it was not always easy to combine shows on both sides of the ocean and for sure The Misfits brought in more cash than we did.
Also, we wanted to scale up the touring and that felt too much for him. So partly there was this logistic thing.
But what really made me throw in the towel was when we were going to do a Russian and a Canadian tour and we got fucked over by the US booking agency at that time. They convinced
Marky to do the tour with the Canadians of Teenage Head instead of us. On a side note, the booking agent and I never got along, and while Marky very much took his side, later on, the truth came out when this guy tried to pull a scam on all the European promotors of the Misfits tour but by that time it was too late. I was done with what I felt as betrayal and token tantrums and I pulled the plug.
After three years I landed back in the mundane world and faced a divorce, child custody and alimony shit and I needed to secure a steady income. Playing music or writing a book was not on top of my list. Returning to my previous occupation in a corporate environment also felt awkward. I chose rock’n’roll to escape the corporate big company hassle and going back felt even more like a failure. Eventually I followed my passion for graphic design and started doing all kinds of creative stuff to make ends meet. This endeavor brought me as close to rock’n’roll as possible without having to go through the hassle of starting a new band and keeping the troops togheter. The years after the SpeedKings weren’t always easy and at some point I even needed to sell all my guitars to survive.
A couple of years before corona hit the world I decided to start a new company doing industrial relations consultancy as I have a labor law background and that’s where I am at nowadays. Writing and giving back some memories in the form of stories or putting out the unreleased stuff we once recorded is keeping the rock’n’roll flame burning.
As Maya Angelou once said: “If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.”
Punk Globe: You released two albums tell us about the albums are they available now?
Nick: Our debut album was “No If’s, And’s or Buts!” and was originally released in Europe on White Jazz Records in Sweden. That was the label of the Hellacopters, Nomand and Gluecifer. In Europe at that time there was no better label if you were in the whole “RAWK” thing. Later on the album was released in Argentina of Fogon and in Japan on the major label JVC, all with different graphics and bonus tracks. When the album was released in the US, Thirsty Ear Records changed the title to “Legends Bleed”.
Then the show in Berlin on New Year’s Eve was recorded professionally and I released it on my own label Rawk-A-Hula Records as a fanclub only CD release. The live album had 13 songs and was available in a white and black”SpeedQueen” sleeve. Little details, the pinup girl on the white sleeve is the girlfriend of Jimmy Gestapo of Murphy’s Law.
This live album was rereleased by myself on vinyl this year with a gatefold sleeve and 4 different colors of vinyl. It was not released to make money from it since there are only 300 copies but for fans to enjoy the vinyl version and it has 6 bonus tracks.
Next to those releases we recorded a second full length which remains unreleased. It’s called “Back Seat Bingo” and might be released one day.
The SpeedKings also did 5 singles. All of the info on the release and my whole discography also from other bands I was in, is to be found in the book.
Punk Globe: In your email, you mention Jayne County and Joan Jett. Did you play shows with them during your time with Marky? Do you that Marky played drums with Ms. County
Nick: I lived and worked in Japan from 1996 onwards. My Japanese girlfriend had been on the crew for several US bands like Van Halen but also Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. When I once mentionned to her that I learned to play the guitar with Runaways songs, she told me Joan was a friend and called her on the phone just like that. A couple of weeks later we were invited to join Joan for some shows on military bases in the Pacific. Crazy and really unexpected to suddenly be on stage with Joan. Although this was a one time opportunity it felt like a very weird coincidence.
As for Jayne County. Since forever I have been a huge fan of Wayne/Jayne. Back in the nineties I recorded some Wayne County songs (Bad in Bed and Mean Muthafuckin’ Man which came out as a 7” on SFTRI Records). When Marky came into the picture it became clear they had been in the band together and that was another strange coincidence that felt like dots connecting. In 2002 Radical Records released the Ramones Forever International Compilation and Marky and I were invited for the release show at Don Hill’s in NYC. That night was also a fundraiser for the Joey Ramone Lymphoma Research Fund. Marky refused to play but I went over. Jayne was host for the night and I did “Beat on the Brat” with her and the backing band. I actually creamed in my jeans to be on stage with Jayne.
Punk Globe: How did you meet my long time friend Terri Laird (Texas Terri)?
Nick: I met Texxie when she toured Europe with the Stiff Ones. The night I saw her, she was playing in a very small club but her performance really blew me away. After the show we started talking and it was the start of a long lasting friendship. When we toured the US, she was our special guest and we did a tour promo 7” together. On off days I hung out with her at the Afton Arms Apartments where she lived and we talked about the then still embryonic Texas Terri Bomb. Over the years I did several tshirt designs for her and when she moved away from LA, I got her Gibson Junior guitar. Nowadays we talk on and off but she remains one of my closest friends.
Punk Globe: When was the last time you communicated with Marky?
Nick: The last time I spoke to Marky was back in 2003. We played our last show on the US tour in San Diego and after that I flew home. I met him shortly after in The Netherlands when he toured with the Misfits and we started setting up for the Canadian tour. Then suddenly the whole thing fell apart and the band split up. Marky couldn’t take it that I was pissed and couldn’t accept that the booking agent screwed us over. From that moment on I became “the asshole”.
There is a funny anecdote about this. At the DVD release party for the Ramones RAW DVD, Marky was with John Cafiero and a friend of mine went over to Mark to have some SpeedKings records signed. John asked about the SpeedKings to Marky and he said he liked the band better than the Misfits except for one guy who was an asshole. When my friend asked who the asshole was, he put down his shades and said “Nick”. I can live with that. It takes one to know one…
Punk Globe: What happened to the other SpeedKings after the band broke up?
Nick: After The SpeedKings split up we kinda lost track of each other. I moved to another city, got entangled in a divorce and you know how things go. Dee Jaywalker, the guitarist and I lost touch and we did not talk for twenty years until I recently did research for the book. Through a mutual friend we got back in touch and Dee contributed anecdotes, flyers and photos. Over the years he kept on playing in bands and is doing this until this day.
Jack also kept on playing but has been running a very successful bar and club in Ostend. His archive also opened up for this book.
We are all back on speaking terms. Life is too short to hold grudges or to lose touch with people.
In this perspective, the book comes at the right time. For twenty years I told people I was gonna write the SpeedKings story but it never happened until six months ago. I had written my first book “Faded Glory Boy” about my eighties punkdays and the SpeedKings story was the obvious follow up. No one would have documented our story and although I wrote the book to give a place to my own feelings, it grew out to be a testament of the best days of our lives. No one will take this away from us. When Marky wrote his memoirs “Punk Rock Blitzkrieg” he erased the three years because somehow those years didn’t fit in this story. He strongly demanded Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone of the Ramonesheaven.com website to erase all SpeedKings and Misfits stories related to him. Pure falsification of history. Jari-Pekka refused. You can’t change history no matter how hard you try. Live with it.
On June 27th we will do a release party for the book and play one final SpeedKings unplugged show. We will be going out with a bang.
Punk Globe: Where can readers get your book?
Nick: The book will be available from punkrockheartbreak.com or Amazon and most of the bigger online retailers. It is originally written in English but will also be available in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Do you have any Internet addresses that you would like to share with the readers?
Nick: I can be reached at info@heartbreakramones.com or info@huntandpeckbooks.com
It is always good to hear about people and directly from me they can get the limited edition live album.
Punk Globe: Describe yourself in three words.
Nick: Determined Saint and Sinner
Punk Globe: Any last words for Punk Globe readers?
Nick: Whether you love or hate the Ramones, this book has something for you. When you have ever played in a band and you hoped to break big but fell short, you will be able to relate to this story.
And for those who may assume about my feelings towards Marky, I am grateful we once shared a friendship and a lot of stages. As they say… good people give you happiness, bad people give you experience, worst people give you a lesson and best people give you memories… Marky gave me a bit of everything.
Ramones Forever!!!!!
Photo credits: All picture copyright of Nick Cooper except Japanese photos by Akihiro Takayama and Marky Ratfink by Bram van Schaik.
