I Heartbreak The Ramones and Scream Therapy reviewed by Thoughts Words Action
- david1170
- 13 minutes ago
- 6 min read
‘I Heartbreak The Ramones: The life and times of The Speedkings’ by Nick Cooper
Few books in recent memory have managed to capture the brutal beauty of punk rock with such honesty such as I Heartbreak The Ramones by Nick Cooper. A Belgian musician turned author, Cooper decided to write a memoir, resulting in a bold, brilliantly self-aware odyssey that peels back the noisy glamour of the punk rock’s backstage world and reveals the heartbeat underneath, fragile, bruised, but defiantly alive. From the very first page, it’s clear Cooper isn’t out to mythologize the past. He’s here to document it. And he does so with remarkable humility and clarity. In recounting his three turbulent years with Marky Ramone and The SpeedKings, a band he co-founded with the legendary drummer of the Ramones, Cooper offers a sneak peek into what happens when your dream collides with the unrelenting machinery of rock’n’roll life. The writing is clean. It’s spare. And yet, it pulses with emotion. Cooper never overreaches. He doesn’t try to impress. He writes as he lived it, directly, honestly, and with just enough wit to keep the wreckage from overwhelming the reader. This, in fact, is one of the book’s most admirable qualities. It’s a refusal to romanticize chaos, even as it documents a life drenched in the very myths that made punk such a seductive genre to begin with. There’s a beautiful sadness in Cooper’s story. Not the sadness of failure, but of disillusionment. He never plays the victim. He doesn’t condemn Marky Ramone, even when things fall apart. Instead, Cooper shows us the slow erosion of trust and friendship through the eyes of someone who genuinely believed in the power of music to change his life. He achieved that dream and paid for it in ways he hadn’t imagined.
This is no “tell-all” in the trashy tabloid sense. I Heartbreak The Ramones is confessional, yes, but never petty. Cooper makes it clear that his story is not about revenge. It’s about truth. And in an industry too often built on illusion and mythmaking, truth is the most punk rock act of all. The narrative voice carries a subtle rhythm that mirrors punk itself, fast, loud, and emotional, but precise. Sentences crash into one another like cymbals. Paragraphs build like three-chord progressions. And through it all, Cooper maintains a delicate balance between admiration and regret, never tipping too far into either. What sets this memoir apart from other rock books is the level of self-reflection. Cooper does not only describe what happened, he questions why it mattered. Why did the dream mean so much? What does it cost to meet your heroes finally? And is the road to stardom ever really worth it? He doesn’t provide easy answers. Instead, he leads the reader into the wreckage, hands them a flashlight, and says, Look for yourself. It’s also worth noting the powerful addition of hundreds of previously unpublished photographs. These aren’t the polished images you’d find in a glossy music magazine. They’re real, sweaty, loud, imperfect. Just like the life Cooper lived. They anchor the text in reality and deepen the experience. You see the exhaustion in the eyes. You smell the beer-soaked stage floors. You feel the adrenaline of another night in another anonymous city, playing to a room full of strangers. In many ways, I Heartbreak The Ramones is a love letter to the underdogs of rock music. It deeply resonates with every musician who’s ever rehearsed in a cold garage, played a show for five people, or driven cross-country in a broken-down van for a shot at something bigger. Cooper speaks not just for himself, but for an entire generation of dreamers who burned brightly and briefly, and whose stories are too often lost between the lines of music history.
The book’s greatest success, however, may be its tone. Cooper never slips into bitterness. He remains a fan, even as his idol becomes human. This allows the story to maintain its emotional integrity. There is no cynicism here, only honesty. And perhaps that’s why the heartbreak hits so hard. There’s a quiet heroism in telling this story the way Cooper has. He doesn’t glamorize the drugs or the dysfunction. He doesn’t use punk rock as a shield for bad behaviour. Instead, he strips it all down and gives us the story of a man who loved music more than anything, chased his dream with everything he had, and came out the other side both shattered and wiser. I Heartbreak The Ramones feels refreshingly real. It doesn’t try to make punk pretty. It shows the beauty in the mess. The poetry in the noise. And the discomfort behind the power chords. Nick Cooper may not have ended up where he hoped. But in telling this story, his story. He’s given readers something more valuable than fame, truth, heart, and one hell of a ride.
‘Scream Therapy: A punk journey through mental health’ by Jason Schreurs
Jason Schreurs’ Scream Therapy: A Punk Journey through Mental Health is more than just a book. It’s a manifesto and a cry in the dark that echoes through mosh pits, bedroom speakers, and late-night thoughts. In this remarkable book, Schreurs turns noise into narrative, pain into power, and punk rock into healing. On the surface, Scream Therapy is a book about punk. But at its heart, it is about survival. It is about finding light in distortion. It is about the desperate need for community in a world that too often fails to listen. And most of all, it is about Schreurs himself, a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder later in life, who returns to his roots in the punk scene not for nostalgia, but for salvation. Schreurs’ writing is deceptively simple. He speaks clearly. Honestly. Without pretence. Yet, every sentence hums with emotion. He writes like someone who’s lived through the storm and finally dares to name it. He uses his years of experience as a journalist to ask the hard questions and to listen, truly listen, to the voices of others who found their truth in the scream.
There’s brilliance in the structure of this book. Schreurs interweaves his journey with the stories of other punks. These are people who live on the margins. People who battle addiction, trauma, poverty, and mental illness. And yet, they find comfort in the chaos of punk rock. They find clarity in the noise. The result is a collage of survival. A living, breathing community is etched onto the page. Schreurs does not romanticize suffering. He does not glamorize punk. What he offers instead is something much more important, understanding. He shows us that punk rock is not just rebellion. It is a refuge. It is where those who are cast aside can scream without judgment. Where those with invisible pain can feel seen. There is an immediacy to the prose. Short sentences. Clear rhythms. Every paragraph feels like a punk anthem, tight, raw, and charged with emotion. Schreurs never talks down to the reader. He invites us in. He trusts us. And in doing so, he creates a rare intimacy. One of the book’s greatest strengths is how it bridges two worlds often kept apart, mental health and music. Schreurs speaks to psychiatrists and counsellors, many of them punk themselves, who are pushing against the rigidity of the mental health system. They offer alternative approaches. They speak of empathy over diagnosis. Listening over labelling. These sections feel revolutionary. They are thoughtful, deeply researched, and rooted in lived experience. However, personal stories hit hardest. Schreurs is at his most powerful when he writes about his own life, abuse, the years of confusion, the breakdowns, and breakthroughs. He does not hide. He does not flinch. He tells us exactly what it feels like to lose yourself, and exactly what it takes to come back. There is a heart-breaking moment when Schreurs recalls the moment of his bipolar diagnosis. It came late in life. It shook him. But rather than retreat, he began the hard work of rebuilding. This book is the result of that journey. It is a book built not from theory, but from survival.
The title, Scream Therapy, is perfect. Because this book is not quiet. It does not whisper its truths. It screams them. And in doing so, it reminds us that screaming is not always rage, it can be released. It can be joy. It can be the only language left when all others fail. Schreurs also deserves praise for how inclusive his narrative is. He gives voice to people who are rarely heard in books about mental health, people without access to care, people in recovery, people who’ve been failed by every system they turned to. And yet, they survive. They scream. They play. And they create something beautiful out of the wreckage. The punk scene, as Schreurs shows, is not just music. It is a network of support. It is a sanctuary for the weird, the wounded, the ones who never felt at home anywhere else. In this book, that scene becomes a metaphor for something bigger, the human need to connect, to be heard, to be understood. In the end, Scream Therapy is not just about punk rock. It’s not just about mental health. It is about what happens when the two collide. It’s about finding your voice in the feedback. It’s about turning pain into purpose. It’s about believing that even the most broken among us can heal. Jason Schreurs has written something brave. Something vital. Something that deserves to be read not just by punks, but by anyone who has ever felt alone. This book reminds us that there is no wrong way to heal. Sometimes the answer is not silence, but volume. Not retreat, but rebellion. Not shame, but scream.
Head to Earth Island Books for more information about ordering.
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