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A Musical Life: Mark Green

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Mark Green is a founding member of the instrumental rock band Standing In The Colour, which he formed with his sister Erin Gangwere (bass) and her husband Mike (drums). Rounding out the group is brother Ryan Green. The quartet was founded in 2009 and recently issued its self-titled debut.

My name is Mark Green. I am a guitarist in Standing In The Colour. I first got into guitar when I was about 14. I just kind of fell into it on accident. My brother and sister both play and every now and then I’d just pick one up and see what I could do.

Then I started listening to grunge music … early ‘90s. That really got me passionate about it. And I realized it was actually not as hard as I expected it to be. So, I just kept playing as much as I could, trying to find new things. Then, later down the road I got into more influences, maybe a little more aggressive, along the lines of Tool. They really got to me. I liked the riffs and the complexity.

My brother-in-law introduced me to instrumental music, which is what I do now. It seemed to speak to me in a different way. Something about not having lyrics in there and coming together as a band with different voices but they were just instruments.

There’s a different feel and attitude towards that. And it’s open to interpretation. The listener can get whatever they want out of that or how they feel out of that without maybe having vocals to explain it to them. I thought that was really cool and organic. The feeling of that spoke to me quite a bit and got me into what I’m doing now.

Jedd Beaudoin is host/producer of the nationally syndicated program Strange Currency. He has also served as an arts reporter, a producer of A Musical Life and a founding member of the KMUW Movie Club. As a music journalist, his work has appeared in Pop Matters, Vox, No Depression and Keyboard Magazine.