Brave New World: An Interview with Mark Roebuck

Mark Roebuck is one of the most unsung and underrated Virginia artists. Beginning his career in the pop rock of Charlottesville’s The Deal, Roebuck has been through a lot. The Deal’s promising career was crippled by a horrible record label and carried on in stops and starts for years before finally crumbling. Back at square one, Roebuck briefly collaborated with future superstar Dave Matthews before beginning a series of short-lived bands of his own. Eventually, he started a full-blown solo career that has kept him musically active and happy for quite some time. He was more than happy to answer some questions about his career and the overall arc of The Deal.

Pete Crigler: How did you become interested in music?

Mark Roebuck: My mother played piano, which I loved, and my father would always have a drink and listen to music in the evening after we’d all been put to bed. The voices of the singers would float eerily into my room as I tried to sleep, seeping into my mind in a powerful way. I became energized when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan as a young child. They just blew me away! Soon after my father brought home some of their records and it was off to the races.

Pete: Tell me about meeting Haines (Fullerton, co-leader of The Deal.)

Mark: He was in the dorm next to mine and was a somewhat brash and charismatic person even then. He had started a band called Friction Free that was pretty great.

Pete: How did The Deal come together and what was the local scene like at the time?

Mark: The local music scene at the time was very blues-rock heavy. My roommate Eric Schwartz and I had an all original folk duet going, and Haines came to hear us play at Pavilion XI backroom. He approached us afterward and told us he really liked the songs and offered to work with us, telling us about his connections at Ardent Studios in Memphis. We began with the idea he would help us record a demo there. Eric and I moved down and lived in his home for a month while we recorded four songs. By the end of that process we had decided to become a band. Jim Jones, bassist and vocalist joined up, as did Hugh Patton on drums. Haines came up with the name the Deal. Eric is the other person in the band who is no longer with us.

Pete: How did the Bearsville deal come together and what was it like making the initial EP?

Mark: The band would regularly roll up to New York City and try to get our demo heard at record companies. During one visit we met Linda Stein, former manager of the Ramones, and wife of Sire Records head Seymour Stein. Linda decided to manage us, and had Seymour come down to Charlottesville to give us an audition. He thought we were good, but not right for Sire. He recommended us to Albert Grossman, head of fellow Warner Brothers label Bearsville. He came down, heard us, and signed us.
The making of the initial EP was difficult. Our producer, Richard Gottehrer, took on our project as a favor to Linda; and I don’t think he really understood us as a band, or where to take us. I feel like we did well enough though. However, right at the time of its completion, Warner Brothers severed ties with Bearsville and it was all for naught.

Pete: What happened with Bearsville and do you see it as bad luck?

Mark: We continued recording at Bearsville and slowly completed a second EP I felt great about when we were done. Albert liked it as well, and was taking it to Europe to a music convention, flying on the Concord, when he had a massive coronary and died. I see what happened at Bearsville as a tangle of good and bad luck, probably in equal measure. I’m not bitter at all.

Pete: Tell me about working with Jody Stephens and how did the recording of Brave New World come about?

Mark: After the mess with the first EP, Eric, as well as Hugh left the band. Jody was a friend of Haines, and Haines had always been absolutely crazy for Jody’s band Big Star. Jody had always really liked our stuff; and he joined briefly to replace Hugh as our drummer. He ultimately went to business school, which led to him becoming the business manager at Ardent. Once working there, he had Ardent offer us a spec deal to record an album there. The result was Brave New World, with Michael Clarke playing drums, and Jody and Alex Chilton contributing a few bits, which I loved.

Pete: What ultimately caused the breakup of The Deal?

Mark: Brave New World was not picked up by any major labels and was self-released. It got some really good reviews and we were named by Musician Magazine as one of the top twenty unsigned bands in the country. It was that same mix of good and bad luck right up to the end. We were broke, relationships in the band had become toxic, and we just fell apart. It was a very difficult time for me.

Pete: What were you up to afterwards and what was the impetus for Tribe of Heaven?

Mark: I was bartending at Eastern Standard downtown. The downtown scene then was amazing. People who worked at Eastern, Millers and C&O would gather after hours and drink bourbon in coffee cups until near dawn. Dave Matthews became a good friend, and we started playing music together. At one point I enlisted him to do a recording with me at Greg Howard’s home studio and include some of our co-written songs. This became the Tribe of Heaven project.

Pete: How did you and Dave Matthews come up with The Song That Jane Likes?

Mark: I think he played me an early unfinished version of the song the first time we played together. Some time later I remember strumming guitars in the basement of his mother Val’s house and deciding to finish the song. My contribution was to the lyrics, and I do like the lines I came up with. He had the melody finished already.

Pete: How did DMB come to make the Eastern Standard their essential home base?

Mark: During this time, I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights at Eastern, and to bring more people in I started an open mike night on Monday and a Disco night on Wednesday. They were both really successful and fun. I offered the band Tuesday night, for $50.00 and all the liquor they could drink. They took me up on it and the rest is history.

Pete: Tell me about Burning Core and Big Circle.

Mark: Around the same time, I started working on the dark acoustic songs on Tribe of Heaven, I began writing and recording with Mike Colley, a very talented Charlottesville musician on what would become Burning Core. The Burning Core project centered on creating a powerful and aggressive music with an anti-violence message. The music fused hardcore, rap and other elements, and was sung by TR3’s Warren Richardson. The band went live for a short time, opening for Public Enemy and the Dave Matthews Band.
After Mike and I stopped working and playing together, I had several years when I wasn’t pursuing music, although I was still writing stuff. Charlie Pastorfield and TA Anderson, some of the most beautiful souls in Charlottesville, approached me about reviving some of the old Deal songs and playing them live. I thought it was a great idea. Rusty Speidel and Jim Ralston, two other great musicians, joined also. As we practiced, I played them my new songs, they liked them, and we incorporated them as well. We also added some of Charlie’s material and the band wrote a few together. The band played regularly at the Outback Lodge, and the manager, Terry Martin, asked us to record an album in his newly created home studio. This resulted in the album Things May Change.

Pete: What was it like to have Not Lame release a collection of The Deal recordings?

Mark: After the Deal long ago crashing and burning in what felt like utter failure, it was amazing beyond words for Bruce Brodeen to release our material on Not Lame. I still feel deeply grateful.

Pete: How did it feel to begin your proper solo career?

Mark: You know I’ve never been that comfortable in a solo setting. It started with what was basically Big Circle’s second release. The band had ended by then, and the others were playing in new bands. I went in to start a project with Bobby Read, and they all came in to assist. I didn’t feel calling it Big Circle was right, because we weren’t playing together anymore, so I came up with the name Noonday Ruin. I probably should have stuck with Big Circle. After that I did an acoustic project with Tony Fischer, and then my only truly solo CD The World and All Within. Of course this evolved into my present band Kingdom of Mustang in which I’m again happily submerged a bit.

Pete: Tell me about Kingdom of Mustang.

Mark: I fell back together with my old Deal drummer Michael Clarke when he played drums on The World and All Within. It was so great to play with him again after so many years! The original Deal drummer Hugh Patton came down and added some percussion which was also great. We recorded in Tim Ryan’s Studio 607 and Tim contributed bass, guitar and keyboards to the album. When done, we all wanted to keep going, so we talked Rusty Speidel into joining us and created Kingdom of Mustang. I’ve had a real burst of songwriting occur in the last couple of years, and Tim too is a solid songwriter. We’ve got too much material to work with!

Pete: What are your current plans?

Mark: As long as possible, I want to keep playing, writing and recording with Kingdom of Mustang. It’s a perfect outlet for me, and I respect and admire everyone in the band.

Pete: What are your memories of Haines?

Mark: He was brilliant in many ways, and a great musician. In our very early times together we were all like a carousing band of brothers and these are some of my favorite memories of all time. However many memories are painful. He could be cruel and cutting at times, and the operating principle of most of my association with him was that I was “a great songwriter but a terrible person.” Because his opinion was the most important to me, this deeply wounded me, especially as the band was breaking up. Toward the end of his life, when he first became more spiritual, he came to me in a spirit of healing that helped us both greatly.

Pete: What do you think The Deal's place is in the history of Virginia music?

Mark: For so long, I just saw the Deal as a crash and burn story that left no trace. Since Not Lame, I like that we may merit a mention here and there, because I think we did some good stuff. Your fine book certainly didn’t hurt!

Pete: What do you hope your overall musical legacy will be?

Mark: I think my legacy, whatever that may be, will lie in the melodies and lyrics of the songs I’ve written. My hope is that they will be impactful in some way to those who listen.