Uranium 235: A cultural minority waiting to explode

by Omar Perez

Uranium 235's uni-named vocalist/guitarist Shane remembers their earlier years trying to pay their dues in Europe before getting their break in America.

"I don't want to play with old school metal bands anymore," says Shane of their first show the industrial metal New York City band played with Motorhead. "That shit was rough. That first night we went on the soundman really sucked and he butchered our sound, and you need guitars when you're playing with Motorhead. We came out and by the fourth song it was like 'And our next song is-goodnight.' People started chanting 'Lemmy, Lemmy,' I was thinking 'I remember this from when I was a kid. Guys, we better get out now.'"

While they may have stepped off the stage at that point, Uranium 235 (Shane, guitarist Matt Brown, bassist Tom Fiorini, keyboardist Chris Bride and drummer Rob Steele) continued on a path first forged in 1995. And the result is Cultural Minority - an intense collection of fiery, heavy rock coupled with dance beat-laced industrial landscapes. While songs like "Here it Comes" and "Scent Explosion" show the band's more guitar-aggressive side, tracks like "Creator" and "Right Sir Blight" spotlight the band's electronic energy in a way that hasn't been captured successfully since early Nine Inch Nails. Their version Dead or Alive's "Spin me Round (Like a Record)" is the result of a musical accident that happened in one of their earlier shows.

Although emerging three months ago in the States, Cultural Minority was originally released two years ago under German label SPV/CBH. Selling 20,000 copies, the album would later see distribution in England and Japan.

Still, "It was really hard to get a deal [in the states]," Shane remembers. "And that was our main concern." So the band pulled money out of the pockets and made thousands of copies of their album, distributing it along the East Coast and in whatever record store shelf would have them. Non-stop shows with everyone from Life of Agony to Marilyn Manson also helped spread the word.

"We played 340 dates on our first year with no support, with no money, and no food," Shane says. "We were eating potato chip sandwiches at one point."

Now with an album that is receiving national distribution one would think the band is waiting for bigger and greater things, but Uranium 235 is content staying away from the overexposure and the comparisons a young band faces.

"It's all in the underground, and I kind of like it that way," Shane says. "It's always been about doing it on our own terms. I think MTV ruins our imaginations. It ruins the mystique of the bands. They package it and show you exactly what that bands look like. Now when you see it the mystique of the band is gone."

Although the band has built a loyal underground following, it has found it more of a challenge to gain fans in a society that pigeonholes music into one category, and doesn't like anything that's neither peanut butter nor jelly.

"We dance in the middle of a lot of stuff, and it's the big curse," Shane says. "If you have guitars, then you can't have keyboards. But if you have keyboards then you can't have guitars. We're right in the middle, and I think a lot of people like that. It's not a crime to like something because the guitars aren't loud all the time."

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