David Roback, co-founder and guitarist of Mazzy Star, dies aged 61
David Roback, the talented musician best known as the co-founder of successful outfits like Rain Parade, Opal, and Mazzy Star has died at the age of 61. He passed away on February 25 and no cause of death has been determined yet, according to his representative. Adept at playing both guitar and the keyboard and known for being as talented a producer as he was a songwriter, Roback helped play a major role in the neo-psychedelic revival of the 1980s and 1990s.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Roback first played with his brother, Stephen Roback in a band called the Unconscious, which also included a certain Susanna Hoffs, better known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of The Bangles fame. Roback also went on to play a starring role in the development of the Paisley Underground, which was an experimental psychedelic music explosion in Los Angeles during the early half of the 1980s.
Roback was a co-founder of the Rain Parade, which soon became a popular band on the local club circuit. But he released only one album with the band before leaving - that was their 1983 debut album, 'Emergency Third Rail Power Trip'. Soon after that, Roback departed Rain Parade, citing a sense of limitations in the band, to become a part of Rainy Day, which was a small music collective made up of various Los Angeles-based musicians who were active in the Paisley Underground. It was here that the genesis of his next band started to take place.
He soon befriended Kendra Smith, a former member of a group called the Dream Syndicate, which had been a part of the Paisley Underground. They went on to form a band known as Clay Allison, which later had its name changed to Opal (inspired by a Syd Barret song named 'Opel'). When Smith departed in 1987, Roback decided to team up with Hope Sandoval instead and renamed the band's name to Mazzy Star in 1989. The Santa Monica-based duo would go on to write all of Mazzy Star's songs and this marked their most notable songwriting period, in terms of both critical and commercial success.
Hope Sandoval and Roback had their biggest hit in 1994 with 'Fade Into You', which broke into the top half of the Billboard’s Hot 100 and whose layered, textured shimmer became synonymous with Mazzy Star's creative output. Ultimately, Mazzy Star would go on to produce three critically-appreciated albums between the years 1990 and 1996, forging a sound that Rolling Stone described as a blend of “dream pop, psychedelia and touches of blues and folk, with some of the blown-out textures of nineties alt-rock.”
Mazzy Star went on a hiatus of sorts after their third album, only briefly surfacing after 14 years to release a single in 2011 and then their fourth album in 2013 called 'Seasons of Your Day'. The band’s final studio offering, the 'Still EP', was released in 2018. As an instrumental figure in the Los Angeles underground and commercial music scene for over 40 years, Roback's impact and legacy cannot be underestimated - he will be sorely missed.