Derik & The Disasters - Derik & The Disasters Derik & The Disasters

“When I was a teenager, Charlie Harper was my hero,” admits Del Greening, guitarist from notorious Brighton punks Peter and the Test Tube Babies. “I saw him on Top of the Pops snarling through ‘Stranglehold,’ like a man trying to start a riot on his own, and that was it. I was in. Not long after, I was crushed against the front barrier at Crawley Leisure Centre, watching the UK Subs, half suffocated, probably deaf for three days and loving every second of it.

“I met Charlie a few times over the years,” continues Del. “Always seemed like a decent chap. Then he started turning up at Peter and the Test Tube Babies gigs, not just casually, either. Every time I looked up, there he was, front row, arms folded, watching my hands like a mechanic inspecting a suspicious engine noise. Slightly unnerving, if I’m honest. I kept thinking, what does he want? Should I be playing better? Afterwards, he’d come over. “Love your guitar playing. We should do a project together…”

And so the seed was sown for a beautiful new punk rock partnership. Charlie, as established, is a long-time admirer of Del’s guitar playing and is also based in Brighton. With Del no longer touring with the Test Tubes and Charlie doing ‘slightly’ less gigs with the Subs, they both had time to start something new and fresh. And fresh it certainly was. With no rehearsals, no pre-production and some skeletal song ideas, Del and Charlie, alongside Vicky Smith from the Ramonas on bass and Marley Perez (Charlie's grandson) on drums, they headed to Brighton Road recording studios and got to work in October 2025.

“We set up, and Charlie suggested we just start jamming until something happens,” laughs Del. “I fucking hate jamming, I find it pointless. So, I voiced my opinion. “What's the point of just endlessly jamming for hours in a studio that we're paying for? It's not as if a hit is just going to suddenly pop up from nowhere.” “That's how I wrote ‘Stranglehold”’ Charlie snapped back. Fair point!

“He also mentioned that the Subs' classic track ‘Warhead’ had also emerged from a jam but had been discarded and disliked by ex-guitarist Nicky Garrett and ex-bassist Paul Slack and had been thrown in the bin, which he retrieved; “the song outlived them both.” Charlie laughed. Was that our first argument? I’m not sure. I knew there weren’t gonna be many.

“We’d finally got everything plugged in and ready to record, guitars humming with feedback, everyone poised to go, then Charlie would suddenly start telling a story. Ten minutes later, he’d forgotten who the story was about, where it happened, or why he’d started telling it in the first place. By the end, even Charlie looked confused! He then suggested a couple of chords, A and C, and after going around in circles for 20 minutes, nothing seemed to be happening. That's when I got out my latest song, ‘Deadlines’. I had typed out the chord sheets, arrangement and lyrics, and I distributed them around the studio floor for everyone to see. We tried it, and it sounded fantastic. We then did another one of Charlie's ‘Cyber War’, and the original jam produced ‘Divide’, then I threw in another riff, ‘Lost’, which I’d based around a brass riff idea that I’d written on my son’s Casio keyboard he had used for his school music lessons. Not a bad result, four songs in one six-hour session. Third of an album, maybe?”

With ‘Deadlines’, ‘Divide’, ‘Cyber War’, and ‘Lost’ all written in the first six-hour session. Somehow, against all the odds, Charlie’s completely chaotic method was working. With most of Marley’s drums recorded and him now away on tour, the sessions moved to (engineer) Ali Gavin’s tiny back-garden studio in Aulburn Village in Mid Sussex.

“The routine quickly settled in,” explains Del. “Ali engineered. I layered guitars and vocals. Charlie sat behind us, throwing in ideas, stories, lyrics, or complete confusion, depending on the hour. Somehow, out of all that chaos, the album slowly began to take shape.”

However, a brief period of ill health for Charlie led to the Disasters working on some songs without him. “The three of us ended up recording a couple of new tracks, ‘Scars’ and ‘The Disasters’. Vicky played bass while Ali engineered, then jumped behind the drums while I handled the guitars. We sent the rough tracks over to Charlie. He loved them. By the final sessions, the album had become something none of us had expected. Not really a Subs record and not really mine or a Charlie solo record. Something completely different.”

“What I wanted on this album,” Charlie said, “Was that thing you do at the end of the Test Tubes set. Peter’s already gone for a beer, but you’re still out there, stretching the guitar out, and the crowd are hanging on every note. “That’s what I wanted, and that's what you gave me.”

From chaos and confusion comes Derik & The Disasters. Fourteen songs that tap into both Charlie and Del’s musical legacies whilst creating a sound that is unique and vibrant, with lyrics that don’t shy away from tackling the many issues facing the world today. This is punk rock in 2026. Play Loud.