Late Hanoi Rocks drummer Razzle, real name Nick Dingley, has been honored with a special memorial. Razzle, who died at the age of 24 in a 1984 car accident with Motley Crue’s Vince Neil at the wheel, was remembered with a memorial bench installed at Holy Cross Church, Binstead, a village on the Isle of Wight.
The bench was installed in mid-April, according to the Isle of Wright County Press, after the legendary drummer’s mother, Patricia Ingram, crowdfunded funds for the memorial. In a statement as she was fundraising to help cover the costs of the project, Ingram said, “My son died in a motor accident in America.He was the drummer with Hanoi Rocks.We wish to raise enough money to have a bench made and placed in the churchyard on the Isle of Wight where his memorial is.” As the fundraiser reached its goal, Ingram turned to her son’s former bandmate and best friend, Matt Kellett, to work with the church and oversee the project.
Videos by PopCulture.com
According to Kellett, the memorial was a long-time in the making, and Razzle’s mother “had very definite ideas about the design of the bench and there was a lot of church protocol, so we had to go back and forth- as it had to be a certain size and width and so on.” Kellett said a woman named Hillary from the church “was onboard with us from the start” and helped “get the thing through.” The memorial bench was installed in “a beautiful corner of the churchyard,” a place that Razzle “knew well.”
“We came to the Island just before he went on his last tour in the States, and we happened to come in here and have a look round. Being a local lad, he knew this churchyard and pointed out a smuggler’s grave with a strange inscription to me. The next time I was in here it was for his funeral,” Kellett recalled. “We used to rehearse at his folks’ place, which was just round the corner, so it’s a great place for a memorial. The bench will be installed and dedicated and we’re going to have a small memorial service in the church as well. Fans still come from around the world to leave flowers and messages and now they’ll have a place to relax and reminisce.”
Razzle tragically died in a car accident on Dec. 8, 1984. Hanoi Rocks and Motley Crue attended a party given in honor of the Finnish band’s first U.S. tour when, according to Ultimate Classic Rock, Neil and Razzle left the party to run to the store. Neil, who was driving, lost control of the vehicle, which crashed into another car. Everyone involved in the crash sustained injuries, and Razzle, who was taken to South Bay Hospital, was pronounced dead. He was just 24. Neil was only given a 30-day jail sentence for the incident and got released 10 days early for good behavior. Reflecting on the incident years later, Neil told Blender, per ContactMusic, “I wrote a $2.5 million check for vehicular manslaughter when Razzle died. I should have gone to prison. I definitely deserved to go to prison. But I did 30 days in jail and got laid and drank beer, because that’s the power of cash. That’s fucked up.”
