Brian "Damage" Keats
February 11th, 1963~R.I.P.~January 12th, 2010


"I told Glenn to get Googy back but instead he picks up this kid because he likes his haircut!  You don't pick someone to be in your band on the basis of what the fuck
he looks like."~Jerry Only, Jersey Beat #40, Summer 1990

"Glenn picks up this kid - I've got nothin' against him, I'll say that 'til I die, he was a nice kid and he did try - because of his haircut."~Jerry Only, FEH #12, p.24-27, Sept/Oct '94

"So he picked a kid because of the way he had his haircut.  Now I don't know how you choose drummers around here, but we try not to look at the hair before we hear how they play the kit."Jerry Only, Maximum Rock N Roll #151 part 1, December 1995


Throughout the early 90's Jerry spread the word that the Misfits last drummer was chosen by Glenn simply based on his haircut but the facts are Brian "Damage" Keats had been making a name in the New York scene since 1979 as the drummer in Genocide and in Verbal Abuse just prior to and during his shortlived Misfits gig.  Born in New York but raised in New Jersey he had been playing drums since the age of 11 and been in bands since 13.

So, what the fuck happened?

Just a few years prior to his death Brian spoke with Mark Kennedy (Misfits Central) about his two song performance with The Misfits.

"I was of course a big fan of the Misfits and had seen them many times. In fact, I met Bobby Steele in the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel on the day he joined the band in 1978. I always went to see the Misfits play because I thought they were a great live band—their gigs were also pretty infrequent and always a big event. While I was in San Francisco still playing with Verbal Abuse, I got a call from my New York roommate, saying that Glenn Danzig called, asking me to join the band. At the time, I don’t think I’d ever actually met Glenn. I think he had just seen me play in bands or had heard about me through other people.

Without hesitation, I dropped everything and moved back to New York. I took the bus out to Lodi and went to Glenn’s house for my audition. He told me that Robo wasn’t playing with the band any more and that they had a big Halloween show and possibly a tour of Germany coming up. I didn’t know the band was about to fall apart or about the dysfunctional relationships within the band and with the ex-members. I found out pretty quickly though.

We went over to the studio where they rehearsed, which was a converted garage at Jerry and Doyle’s house. My first memory of meeting those guys was them pulling up in a monster truck, blasting Van Halen’s “Unchained” on their way home from working out at the gym—not the exact image of the ghoulish Misfits that I had in my head. We went into the garage and rehearsed every song we could think of until they basically said, “You’re in, do you want to go do this thing in Detroit?” That was it—one rehearsal with the band, which doubled as my audition. We never got together to play again and I don’t remember if I even talked to them much before the Halloween show.

The Misfits’ annual Halloween show was scheduled for Saturday, October 29, 1983, at Graystone Hall in Detroit. With the imminent release of Earth A.D., a tour of Germany in the works, and a two-record deal with a German label, the Misfits appeared to be on the verge of something big. What Brian and the other Misfits didn’t know was that Glenn was disillusioned with the band and had already started rehearsing with an early incarnation of Samhain. On the morning of the 29th, Brian arrived at Glenn’s house to make the long trek from Lodi, New Jersey, to Detroit.

At Glenn’s house before we left Lodi, I spotted a copy of the ultra-hard-to-find “Cough/Cool” single, which Glenn generously offered me. Then we drove out to Detroit to play the Halloween show with the Necros at a pretty big place that held about 1,000 people. I knew the Necros guys pretty well from when they used to tour New York. When we got to Detroit that night, I started hanging out with them after soundcheck—drinking, goofing off, and having a good time. Without realizing it, I definitely started getting seriously buzzed.

Eventually, we got on stage to do the show—no set list, Glenn’s just gonna call out the songs. During the very first tune (20 Eyes?), we start playing, and of course the band is louder than all hell. I knew from seeing them so many times that they always had ten times as much equipment as they needed, but it looks good up there right? It was so freaking loud that when Glenn called out the first song, I couldn’t even hear what we were doing. It was just a complete nightmare of distortion coming through the monitors. So right after that, Doyle walks over, screaming “What the hell’s going on?” and I yell back that the sound was all fucked up and I couldn’t hear anything. So now Glenn calls out the second song, which I can’t even discern the title of through the distortion, and I’m just playing along hoping to hear something—anything—in the roar that’ll let me figure out what we’re playing. But it’s the same thing, just “KKZXRWKWKKXXZZ!!!” That’s when Doyle comes over and, still screaming, lifts me up by the collar and literally drags me from the stage.

It all happened so quickly. I was off the stage and just walked out the back door. Pacing back and forth, pissed off, I heard Glenn asking if anyone in the audience knew how to play drums. Eventually, Todd from the Necros went up and finished the show. We all stayed in Detroit that night and the next morning I was super-apologetic, trying to explain that I stupidly did have too much to drink but, more than anything, just couldn’t hear what was going on. I felt awful. The drive back to New Jersey was a solemn trip in complete silence. When we finally got home, to add insult to injury, I realized that somehow, in the tight confines of the van, I had accidentally sat on the copy of “Cough/Cool” during the trip and cracked it. Perfect."

http://bareboneshardcore.blogspot.com/2005/10/i-remember-halloween.html

Brian stayed in New York around 10 years joining Hellbent, The Kretins, The Hellhounds, The Skulls, Angels In Vain, Princess Pang, Raging Slab, and The Diamondbacks prior to moving to L.A. where he went onto perform with Wink, Pressurehed, Baron Jive, Sylvain Sylvain, The Light Bachwood Movement, Link Protrudi And The Jaymen, Paul Inman, Marioux, Low Pop Suicide, 3 Day Wheely, Bortek, Susanna Hoffs, Doppler, The Fuzztones, Tramdriver and even former BANGLES frontwoman Susanna Hoffs

He has also done live performances with Kathy Fisher (with Drew Ross), Sages & Seers (with two Fuzztones members), African Violet (with Rita D'Albert), Tim Harrington, $100 Band (with Drew Ross and Gary Eaton), Jason Falkner, Woozy, and Dave Vanian And The Phantom Chords and recorded sessions demos with Zoe Poledouris And Bubble Gun (with Teddy Thompson), Bijou Phillips, Swirl 360 (with Roger Manning), Tallulah, Marie Wilson, Michael Hately, Kim Richey, Billy Idol, Tom Anderson, Leah Andreone and Colony.

"His playing has appeared on close to 50 CDs and in numerous films and TV shows including Kingpin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, What About Brian, Ed, Felicity, What Lies Beneath, MTV's Real World, The Skulls, Stonebrook, Life As We Know It, HBO's Real Sex and The Hollow."~briankeats.com