Rough Justice were formed in 1994 as Feet First with the original line up of Taffy (drums), Swampy (guitar), Russ (guitar), Old Man River (Bass) and Kevin (Vocals). They did a few gigs, mostly for Kinnarps, the company Taffy and Swampy worked for. The famous first gig had the legendary 'Taffy forgetting to put the snare on the snare drum' incident. More about incidents later!!

Kevin was soon replaced by Hog. Hog was just what the band wanted. An enigmatic front man who could sing Bonn Scott and Meatloaf under the table!! The band at this point decided to change their name to Rusty Nuts, which had to be changed shortly after!

Their first gig was at the Grey Horse in Kingston, which more people turned up than expected! People thought 'Rusty Nuts' were 'Dumpys Rusty Nuts' the legendary bikers rock band! The manager of DRN called the band at the venue and demanded a change of name. Taffy mentioned this to a friend at work and he thought that the whole thing was rough justice, so the name was born.

The next lineup change was when Caesar replaced Swampy on guitar. Swampy was the initial driving force behind the band, getting most of the gigs, such as the Blue Anchor in Staines and the Huntercoombe in Cippenham.

Caesar was drafted in when Swampy had a viral infection. He rehearsed twice with the boys and did 2 blinding gigs, at which point the lads decided to ask him to join. He was officially christened by Taffy, because he had a Caesar hair cut!

Many gigs followed and Rough Justice went through their 'Beer Trophy' phase, stealing ridiculous things from pubs at gigs, and then taking them to the next pub, such as stools, ornamental plates and brewery promotional items. This ended when they contemplated stealing a dartboard and realized that the whole thing has gone too far.

The band then had many incidents, mostly created by Old Man River. After the Snow incident in the Feet First days, the lads knew that OMR was quite an individual. The apple pie incident happened, the string changing incident, and the potential amplifier sale incident all went by an the boys knew that something would snap soon.

This brings us to the famous Bass sale incident. The lads turned up for rehearsal one day and about 30 minutes in this guy turned up at the Kinnarps annexe. He spoke to river for 5 minutes and then gave him a pile of cash and walked off with his bass!! When the boys challenged river he said "Ok lads what are we rehearsing?? You don't need the bass " Russ had a few cross words with OMR and he lashed out to the boys "F**K YOU!!!!!!!!! I NEED THE F**KING MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

He stormed out of the rehearsal in a rage, got into his Bedford van, slammed the door and then waited 10 minutes for the engine to warm up, and pottered off out of the industrial estate. That really was the beginning of the end for OMR.

He was soon replaced by Baz, a well respected session Bassist, who won the boys over by jumping off his bass rig in his audition!!!

This line up is what is considered for many as the classic line up. Many gigs followed including the 'PA collapsing at the Blue Anchor gig'

On a few occasions Baz had other commitments so John The Bass helped us out from time to time - a fantastic bass player in his own right who has got a huge Trace Elliot rig.

In fact Baz's other commitments led to his dismissal and he was replaced by Pogo, the respected and quirky guitarist from the Red Lion Twickenham Jam Session.

This was the biker era for the band. Thanks to good friends Jacky and Jez we got a number of gigs on the biker circuit for clubs such as the Celtic Warriors, the Rejects Brotherhood and the Surrey Vikings. To date, we have never had a bad bikers gig.

Soon Taffy felt that he had achieved all he wanted with RJ, so he decided to leave. He was replaced by Weasel, veteran from 'Blim' and the Bull and Bush Richmond jam.

Russ then left to pursue projects with Marcus Mallone and RJ was a three piece band for a while with Caesar playing all the guitar parts.

Spaceman then joined on keyboards, and this is the Bentleys Jam Session era of the band.

They said it would never happen. They said it was never possible! But its now June 2005 and Rough Justice are back, like a pheonix risng from the ashes!!! I will let Hog explain:

"I thought it would never happen! Back in the spring of 2002 just before I departed for a stay of 18 months in America, we played our 'last ever gig'. To be honest the band had got a little stale, we had lost quite a few regular venues ("no more live music, sorry") & we weren't rehearsing much or learning any new tunes. I thought that was it, 8 years, hundreds of gigs, one hell of a good time, job done! How wrong I was!

I returned to London in the spring of 2004 and soon found myself quite literally itching to rock. So I followed the well worn path - Loot ads, auditions, you know the sort of thing: "Band requires lead singer/frontman - Gigs waiting!" The 'band' turns out to be a group of muppets with shiny new guitars, a PA with only just slightly more power than the old Roberts radio I have in my garage, they have about as much experience of rock as the Crazy Frog, & the 'gigs waiting' claim turns out to be that the bass player has a mate who may be able to get us a gig at his uncle's pub!

Fortunately, I came across a band that really could rock & had the right edge & the right sound. I joined PunchMonkey in August 2004 & what followed was a series of gigs, some excellent, some terrible (never accept a gig at a pub in Ickenham called Champions, the only Champions in that pub, are binge drinking drug taking champion twats!). After a few months our talented teenage guitarist Pete decided to leave to concentrate on his own band. After several highly amusing but ultimately fruitless auditions destiny took over and the mighty Tim 'Caesar' O'Sullivan joined the band.

It was at this stage that the PunchMonkey bass player decided to wake up and smell the coffee, realising he could not handle the sheer power of the rock! He left the band, taking the Punchmonkey name with him. The natural choice was to re-brand the band as Rough Justice as that's where our roots were. 'Dangerous' Dave Evans from local hard rockers Repli'cant was the obvious person to take over bass duties, allowing a level of hard rocking not previously available. It was only a matter of time before the spirit of Rough Justice took hold & when it did it was like the good old days of thoroughly entertaining trips to & from gigs, much shenanigans on stage, gig 'trophies' (I still have a bottle of Champagne in the fridge) Each gig was quite literally turning into a shebang!

So here we are Rough Justice III Revenge of the Rock. The most important thing to do at this juncture is to remember, we are, we always have been, and we always will be ROUGH JUSTICE!!!!!!"

And whatever you do, never forget,