Rat Scabies

Christopher Millar (born 30 July 1957), better known by his stage name Rat Scabies, is a musician best known for his tenure as the drummer for The Damned.

Millar was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. He played drums with Tor and London SS before founding The Damned with Brian James, Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible in 1976. He continued to play with the band with some interruptions and alongside various personnel changes until a dispute over the release of the album Not of This Earth led to his departure in 1995. He is known to have been influenced by Phil Collins.^[1]

His solo work outside The Damned includes a cover version of Bob Dylan's "This Wheel's On Fire", credited to "Rat & The Whale".^[2] In 2003 Millar formed a short-lived outfit called The Germans with Peter Coyne and Kris Dollimore, originally from The Godfathers. In recent times, he has played with Donovan, Nosferatu Neville Staple (formerly of The Specials), Dave Catching (Eagles Of Death Metal) and Chris Goss. He has also worked as a producer, most notably with Flipron, Ebony Bones! and Arizona punk outfit Glass Heroes.^[3] Millar currently lives with his wife Viv and their three children in Brentford, and is the central character of the book Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail, written by former music journalist Christopher Dawes. The book was published in May 2005 and is billed as "A road trip, a rich historical yarn, and testimony to the odd nature of a great many friendships".

In early 2011 Scabies played drums for The Members on their European tour. Most recently, Scabies contributed his drumming talents to a special project punk band based in Chicago called THE DAMN BATS. A single titled "Doomed" was released on 10.31.2011 and is available as an mp3 digital download thru the reverbnation.com site of Bats frontman Major Mistake.

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