Radioactivity are back with their third LP, Time Won’t Bring Me Down (out October 31 on Dirtnap Records), which comes 10 years after the punk quartet’s previous full-length, Silent Kill.
Radioactivity’s roster throughout the years has been a veritable who’s who of bands: The Marked Men, Mind Spiders, Bad Sports, The Reds, and High Tension Wires, to name a few. Vocalist/guitarist/main songwriter Jeff Burke is presently joined by longtime bandmates guitarist Daniel Fried and drummer Gregory Rutherford, with latest addition Orville Neeley taking over bass duties from Mark Ryan, who stopped playing live with them. Here, Burke explains how this impeccable 11-song addition to the long-running band’s legacy—and that of the Denton, Texas, scene from which they all forged their path—came about.
The record sounds really hard-hitting; there’s the mix of upbeat and this melancholy to it, wistfulness …
It has some stuff that isn’t really on the first two records, I think, as far as sound goes. I think lyrically and thematically it’s probably similar, but as far as the recording, choices of not making it as loud sometimes is a little bit different on this one.
And then just even that it had been a little while since the second album.
Ten years, I think, yeah.
Did you know if you were going to be doing another one? Did it seem like it would be happening?
Yes, so, the third album, the one that’s about to come out, was already planned around the time that the second album came out. I knew that we were gonna do it, and I knew a good maybe majority of the songs that were going to be on it already. And we did start recording it quite a while ago. I was living in Texas in 2017 and recorded a little bit in 2018. And then I moved to New York and had a few different life events that made it hard to focus on it or get back to it or finish it, so I kind of put it off for a while. And COVID put everything on pause for a while, kind of made it seem not necessary there for a couple of years as well. It was in the works for a long time.
So, you moved to New York.
Yeah, in 2018. Like, right after we basically finished tracking the basic tracks for it, I made the move. There was some recording here and there over the next few years, but I really set the time aside last summer in 2024 to just finish it. So, I actually finished recording everything and mixing it last summer.
Wow, so you had the songs basically written. Did you change much or not really?
As far as the basic tracks, the rhythm tracks, the drums, the bass guitar, and things like that, pretty much across the board they were basically completed then, when I still lived in Texas. There are a couple of exceptions. But a couple of the songs, especially on the second side, took a little more time to figure out exactly how I wanted to do them. And actually having the time, the space in between when we originally recorded them and when I finished it, helped me finalize what I wanted to do. I guess I was unsure for a long time, but when I got back to it, it kind of just fell together and I was able to finish it pretty quick.
You’ve always done all the lyrics with this band?
Yeah, I’ve written all the lyrics. I write the songs too and bring them to the other guys. Everybody puts in a little bit, but I guess I’m the primary songwriter for Radioactivity.
Since you’ve known the guys for so long, is there a kind of intuitiveness or something?
Yes, definitely. There’s something about playing in our scene, in Denton, Texas, that kinda made us understand each other, kind of what people were going for, what we wanted. And I think that that’s always been an important thing, really been useful. We all kind of went to the same shows, played with the same people in different bands, and formed a Denton style or whatever for what we did, and it made it a lot easier. As far as me trying to get across what I’m wanting to do, I haven’t ever really had to explain more than I felt necessary; it always fell together.
Yeah, and about this particular band, you started it when you were in Japan?
Yeah. So, the songwriting started when I was in Japan. I was there from 2008 to 2012, and I would say all of the songs from the first record were written when I was in Japan, and more than half of the second record I think were written in Japan. And if I’m not mistaken, probably two from the new record were also written in Japan.
What brought you there?
Originally it was music. It was a band three of us from The Marked Men we played in a band called The Reds with our friend Chris (Pulliam), he got us to play some shows in Japan, and that’s where I first found my interest in Japan. And then I ended up studying Japanese and getting a job over there. So, I lived there nearly five years total, went to school one year, and worked for four years. The short version. (Laughs)
And then what about coming back? Sorry, I don’t mean to get personal.
No, for many years I planned on moving to Japan, living there, and I wanted to understand more about people there, how and why things work the way they do, I suppose. And I got the job that I was aiming for, and I did it for a few years, and I felt content with that. I felt like I learned what I wanted to; I got what I was looking for, and so after four years I decided to come back. Of course, there are things like family, like my brother had a kid, I was hoping to be around a little bit more, and you start to miss being around people. And I did start to think about doing music a little more. So, there were other things pulling me back to the U.S., but I did feel like I lived there and did everything I wanted to do.
Are you still in NY?
I was until August. I just moved to Connecticut, which is where I grew up mostly.
I was just wondering, you know, how you say it now. When you’re reading about bands, it’s whatever-based band … (Laughs)
Oh, right. We’re always (a) Denton-based band, but none of us live in Denton anymore. There’s no easy way to write it, though, for us because the other members all live in different cities as well. Nobody even lives together anymore.
So then can you get a little more into the recording?
The recording was done at a time when we were all still living in Texas, all the tracks that everybody else did. The stuff I did to finish it up I did by myself and with a couple of people in New York that helped me out a little bit. And then we also have a different bass player that plays with us now. Mark who was in The Marked Men with me and is on all of the recordings for bass for Radioactivity, he had stopped playing live years ago, so the new bass player, Orville, wasn’t playing on the recording, so I had him record some stuff at home in L.A. and he sent me his tracks and I worked it in there as well.
You worked with Mark for a long time, right?
Yeah. For a really long time. And we still bounce things off of each other even though we don’t live in the same town.
More about these songs, like I said before. it’s all hard-hitting but one that got me—You know when you first listen to a record and it sticks out right away? “Analog Ways.” That has that wistful feel.
Cool. I’ll just say a little background for that. I wrote that after moving back from Japan, and I didn’t have any specific event or something like that, anything driving me to write it. But it was just a feeling I had about—a big change like that can bring a lot of emotions. I don’t always understand what leads to writing a song, but it’s just a lot of my life was spent with friends that aren’t nearby or friends and family. Everybody that’s not nearby and so everything’s through text and this and that. I just at that moment felt frustrated with the difficulty and true communication through these methods and just missed being near people. Something like that.
The last two songs, “Shell” and “Pain,” flow into each other. Did you know that was how it was going to end, with those two songs?
No, I didn’t, actually. Out of all the songs on the album, I think “Shell” is the oldest—No, it’s the second-to-oldest. I wrote it in Japan, and “Pain,” the last song, was the last song written. It was the last one we recorded as well in 2018. At the time I didn’t know. I think it was after I had the lyrics finalized, that’s when I knew I wanted “Pain” to be the last song. Before that, I probably would have been thinking that “Shell” could have been the last one. I don’t know. I had various mixed versions of “Shell” where it kind of just fades out in different ways and we just happened to record it—The other song was just drums first and then noises coming in, so they just happened to work really well together. It was a happy accident or something that they have the same notes at the ending of one going into the next.
Do you get kind of nutty about the track order?
I don’t know. I do spend time on it. I think that I had that track order decided years ago, so I don’t really remember. Yeah, because all of those songs had been written for a while, so I had been just planning on it that way. I think I did want to change it a little bit towards the end. I would say the more difficult parts in deciding where to put everything would’ve been putting a couple of songs on the first side that probably would fit better with songs towards the end of the record. But I don’t know. As far as flow goes, I felt like the way we ended on seemed to work. And I think of it in terms of vinyl as well, so I think about the end of one side, so the last song on the first side I felt is a good way to end the side. I know most people don’t listen that way anymore. But that’s how I imagine people listen.
It comes out in a couple of weeks. Do you have record release shows or anything?
Not really, we had originally planned for it to come out a little earlier, and there was some difficulties in getting it out in time, which happens. So, we had planned some shows. We just finished a run of shows—We did a short trip in August, and then we did three weekends in a row at the end of September and at the beginning of October. So, we played quite a few shows, and we started playing some of the new songs, but it didn’t work out that the album was completely ready. We did have a vinyl version to sell at the shows, so it was nice to have something for people. We’ll probably play some shows early next year. That’s the plan.
I was just wondering about you. People who’ve been in the scene for a while, what got you into punk or rock ‘n’ roll or just music in general?
OK, it’s been a while. But music and punk are two different things. I got interested in music as far as my friends liked metal. I was going to metal shows or whatever, this was all in Connecticut. Eventually you go to a metal show, and there’ll be punk bands playing as well and eventually I—the people I related to more were in the punk scene, and I kind of found my way. It was more of a hardcore scene. Not like Youth of Today hardcore, but more the crust side of things, was where I worked my way into punk. And then I moved to Texas for school, and that’s where I met all the guys that I started working with and they came from a different punk background. And I kind of just absorbed some of what was going on there, and it changed my direction a little bit I think.
Did your parents play music at home, or did you play instruments in school?
My whole family is kind of musical. My parents would sing; my mom played the piano. My sister and brother were both in music programs and did well, especially their vocal performances and everything. I was not really into that side of it as much. I kind of found my way into the instrumental side, and that’s what I started with; I wasn’t really interested in being a singer at first. But that kind of just happened with time, mostly after I moved to Texas. It has to do mostly with shyness, not wanting to show—I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, but I was so shy that I had trouble showing my songs to people in band practice. So, I would just record demos myself and sing, that was kind of how I ended up singing more of my own songs.
And the first instrument you played, was it guitar?
It was drums. I don’t really play now, but I have played drums in quite a few bands, nothing really notable, I don’t think. But I started with drums and didn’t get a drum set quick enough so I kind of lost interest and was able to get a guitar first. So, when I got a drum set I didn’t really hit it as hard as the guitar, I didn’t practice as much as guitar.
I never talked to you before, but I interviewed Mark for Mind Spiders and Daniel for Bad Sports years ago. That the Denton scene is so big, that’s cool.
A side note, you wrote down Orville’s name; he’s also in Bad Sports. So, the three people that play with me live are all from Bad Sports, basically. There’s something about maybe just growing up in—even though I didn’t grow up there, but developing music there that makes it easy to play with each other, I suppose. We always play in bands together.
Time Won’t Bring Me Down is out now, and you can order it from Dirtnap Records. Follow Radioactivity on Instagram for future updates.
Photo Credit: Vicious Velma
