Steve Marker

Steven W. Marker was born on March 16, 1959, in Mamaroneck, New York, where he lived most of his childhood and teenage years. At the age of 6, his parents bought him drums, but at 12, he took up the guitar. He graduated from Rye Neck High School in Mamaroneck.

Marker attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison for a degree in film. There, he met Butch Vig who played with the band Spooner.[2] In 1979, the group was trying to figure out how to record a 7-inch single, and Marker developed an interest in music production. He bought a four-track reel-to-reel deck, which, complemented by Vig's microphones, became a home studio in Marker's basement. Marker and Vig also started a small label, Boat Records, to release records by both Spooner and other bands they liked.[3][4]

Marker co-founded Smart Studios in Madison with Butch Vig in 1983 and maintained a production career in engineering and mixing records until he formed Garbage with Vig and Vig's bandmate in Spooner, Duke Erikson, in 1994.[2] He famously spotted Angelfish singer Shirley Manson's music video on MTV's 120 Minutes, which led to her joining the group. Marker felt that Manson differed from the high-pitched and screechy female singers of the 1990s and "was more like the voices that we loved growing up, which were more Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde – sort of that classic pop sound—maybe Dusty Springfield."[3]

Marker stated that his musical style is not influenced by "the guys that played twenty-minute solos", explaining that he always preferred "guitar parts that sort of work melodically more in a Beatles sense," artists such as Tom Petty, Keith Richards, The Pretenders, and Robert Fripp.[3] Marker noted that his background as a producer helped develop a type of playing where "you're not there to show off, to show how brilliant you are, or to draw attention to yourself. You're there to make the song work in whatever way is necessary," adding that the guitar "is there to serve the song".[3]

Marker is married and has a daughter named Ruby (born March 2000). After living for 25 years in Madison, following Garbage's hiatus in 2005, Marker relocated to Carbondale, Colorado with his family.[3]

Steve Marker served as record producer or co-producer on the following records:

• 1984: Killdozer – Intellectuals Are the Shoeshine Boys of the Ruling Elite
• 1985: Killdozer, Snakeboy
• 1992: Gumball – Wisconsin Hayride
• 1993: The Heart Throbs—Vertical Smile
• 1995: Garbage
• 1998: Garbage, Version 2.0
• 2001: Garbage: Beautiful Garbage
• 2005: Garbage: Bleed Like Me
• 2012: Garbage: Not Your Kind of People
• 2016: Garbage: Strange Little Birds'
• 2021: Garbage: No Gods, No Masters

He also engineered the following records:

• 1987: Tar Babies – Fried Milk
• 1989: Killdozer – Twelve Point Buck
• 1990: Poopshovel – I Came, I Saw, I Had A Hotdog
• 1992: L7 – Bricks Are Heavy

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Steve Marker.

• Steve Marker at IMDb
• Official Website Garbage