.damaged

It was simply a matter of time before Sven Dirkschneider, son of the notorious metal-legend Udo Dirkschneider, Alex Staschko and Florian Schmitz picked up their instruments in the Summer of 2008. A few jam sessions proved that a singer and second guitarist were essential if they were to play an already planned gig that December. The decision to hand the microphone to the Singer Phil Werbelow was made, based on previous Projects and Concerts. After a few band practices, Phil got the Guitarist Pascal Radkte to jump on the bandwagon. Despite a very accomplished concert, Radkte decided to follow another Project of his, which inevitably led to the final band constellation of ".damaged": Alex Staschko and Christian Meinke on the guitars, Florian Schmitz on the bass, Phil Werbelow as frontman and Sven Dirkschneider with drums and backing vocals. The decision to write their own material was made quickly, and the band affectively came up with songs that proved to have a definate punk character. The first 5 songs were finished fast and were to be recorded on the spot. ".damaged" decided to take matters into their own hands and produced their first record in their band room of the local youth center of Pulheim. They used the time afterwards to make themselves a name locally by playing as many live gigs as possible and fine tuning their set. By winter 2009 the results of the first recordings didn't satisfy the band anymore, which led to the decision to re-record their set with their new earned experience. The second self made Production brought on new motivation into the group, and the Emergenza Contest was to follow as a new milestone in band history. Said and done. The boys emerged as winners from the first round, performed in the cologne "Underground". Having won with 90 votes in the lead and being placed number 3 on the Emergenza world ranking for most audience votes, they moved on to round 2. The road came to an end in the regional finals, which took place in the Live Music Hall of Cologne. Their performance led to a guest concert in neiboughring country of the Netherlands, percicley in Amsterdam, which also turned out to be a great experience. The band took on a variety of gigs following up (i.e. Support for David Reece at Krebelshof, Rock and Bike Night in Olpe and regular performances at the Blue Shell, Luxor and MTC in Cologne). The Band planned and executed their next gig on the meditteranian island of Ibiza, where they played on two succeding nights in Hogans Rocks Bar. After these shows the 5 boys locked themselves, euphoric and with new motivation, in at their newly rented rehearsal room in Rommerskirchen, and got down to writing new material. After more experimentation, the band unanimously agreed that their new musicial preferations did not fit into the punk genre any longer. The new style definately had a strong tendency towards what they themselves had dubbed "heavy rock'n'roll". The set was continiuosly refined and ".damaged" sought out contact with U.D.O. Guitarist and Producer Stefan Kaufmann. With his help, Summer of 2011, they recorded their first professionaly produced EP "Road Trip". The CD provided for much positive feedback, and further more three support shows for U.D.O. in November of 2011. These took place in Gunzendorf (Germany), Plzen and Hluk (Czech Republic). www.damaged-music.de