Iconic 90s R&B band speak out on first headline tour in 26 years and insist it’s not about ‘making money’-Joel Harley-Entertainment – Metro

Damage are back! (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

The iconic 90s R&B band Damage have returned to the centre stage – 26 years after their last headline tour.

The British boy band rose to fame in the early 1990s with hit singles Love II Love, Forever, Ghetto Romance, and a soulful cover of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight.

Originally consisting of founding members Rahsaan J Bromfield, Andrez Harriott, Jade Jones (who is husband to Emma Bunton), Noel Simpson and Coreé Richards, Damage burst onto the scene with the release of debut album Forever in 1997.

After three decades in the game (and minus Coreé, who left in the early noughties), Damage recently marked the occasion with 30Irty: The Anniversary Tour.

Visiting venues in Birmingham, Liverpool, Islington and Leicester in November, the band celebrated 30 years of making music together.

And, with the last of those dates behind them, the group have reflected on how the music scene has changed over the last few decades.

Damage first came to fame in the 1990s as a band of five (Picture: Getty Images)

Speaking to The Sun, Andrez Harriott revealed: ‘I think we’re a lot more strategic now about what we’re doing and where we’re positioning ourselves.

‘What shows do we want to do? What shows don’t we want to do? How do we want to appear? What’s the song selection? What will create the most intensive emotion in at that time? What do people want to hear?

‘Again, how we present ourselves all of these things really factor in. They always have, but at this age now, you’re really thinking about how you present yourself as a band to the audience.’

The band are celebrating thirty years in the industry (Picture: WireImage)

He continued: ‘There’s a lot of truth and integrity in what we do. When people watch us now, they can feel us. That’s the feedback we’re getting, they can just feel the honesty and the commitment to the music and the commitment to the journey that they’ve been on with us.

‘That’s appreciated. Truth and integrity is coming through strong in a lot of what we’re doing.

‘I think it’s nice to be in it just for the love. It’s not about business,’ he added.

‘It’s not about trying to make money, It is just about, like I said before, us boys getting together and enjoying ourselves on stage. Like Andre said, we do it for the love,’ Noel Simpson continued.

The band initially split after Coreé Richards left in the early 2000s (Picture: PA)

Throughout the nineties, Damage released a total of 11 hit singles – including four top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart.

After the release of Forever, the band went on to release their second album, Since You’ve Been Gone in 2001. This included the singles Ghetto Romance, which reached No.1 in the UK R&B Chart and Rumours, which dropped at No.2.

Shortly after supporting Gabrielle on her 2002 tour, founding member Coreé Richards left the band – with the group splitting altogether less than six months later.

They reformed, minus Coreé, in 2014 after participating in the ITV show The Big Reunion alongside the likes of Liberty X, Blue and B*Witched.

Since then, they have continued to perform live and release new music, including the live albums Acoustically Yours and Live at the BBC.

Jade Jones is married to Spice Girl Emma Bunton (Picture: LTL Music Promotions)

Most recently, they surprised fans when Jade Jones’ wife Emma aka Baby Spice joined them onstage at the O2 in Islington for a rendition of their 2001 hit I Don’t Know.

Announcing the arrival of the Spice Girl – whose vocals featured on the original track – Jade said: ‘People, I think you’ll know this lovely lady here. This is my beautiful wife.’

To which Emma replied: ‘I love you’ before puckering up to her husband for all to see.

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