The group featured Void (Geoff Ludbrooke) on vocals, Roger Riot (Allen) on drums, Nick Swan on guitar, and Mark Crawford on bass. Swan had previously played in the pioneering Wellington punk band Life In The Fridge Exists, linking Riot 111 to the city’s original punk wave. All four members were directly involved in the anti-tour protests, and their mission as a band was clear from the outset: to create music that could serve as a rallying cry for demonstrators in the streets.

Their debut single, “1981!”, released in September 1981, was a bold reinterpretation of the Ka Mate haka made famous by the All Blacks. Repurposed as a militant protest chant, it captured the spirit of resistance and outrage that defined the moment. The single’s first pressing of 500 copies sold out quickly, and Riot 111 began developing a full set of songs centred on themes of state control, surveillance, and revolution. Their first live show was performed at a party celebrating the end of the Springbok tour, with Void taking the stage in full riot gear complete with helmet and baton.

In December 1981, the band released their second single,“Subversive Radicals”, featuring the tracks Subversive Element, Writing on the Wall, and Escape or Prison. Its cover, a screen print of Mussolini’s corpse, was as provocative as the music itself. Around this time, Riot 111 shared stages with Naked Spots Dance, Neoteric Tribesmen, and The Spines, with Void’s risque stage antics even earning him tabloid attention in The Truth newspaper.

Riot 111 took their confrontational energy on the road in 1982, touring the South Island and playing alongside The Instigators and Desperate Measures. That July, they made headlines again by performing on the back of a truck outside Avalon Studios to protest TVNZ’s refusal to air their Subversive Element video. Later that year, they supported The Fall at Victoria University and played a string of gigs in Christchurch with fellow Wellington band First Fifteen, where guitarist Nick Swan expressed frustration at the growing violence from bootboy gangs at their shows. 

“They (bootboys) are like a new breed of hoon – it’s like a real gang thing…They go for our music but don’t really listen to what we’re singing about.”

Riot 111’s final stand came in 1983 with the notorious Golden Showers event at Newtown Community Centre, an Easter weekend festival organised by Void and Gerald Dwyer of Flesh D-Vice. The performance was immortalised on the Capitol Kaos compilation album (1984), which featured the Riot 111 tracks Riot Fever, Move To Riot, and Ake Ake Ake.

The band split soon after, with Roger Allen later joining ?Fog, Robert, and Sperm Bank Five.

In 2023, Leather Jacket Records released a remastered 12-inch compilation collecting their singles and live recordings, reviving the uncompromising spirit of a band that captured one of New Zealand’s most turbulent political moments.