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 “I live with the self destruction button close at hand”
Myriam Verschaeren - © HUMO – 26 August 2003
Translation: Bene Van Eeghem
 There aren’t that many celebs that are as spontaneous, sympathetic
and free of
pose in real life as they are on TV – but Ray Cokes is one of them. “I obey one
rule in life: Never, ever become a cynic.” says the father of all veejays. It
seems as if he can read my mind. And he utters the words without bitterness.
Looking back on what he has been through, it’s an attitude you have to admire.
Because nowadays, it’s the era of marketing managers who prepare meaningless
nitwits to present cheap rip-offs of “MTV’s Most Wanted” and make fortunes out
of it.
“MTV’s Most Wanted” remains Cokes’ idea – but he hardly was rewarded for his
invention. He left MTV seven years ago after a serious row and says he’s been
the victim of media boycott ever since. “Praise JIMtv” is what we say, because
they are bringing him back on the air at the beginning of September. He’s going
to present ‘I love the nineties’, a program that will look back on the previous
decade through carefully selected video clips.
We’ve arranged to meet Ray Cokes in Brussels. It’s the city where he arrived
when he was eighteen. He had no luggage, no wife and no idea what he was going
to do there for the rest of his life. As it seems, he’s travelled ‘a full circle’.
At this moment, you’re recording sixteen programs a day for JIMtv. Isn’t that an
inhumane schedule?
RC: It’s not that bad. When I was working for MTV, we once recorded 180 links in
four days!
The project scared me a bit at first, though. When I agree to participate in a
new project, I don’t consider the content until the very last minute. Call it
self-preservation: that way I can’t dwell on things too much. I thoroughly read
the script for ‘I love the nineties’ when I was on the way to Brussels by train.
When I saw all those facts and figures on paper, I concluded that I’d never be
able to know them by heart. But JIMtv was very understanding: instead of making
shots outdoors, they allowed me to present indoors. That way I was able to use
the autocue.
You’ve lived in Brussels for nine years. You’ve worked here as a cook, a record
seller and of course as a TV-presenter. How does it feel to be back?
RC: I was here last January to visit an ex-girlfriend, but that was the first
time I came back here since years. Brussels has changed an awful lot. A lot of
charming place have apparently been replaced by hyper modern office buildings –
I find the European area really awful. But on the other hand it was fun to see
that Falstaff is still there. And they still sell the best sandwiches in the
whole of Brussels at Au Suisse.
For some reason, Brussels steel fills more like home to me than Paris does. I’ve
been through such an exciting period over here! There was a time when you could
see all the biggest bands in Brussels. I attended a U2 gig here, and there were
about fifty people! Imagine! Same thing with Björk: she performed for fifteen
fans or so… At first I thought those artists came over here because it’s such a
small country. If the gig is bad or your record doesn’t receive a warm welcome,
then the rest of the world doesn’t have to know. But a lot of pop stars have
ensured me that the main reason why they come to Belgium, is because of the
Belgian public. They seem to have a very good musical ‘hearing’.
I would have thought that you’d be in Brussels more often than just this one
time. Your son’s living here, isn’t he?
RC: Mostly it’s he who comes to see me… I simply can’t stay at his place in
Brussels. He’s lived with his mother until he was 22. And now he’s staying in a
bachelor’s flat that is… well… a bit too messy for me. I also think that when
we’re together, we have to share each other’s lives. I’ve never wanted to be the
kind of father who shows up every now and then and runs over the obligatory ‘schedule’:
go to the zoo together, go out and have lunch together. That’s why I don’t come
over that much, I guess.
Is it easy to cope with, that kind of long distance father-son relationship?
RC: Mmmm… I think you’re fooling yourself when you say the kid doesn’t suffer
the consequences of a divorce. I left his mother and went to London when he was
only five. During those crucial years, let’s say between his fifth and fifteenth
birthday, I found MTV far more important than fatherhood. It’s terrible I have
to say it like that, but that’s the way it felt. I had a very demanding job that
I only could exercise when I engaged myself for a 100%. I can imagine Simon
must’ve thought I simply didn’t care enough about him at that time. We used to
do some great things together though: hiking all over Australia for six weeks,
or visiting Scotland by bike where I taught him the pleasures of the spliff
(grins). But when he got back to Belgium, he probably must’ve thought: dad’s
trying to buy me off.
We’re working on it, but it’s not that easy. If I try to have a serious
conversation with him to find out what he wants to achieve in life, he just
throws it all back at me: “But dad, look at what YOU were doing when you were my
age!” I left school when I was fifteen, and simply went to Belgium. That doesn’t
make me the most ‘fit’ person to tell other people how to live their lives, I
guess (laughs). But anyway: Simon’s very intelligent and has a good heart. He’s
working in a record store, just as I was doing at his age, and he’s a DJ and he
makes wonderful graffiti.
LETTERS FROM HELL
‘I love the nineties’ focuses on the highlights of the 90’s. What was your
personal highlight in those days?
RC: Difficult to say, there was so much going on. But what struck me the most,
was the war in Bosnia. I presented live episodes of “MTV’s Most Wanted” every
night during that period and I got hundreds of letters from ex-Yugoslavia.
Sometimes they brought me to tears. The people wrote that our program made them
forget for a while that they were living in hell. We made a live phone call with
a fifteen year old Serbian girl at a certain moment and you could hear she
didn’t understand a thing of all that hatred around her. Her mother had died in
an explosion and her dog had been blown to bits before her eyes. It was very
touching to hear that those people literally saved electricity during the day so
they were able to watch us in great number at night, in an underground bunker,
with satellites they’d received from the UN for that occasion.
Everything I’d done in my life suddenly made sense. That’s how it felt. I
suddenly understood why I did what I was doing: to be able to communicate, to be
able to give and receive love. And to be able to play the fool, of course (laughs).
‘MTV’s Most Wanted’ had 60 million viewers and was broadcasted in 38 countries.
Even now fans still have lively discussions about the program on your website.
How would you explain that? Or do you find it irritating to have to keep
mentioning the issue?
RC: No, I understand why you ask that question. Not talking about ‘MTV’s Most
Wanted’ would be like interviewing David Bowie and not mentioning ‘Aladdin Sane’
(laughs). ‘Most Wanted’ remains the most important thing I ever have done and
will do in my career as a TV presenter. And people still ask me questions about
it. It’s fun, but also annoying at times. Unwillingly you long for it and you
want to do it again though at this moment the chance that it WILL happen is very,
very unlikely.
In the beginning I didn’t even know the program was that popular. I was living
in London and hardly anyone in England was able to watch MTV at that time. It
was only when I was travelling through Europe that I first realised what ‘Most
Wanted’ meant to people: nearly everybody recognised me! We didn’t have a master
plan or anything… TV was much more innocent than it is nowadays and I didn’t
consider the consequences for one minute. I simply entered the studio, saw the
cameras and said: “Is this the BBC or what? Get those things out of here!” I
mean: reading from an autocue? “Forget it man, I’ll make something up!” And it
wasn’t even hard because there was nothing to tell! (fakes enthusiasm) “Up next:
nothing!” and “After that: more nothing!” and “After the break: nothing… again!”
‘Most Wanted’ started out as a request program: people just wrote or called and
asked if I wanted to play one or another video clip. Much of the things we used
afterwards simply resulted from boredom. In the early days of MTV we had a
maximum of fifty clips that were in a loop and everybody had seen them twenty
times or so. So I told the viewers that I was pretending to be the enthusiastic
presenter but that the cameraman was reading his paper not to get bored. And
that the floor manager was stoned. As soon as I’d introduced everybody – Rob,
Naughty Nina, Wicked Will: you name them, we had them – it became a soap. And
people tuned in every night to see what would happen. That’s why I found it very
important to have a daily broadcast: if we had a lesser day, we could make up
the night after. It was also a very accessible program. Sometimes I was rude to
callers, but never mean.
The tactics we used have become standards nowadays: everyone’s copied them, but
it was a novelty in those days. Afterwards a couple of intellectual journalists
wrote that I had ‘demystified’ the medium and I thought: gosh, is THAT what I’m
doing? I was kind of proud of it, but actually it was more of a coincidence. I
was just being myself. The only thing I really paid attention to was that the
viewers were able to understand me wherever they were – even in Finland or in
Israel. Maybe they didn’t get it all literally, but I’m sure they got the
underlying message. Which wasn’t too hard because half of the jokes we made were
about sex (laughs).
You’ve actually invented the “in your face TV” all by yourself
RC: Yeah, sometimes you could count the hairs in my nostrils: that’s how close I
was to the lens (laughs). It’s become an irritating cliché in the mean time, but
at that time it countered every rule in the MTV bible. They really had one there,
you know: MTV is one big American corporation. The only reason why they didn’t
interfere with what I did is because the program was so successful.
A lot of the stuff we did in ‘Most Wanted’ wouldn’t even be allowed anymore
these days. It took Phil Collins a whole day of lifting to get through England
and reach the studio. When he finally arrived, I simply told them: “Sorry Phil,
you’re one day too late.” Gareth Brooks, a world famous country artist, was
busked through the whole of Camden. We promised him we’d let him sing a song if
he was able to collect five pounds in an hour’s time. As long as the artists saw
the twinkling in my eyes and realised I didn’t mean to do any harm, I could do
whatever I liked. They even enjoyed it and never expected me to deal with things
any differently. That magic is gone nowadays: the process of a great idea
developing into a great program is put to an end by stressed press people,
managers and creeps from the record company.
Did you make any new friends or foes under the stars because of ‘MTV’s Most
Wanted’?
RC: The Cure are close friends of mine: the played at my wedding five years ago,
on the beach of Saint-Tropez. And if Björk or Kylie or Robbie Williams happen to
be around, they’ll always have time for a chat with me.
Is it true Robbie Williams showed his bum in your program?
RC: Yeah but that was when he was still a member of Take That. It doesn’t
surprise me at all that he’s become such a world famous artist: he’s simply one
of the most charismatic men in the world. But he’s also a person of extremes: he
can have one drink and not want five thousand drinks at the same moment. Who
would want to live like that: he’s apparently slept with thousands of women but
doesn’t have a relationship with any of them. But anyway – he’s got it; he
should simply become the new James Bond.
We’ve got it from a reliable source that you didn’t get along very well with
Nick Cave…
RC: My respect for him has grown over the years, but I really hated them in
those days. Cave was very anti-MTV. One day he was a studio guest together with
Shan McGowan. I’m a big fan of The Pogues and I think Shane’s cute but he looked
dreadful and was stone drunk. So I asked him “Hey mate, are you feeling alright
because you don’t look like it’” To which Cave replied angrily: “Stop your
paternalistic bullshit, you stupid MTV-presenter.” We got into a row, live, on
air. I said to him: “If you really dislike MTV that much, then what the hell are
you doing here? Just leave the place!” Actually I was lot more popular than Nick
Cave at that time but I always had a similar attitude. I acted in a humble way
in order to make my guests look big. But in return they had to accept the fact
that I was going to ask silly questions from time to time. Apparently that was
too much asked for some of the stars…
HANG THE VJ
You left MTV when your popularity had reached a climax. Why was that?
RC: Maybe it was a kind of punk idea: stopping before things become boring?
Though it wasn’t at all boring at that moment – it was only very tiring. MTV had
been paying me peanuts for what I did years on end. I gave them extra viewers
and extra sponsors. I didn’t mention that for a long, long time because I
thought I had the most wonderful job in the world. But at a particular moment I
read this article in a magazine saying that Chris Evans – he’s a huge star in
England – was getting paid 4 million pounds by Channel Four to present a copy of
my show! I decided to discuss it with the bosses and you know what their
reaction was? “Oh, mister Cokes thinks he’s a celebrity. Well let us tell you
that the blacks don’t like your attitude!” It was a result that’d come from one
or the other focus group. The weeks after this had happened I asked every single
black person in my show whether they liked me and it turned out to be so in most
cases (laughs). Anyhow, they were kind of abusing my modesty. Until I had enough
of it. At that point I have to admit I let things get slightly out of hand…
After you had left MTV they apparently put you a blacklist.
RC: I have to be careful with what can and can’t be mentioned because I don’t
feel like going to court for it. But after I had resigned I met an important
business man at my wedding party. He told me he liked me very much but also that
he was pretty sure I’d never get that kind of job again in London.
After MTV I did present another big show for Channel Four though. ‘Wanted’ was a
kind of treasure hunt with helicopters and stuff – but after that it got harder
every day to find another job. I took part in a screen test for a program and
they wanted me at a first. But suddenly they didn’t want me anymore. Another
production company really tried to get me back to work. But when they introduced
the idea to the BBC2 management, the answer was: “That the MTV bloke, you
must’ve heard of his reputation!”
I can never prove MTV played role in that story but it certainly wouldn’t
surprise me. I remember one particular woman in the MTV management who thought I
was too popular and hence too powerful. When MTV Germany wanted to hire me, they
simple made sure it never happened.
But nevertheless you wanted to return the MTV. That’s what I read on your site a
while ago.
RC: Yes I would have loved to make a new series of ‘Most Wanted’: the next
generation! But they thought I was too old (grins).
Ageism!
RC: I understand they prefer younger and better looking people. That’s simply
what MTV is all about. But as long as I get touched by the music, as long as I
keep on buying ten CD’s a week, as long as I enjoy going to concerts and keep on
dancing, I simply don’t understand why I wouldn’t be able to present a music
program. I’m not the kind of person who keeps saying everything was better in
the old days and that nothing had happened anymore since Pink Floyd. Music is my
life and I still get touched by it. My best memories are always related to music.
After you’d left MTV you said “I always watch Unplugged. That’s the best way to
watch MTV: unplugged.” And after you’d left Virgin Radio your press statement
contained this phrase: “I think it’s fair to say that some of my colleagues are
the meanest people I have ever met in life.” Don’t you think your career
could’ve taken a different turn if you’d been more diplomatic from time to time?
RC: Probably. But I am what I am and there’s not much you can do about that. I
never kissed all the right asses. I always say what I think, I blurt out
whatever comes to my mind. And sometimes it’s definitely better to mention the
NEXT thing you are thinking of (laughs). I’m not the kind of person who’s
lobbying all the time to get somewhere in life. I hate that kind of people.
But you were quite close to becoming a respected value in the world of media.
Isn’t that hard to deal with for a punk?
RC: I’ve never wanted to be part of the establishment. That’s a fact. My dad was
a Royal Navy Officer. He’s become more of a mild person these days, a bit too
mild even, but he was awfully strict when I was young. That’s why I left home
when I was fifteen. I ended up with the punk movement and that’s how my attitude
to life has grown. I simply felt very much as a punk then: destroy and create (laughs)!
Your father is the kind of person who dictates in life, not the one who humbly
obeys. Don’t you think that the fear of becoming such a person yourself is the
reason why you unconsciously sabotage yourself when you become too successful?
RC: I’ve never looked at it like that but you might have a point. When you’re a
creative person like me – I never saw myself as a business man – you simply live
with the self destruction button close at hand. I’ve been my own worst enemy
many times already. I’m very critical on what I do and that certainly goes for
the job I do.
But anyway I’m 45 already and I can’t deny I start to look at things differently.
Sometimes I think I never should have left MTV the way I did, although they
treated me very wrongly at the end. I should’ve stood up and fought instead of
disappearing with this “fuck you” attitude. If there’s one lesson I’ve learnt so
far, it’s this one: don’t ever think you can beat the big corporations all on
your own.
You were the moral winner in the end but it cost you your career…
RC: That’s it! And that’s how things always went when I was younger. When I was
working at the Hard Rock Café in Brussels – I must’ve been 22 or 23 – I’d been
promoted to first chef. I was more or less allowed to run the kitchen. But then
I lost my common sense: I went out late every night and arrived too late at work.
The boss wanted to talk me about the problem and I simply said: “Oh you think I
shouldn’t be late for work? Now what would you say if I told you I’m never going
to show up again?” And I left the place. When I look back on my life I see this
same pattern all the time: I hate authority and I hate it when people are trying
to manipulate me.
TERROR AT REYERS BOULEVARD
After you left MTV you started to work in France. You were a lot less popular
over there than you were in other European countries. Not many people watched
cable TV. Why France?
RC: After my resignation I’d taken at sabbatical year. I wanted to experience
real life: growing tomatoes, visiting my family, taking care of my wife. But
after that year my agent decided he didn’t want to work with me anymore, and I
couldn’t find another one. Everybody said I was done for. I had to get out of
England but the question was: where to? You need a green card to get to the
States and I didn’t have one. I speak a little bit of French so I thought: let’s
try France. It didn’t take long before I could start working for ‘Union Libre’.
The show is very popular in France. It’s broadcasted on Saturday evening and the
panel has the opportunity to make a bit of fun of the clichés we Europeans love
to use when talking about one another. I was a typical Englishman and had to act
in an extreme way. By the way: the girl representing Belgium was completely
crazy (laughs)!
It was weird to start again from zero and climb all the way up again, sharing
dressing rooms with nine other people, but I really enjoyed myself there. I
thought the show was a good way to regain some of my popularity. It was a sort
of passage on the way to something else.
By the way: I’ve had it said that you dressed up as a terrorist once and landed
with a helicopter at RTBF. You gave one of the older assistants a heart attack!
RC: True – but luckily it was a rather light heart attack. He did survive, you
know.
The situation was like this: I used to present ‘Imagine’ on RTBF during the
eighties. That was the first daily clip parade ever broadcasted in Europe. We
had fun but after a couple of months I started to get a bit bored – as usual…
That’s when we started ‘Rox Box’. It was a weekly show in which we did really
crazy stunts. We enjoyed ourselves enormously but when the RTBF managers started
to realise what we were actually doing they decided to ban the program and give
the viewers something softer instead. We weren’t at all pleased with that
decision so we decided to end ‘Rox Box’ in style. We would fake a hold-up and
ask RTBF’s leading man why he wanted us off screen. Nobody knew about it, not
even the security people. We were about six people and all the others wore Ray
Cokes’ masks. We landed next to the RTBF-tower with a helicopter and jumped out.
We ran through the hallways with fake guns and shot some people on the left and
the right. They were of course part of plot and had hidden little bags of fake
blood under their clothes. We filmed the whole story until the bitter end when
we arrived at the big boss’s office. That wasn’t the real big boss of course. We
just stuck a piece of paper on a door that said ‘big boss’. We went in and asked
him to give a proper explanation for his decision. The whole thing was a kind of
comic story but apparently some people found it very shocking at that time.
As you were mentioning ‘being banned from the screen’… You’ve been presenting
your own live music show, ‘Music Planet 2Nite’ on Arte for a year and a half
now. The direction has decided to stop the program as well, even though 6000
fans tried to prevent it by way of a petition.
RC: Did you know ‘Music Planet 2Nite’ won a Golden Rose at Montreux two months
ago? We scored best in the category ‘music shows’. I only know it because a fan
sent me an e-mail to congratulate me on that fact. I didn’t even know we were
nominated!
Every episode of ‘Music Planet 2Nite’ was built up around a central guest –
either world popular or just a little bit popular. We’ve already had a couple of
big names in the studio: Björk, Oasis, Tori Amos, Pet Shop Boys, Ben Harper,
Placebo, Radiohead…
If you see Thom York at two metres and he’s revealing his innermost secrets to
you while the rest of the public simply worships the band as if they are God
themselves… that’s quite unforgettable. Arte is now showing the same episodes
again – until halfway next year I guess. I don’t enjoy it because I don’t even
get a penny for it. And other television makers who would be willing to hire me
now get the impression that I’ve already got a job. The official reason for
ending the program was the fact that we didn’t have enough viewers. But I guess
there are probably politics involved as well.
Explain?
RC: (tired) if you are in TV-land and you walk through the corridors of power,
you always meet the kind of people that make you wonder how the hell they ended
up there without any talents. Not to mention the fact that they also REMAIN
there most of the time. I’ve heard that a responsible at Arte said we should
invite Bruce Springsteen or Paul McCartney for the show. Because he thought the
Arte-viewers are slightly older and don’t want to see jazz or hip-hop or bands
like Placebo. I can only conclude that someone somewhere didn’t like the team
that was making this show. And that’s why they took away our money and our
‘little child’. That’s the way it goes.
SOBBING AND DRINKING
So what are you up to now? I heard you want to release a new single?
RC: I did write a song but… Look: my wife and I were about to move to France.
Just before that I had to commute between London and Paris to do my work. She
met another man and moved in at his place – that was about a year and a half
ago. I haven’t had many future plans since that day. It’s been hard enough just
to survive…
We got married five years ago and had been together for fifteen years already.
I’ve always been faithful to her even though I worked for MTV ten years: imagine
how much sex I could’ve had if I wanted to (laughs)! But I’ve always been a good
boy. I’m not a catholic, but if you promise to be forever faithful to each other
before God’s eye and with your family next to you… it does mean something. It
took me eleven years to be able to make that choice, you know. Before that time
I’d never had enough certainty about the fact that it would be ‘forever’.
My ex-wife calls me from time to time. She wants us to remain friends but that’s
out of the question for me. Maybe someday I’ll be able to live in a very
detached way and say (preacher’s tone): “I accept the situation as it is and I’m
happy for her.” But I really can’t at this moment. I’m not saying that I’m an
ideal husband and I understand it must’ve been hard for her because I was
unemployed for such a long time. But I can’t understand why she dumped me
without even fighting for what we had together. How can you be friends without
someone who’s betrayed you in such a manner? It’s something that is simply not
done between friends. They can’t expect me to say: “Hi, how are you? It’s a pity
we can’t sleep together tonight because you’re already seeing someone else. But
it was nice to see you again!”
Is it fair to conclude your most recent composition is a love song?
RC: (laughs). It is. It’s called ‘Sleepwalking’: I must be sleepwalking because
this can’t be reality… A good friend of mine saw how the situation really got
the best of me and he said: “You’d better put your energy in something creative
instead of sitting here sobbing and drinking whisky.” I followed his advice and
wrote about 25 songs. ‘Sleepwalking’ is my absolute favourite. People who’ve
heard the song already like it very much but I haven’t got enough self
confidence at this moment to do something with it. I quickly lose my confidence
and I’m not the only TV presenter with that problem (laughs).
Actually I’m back where I was at eighteen: no luggage, no wife, and no clear
plans – I’ve only got a son who I love very, very much. I’ve promised myself to
make a decision around Christmas. If I don’t have any interesting offers from
TV-stations at that time – and I’m talking about French stations because I don’t
want to go back to England – then I might start doing something completely
different. Perhaps I’ll open my own restaurant in la Provence or in
South-Africa. Or I’ll start my own company that helps coaching young
TV-presenters. Something like that.
You really don’t know what tomorrow will bring, do you?
RC: I never did. The longest contract I ever signed was for two years. I never
ever wanted to be one of those working ants you see running out of the station
every morning.
But ants have fewer problems when winter arrives than crickets do…
RC: (laughs) It’s a life choice! I don’t want to know where I’ll be in say
twenty years… Within a week I’m back in Saint-Tropez: that’s where I’ll think
about my own future.
I’m really looking forward to the nudist beach already. Nudity is so…
liberating. We’re all the same when we’re naked: that goes for the banker and
the chimney sweeper! Everyone’s equal, everyone’s just human.
Are you a nudist because of philosophical views?
RC: I just like looking at girls you know. And I don’t mind if they look back.
Does that make me a pervert?
We’ll ask Etienne Vermeersch.
(note: Etienne Vermeersch is a Belgian philosopher, specialised in ethical
matters)
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