Damien, the only child of songwriter Bill Lovelock and the singer Joan Wilton, was born in Amersham during the short while they were living in England.
On Bill Lovelock's return to Australia, Damien reconnected with him amicably and worked as an office boy for his father's This Is Your Life show during the 1970s.
[11] In 1980 Lovelock answered a 'Singer Wanted' advertisement for The Celibate Rifles, a recently formed rock group whose members were several years younger than him.
"[12] The lyrics were often coloured by his sardonic wit, encompassing the social commentary of "Tick Tock" (1983) on urban sprawl[13] to the political satire of "Return of the Creature with the Atom Brain" (2004), Lovelock's comment on the American intervention in Iraq with British and Australian complicity.
The antimilitaristic "Salute", delivered in Lovelock's typically laconic manner over the threshing of the musicians on Beyond Respect (2004), was in fact a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
[16] Lovelock had substituted this for words of his own at the last moment when it came to recording since, as he explained, "It's one of those poems that once you read it you think 'why would I bother writing anything fresh about war when there is this perfect piece of work?
The last of these was written as a result of his raising money for Tibetan refugees and led to Lovelock's meeting with the Dalai Lama on his visit to Australia in 1992.
[27] Following Lovelock's death, The Celibate Rifles joined with his former Wigworld backing group and other colleagues to put on a performance in his memory in Sydney on 22 September 2019 under the title Damo, the Musical.