Steve Marker

Steve Marker
Steve Marker performing live in 2005
Background information
Born	(1959-03-16) March 16, 1959 (age 58) Mamaroneck, New York, US
Genres	Rock, alternative rock, electronic rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter, record producer, remixer
Instruments	Guitar, keyboards
Years active	1978–present
Labels	Geffen Records, A&E Records
Associated acts	Fire Town, Garbage

Steve Marker (born March 16, 1959) is an American musician and record producer, best known internationally as the guitarist of the Madison, Wisconsin-based alternative rock band Garbage.

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

For higher education, Marker attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison for a degree in film. There, he met Butch Vig, who played with the band Spooner. In 1979 the group was trying to figure out how to record a 7-inch single and Marker had grown an interest in musical producing, 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 of both Spooner and other bands they liked.

Marker co-founded Madison's Smart Studios with Butch Vig in 1983, and maintained a production career engineering and mixing records until he formed Garbage with Vig and Vig's bandmate in Spooner, Duke Erikson, in 1994. He famously spotted Angelfish singer Shirley Manson's music video on MTV's 120 Minutes, which led to her joining the group, as 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 was more Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde – sort of that classic pop sound – maybe Dusty Springfield."