Cubanate

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Cubanate is an industrial band from London, founded in 1992 by Marc Heal and Phil Barry with Graham Rayner and Steve Etheridge. The group became well-known known for its early fusion of distorted metal guitars, and techno percussion (later incorporating breakbeats) with industrial electronics and vocals.

Cubanate played their first UK tour in November 1992 supporting left-field UK techno duo Sheep On Drugs. The group signed to Berlin's Machinery Records shortly afterwards. Rayner and Etheridge departed after the first Machinery single, Body Burn (1993). The pair were replaced by Julian Beeston (ex - Nitzer Ebb) drummer.

In May 1994 the Metal EP was Single of the Week in Melody Maker magazine and later that year Cubanate received media attention when they were wierdly paired with Carcass for what turned out to be a notoriously violent UK tour ending in death threats to Heal and an on-air confrontation on the Radio One Rock Show with Bruce Dickinson. The second album Cyberia (1994) spawned the hit single Oxyacetylene, which featured on the Mortal Kombat II soundtrack album. Oxyacetylene is generally considered Cubanate's creative peak and was later used as the theme tune of the best-selling Sony PlayStation game Gran Turismo. For the Cyberia tour 1995 they hired Shep Ashton and Darren Bennett. After '96 Ashton and Bennett were replaced by Roddy Stone (currently fronting UK metal act Viking Skull) and David Bianchi.

The third album, Barbarossa 1996 continued the aggro-industrial format, to diminishing interest, and the group clearly decided a change was needed.

Signed in the U.S. to Wax Trax! Recordings for the act's fourth and final album to date, Interference (1998) was a departure from Cubanate's earlier techno experiments with a strong drum and bass influence that alienated some of their traditionalist fans but was heralded as revelatory by others. The album was co-produced by Rhys Fulber.

Although the act is not very well known outside the industrial scene, Cubanate had a brief vogue in heavy metal circles. Body Burn and Oxyacetylene were both Single of the Week in UK rock weekly Kerrang! and a number of early nu metal acts have cited Cubanate as an influence.

Sometimes referred to as "the last industrial band", no new material has been released by Cubanate since 1998, and the band has not performed live since December 1999, although bootlegs of the unfinished album "Search Engine" have surfaced.