Solarized

Coming out of the industrial, backwoods landfill that is central New Jersey, SOLARIZED is laying waste to the wastelands. Think of John Woo films interpreted by MOTORHEAD; rednecks with space ships and laser cannons on a knuckle-dragging hellride down the Neanderthal Speedway. Think of atomic boogie-rock from the year zero, beamed in from another planet and transmitted directly into your skull. SOLARIZED is the brainchild of the team of Jim Hogan and Regina Satana. Together, they made up the rhythm section of the legendary mutant-rock band DAISYCUTTER that included Tim Cronin and guitarist Ed Mundell (MONSTER MAGNET). A band who signed to the Rockville label after their first show, put out two CD’s of heavy, futuristic rock and played stellar shows with many of the major’s heavy-hitters, including The SMASHING PUMPKINS, The MELVINS, HELMET, MOTORHEAD, The JESUS LIZARD and MONSTER MAGNET. After several personnel changes, the band was ultimately destroyed. From the ashes, SOLARIZED was born. Jim switched from bass and took to the tasks of guitar and vocals. Reg stayed on as drummer and the duo began writing new material. They recruited bassist Lou Gorra, upon hearing that he had left his mark on the Texas scene and had drifted back to New Jersey’s polluted shores. It was a stone groove from the start and SOLARIZED commenced their assault on rock clubs and began recording several demo sessions. Half way through the recording process, the trio met Pete Hauschild, a prominent guitarist from the area and soon the line-up had expanded to a four-piece. SOLARIZED hit the studio again, recorded some new songs and reworked the previously recorded material. "Fire-Breather", a can of sonic whup-ass designed and implemented as an entrance theme by New Jack City Wrestling's fire-breathing giant, "Mr. Lucifa", had gained SOLARIZED some notoriety in the east. MONSTER MAGNET’s Tim Cronin and Ed Mundell were invited to participate and became featured guests on three of the tracks. The band put together an album’s worth of material and started shopping it to a handful of independent labels. Man’s Ruin, owned by pop-culture poster artist Frank Kozik, was the first to respond and licensed the rights to release the album under the title ‘Neanderthal Speedway’. MeteorCity requested some material for a series of split CD’s spotlighting emerging talent, and SOLARIZED recorded five tracks, four of which were released on the Jersey Devils CD. The fifth track would later be released on a compilation CD for Rise Above. SOLARIZED designed an elaborate website and used the internet to market itself to the world, by means of an aggressive e-mail campaign. With some steady ground work laid-out, ‘Neanderthal Speedway’ was poised to make some waves upon it’s release and it did exactly that. Selling in the top 10% at online giants such as Amazon.com and steadily remaining in their top 20% for an additional five weeks. The demand was much higher than either the label or the band had expected. During the Summer of 1999, guitarist Pete Hauschild stepped down as guitarist and was replaced by interim guitarist Lee Stuart, who filled in during a nationwide tour of the US. Shortly thereafter, Gorra and Stuart parted company and the band recruited bassist Mike Fiore of HORSCHACK 77 fame and former DRAG PACK axeman Dave Topolenski who restored the band to a four-piece. In 2001 SOLARIZED released their 2nd full-length album, 'Driven,' which was released on MeteorCity in the US and licensed to People Like You overseas. The album has received positive reactions from fans and critics alike. Mike Fiore parted ways with the group in 2002 and was replaced by George Pierro, thus restoring the line-up. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.