Formed as kids in 1982 by Keef and Tez in a childrens home. Tez wanted to be the drummer and Keef the guitarist song writer, so with no experience Criminal Damage was born.

Two other members then joined “Tony Spud Murphy (Bass) and Chris Cotton (Vocals)” from a band called Noisz. Tez and Keef were about 14/15 years of age and still at school where “Tony and Chris” were 16 years old but we all thought we were tough guys LOL…

The local orphanage gave us their garage to practice in and so we started writing material. Back in them days everyone was in a band whether you could play or not, we had about 8 songs:

Then we started getting local gigs and some supporting the UK Subs, Partisans, Uproar, Toxic Waste and many other bands. The next step was to record 3 tracks on a demo just for fun really. So off to Hastings and Dragon Studio’s to record, we basically had no idea what we were doing LOL I can’t remember the engineer’s name but he was a good guy that really helped the band. Apparently, Mike Oldfield recorded there, we had no fucking idea who he was LOL. So the demo was done 3 tracks Criminal Crew, Kicked to Shit, Rock N Roll.

Now what do you do?

I brought 50 cassette tapes and sent them out and just waited for the phone to ring, and then It did to our surprise! No Future Records offered us one track on their new compilation A Country Fit For Heroes Vol 2. A week later a contract arrived by mail and we all just gazed at it LOL oh fuck it just sign it and the rest was history.

Keef Damage