Dealing in fast, streamlined punk rock with ringing guitars, simple but effective melodic hooks, and a double dose of energy, Radioactivity were formed in 2013 by Jeff Burke and Mark Ryan, who had previously worked together in the well-respected garage punk band the Marked Men. Radioactivity began as a spinoff of the Novice, a band Burke worked with from 2010 to 2012 while he was living in Japan. When Burke returned to the United States and settled in Denton, Texas, he didn't want to let the songs he wrote for the Novice go to waste, so he reworked them and assembled a new band as a platform for the material. With Burke on guitar and vocals, Ryan on bass and vocals, Daniel Fried on guitar, and Gregory Rutherford on drums, Burke named the new band Radioactivity, and they cut a self-titled debut for Dirtnap Records that was released in October 2013. The group supported the album with live work, though they emphasized that they wanted to be known as a good band rather than a good local band, and aimed for quality over quantity when booking shows. Radioactivity's second album, Silent Kill, was released by Dirtnap on June 30, 2015. Bassist Orville Neeley replaced Ryan in 2016.