Orange County California may be best known for Disneyland, Newport Beach and the beautiful people of Fox's "The O.C." and Bravo's "Real Housewives of Orange County", but beyond the beaches, mansions and palm trees there is a legacy of some of the biggest rock bands in the world that hail from the OC, like No Doubt, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, The Offspring, Social Distortion, and recent-comer Saosin. The next rock band making a big splash out of the OC is Damage.

Three years ago, Damage was gigging at local Southern California clubs with a four-song demo in hand, when a mutual friend hooked frontman Michael Neufeld up with fellow Newport Beach resident Ronnie King, a behind the scenes industry legend who has worked with The Offspring, No Doubt, Rancid, Pennywise and Tupac. King was playing keyboards for The Offspring one night at a show in San Diego and invited Neufeld backstage to hang out. King listened to the band's demo (produced by the multi-talented Christopher Scott) and immediately reworked his schedule to work with them. "He thought we were a viable band and that we could really make some noise," Neufeld says.

The diversity of the band's influences, combined with their musical sensibilities and talents, have shaped the band into one of today's hottest coming out of Southern California. Heavily influenced by everything from the rawness of grungers Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots, to the complex orchestrations of Led Zeppelin, and even by the melodic structures of the Beatles, Damage's music taps into a multitude of human emotions while blowing your head through the back windshield at the very same time.

"Our sound has been described as a convergence of hard rock, alternative, and metal", comments Neufeld. Music Connection Magazine compared them to Alice in Chains and went on to suggest that Damage is "more commercial". "Well that's an incredible compliment to us for sure, "says Neufeld before adding, "Alice is one of our favorite bands, to be mentioned in that league is a bit overwhelming".

"TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCE", the new album from Damage, is a body of work that seeks to challenge each and every one of us to examine our place on this very complicated planet.

The album is the band's second release, and follow up to their 2005 debut CD "Velocity", for which the band, along with its riveting live performances, was named Best Hard Rock Band at the 2006 Southern California Music Awards, sponsored by LA's Indie 103.1 FM.

"Truth and Consequence" features songs like "God", "Forgive Me" and "My Point of View", which call on all individuals to look within themselves to advance personal change for the greater good of all humanity; while others like "Another Girl", "No One" and "You Seeing Me" highlight the difficulties associated with maintaining healthy personal relationships while pursuing one's own personal agendas. And as the LA Times quoted Neufeld in an article about the band's recent LA Music Awards nomination, "We're all a little damaged."

While the concentration of talent coming out of Orange County these days, as well as over the past 20 years, has turned the OC into America's next great national music "scene", Damage doesn't plan on riding anyone's coattails to success.

"We've worked our way to where we are gig by gig, song by song, fan by fan," muses Neufeld "and now we're ready to take that attitude to the next level."

Damage - "TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCE" will be released digitally by Adrenaline Music Group on May 20th, 2008.