Exploring Life & Business with Mark Brut of Rocky Mountain Artists

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Brut.

Hi Mark, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I like to say that I have done everything backwards.

I grew up in Bucks County, PA, just outside of Philadelphia, and was a dedicated musician in high school, put in a lot of time practicing and playing in bands. I wanted to go into music full time, which probably didn’t thrill my parents. During my freshman year in college at Drexel University in Philadelphia, one oy closest friends and trusted band mates, Eric Cochrane, passed away in a tragic accident. This definitely affected me greatly, and kind of derailed my interest in playing music for some time. Eric and I basically learned how to be musicians together and losing him was a big blow.

I ended up taking “safe route” and got a degree in business at the University of Pittsburgh. After college, I got a job working in Insurance back in Philadelphia and entered the corporate world, and was pretty happy doing that for a few years. I also started playing music again, both solo and with a full band that I had joined in the West Chester area.

By early 1996, I decided I wanted to look into relocating and to go see more of the country.
I had several good friends that had already migrated to Colorado and were living the ski life in Vail valley. I started looking for jobs in Colorado and also in the southeast. This would have been the opportune time for me to leap into music full time, but I was enjoying or perhaps afraid to step out of the stability.

I ended up getting a job in Atlanta and moved there, which was a pivotal decision in my life, both good and bad. While I remained in the corporate world, with this change I also committed myself to really get out start playing music. I joined my first real band since early college days.

By the early 2000’s. I was in my early 30’s and was starting to feel the effects of my corporate career were soul crushing, and that I was clearly on the wrong path with things. After some time of reflection, in early 2004 I decided to just quit my job. Again, another very pivotal moment in my life. It was scary but incredibly liberating. It was time to stop taking the “safe route” and start living.

Around this time I really immersed myself in songwriting and also started to actively book shows for the first time. At same time, some other musicians that were connected through the Widespread Panic scene were doing the same, namely Outformation which was formed by Panic guitar technician Sam Holt, and Brian Sofer, who was a great songwriter and had a band called Breaking & Entering. The 3 of us would regularly play shows at an Atlanta venue called the Somber Reptile.

Our friends the Fox Brothers, who would go on to be BBQ icons in Atlanta, also would regularly put on backyard shows at their house that we would also play, and included acts like Jerry Joseph, Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers, and others. It was a fertile and productive time and things were happening. I was finally doing it, but it was a bit disheartening that I was already in my early 30’s. I always wonder now what could have happened if I committed it earlier.

The next few years in Georgia were some of the best and also challenging times of my life. By 2004, I was playing out regularly, and started playing some shows with Outformation as their rhythm guitarist. This was another incredible experience for me, and I thank those guys to this day for occasionally taking me on the road. I got to play some great venues through the southeast and had some amazing musical experiences.

By the end of 2005 and into 2006, it was time for me to form my own band, and I ended up connecting with drummer Ryan Marcus and bass player Brian Barfield and forming Loose Cannon. This band was the first time that my recent batch of songwriting would be played in an electric full band setting, and also the first time I was really THE guy on guitar in a band, and my vision being a band leader. I thought we developed into a pretty good band in our few years together.

So things were going well enough musically at this time, but I had been trying to figure out what I could do to make a LIVING in the music industry. I decided to pursue recording. In spring 2005, I ended getting an internship at Chase Park Transduction recording studio in Athens, GA under David Barbe. David was the bass player for the band Sugar and had produced albums by many bands I admired, such as Bloodkin, Drive By Truckers, Son Volt and others. David Barbe became one of the most influential people I have come across in life, and I know MANY other people who would say the same thing. He ended up becoming the dean of the University of Georgia Music Business Program, and my company Rocky Mountain Artists remains as supporter of their internship program.

By this time, I decided to move to Athens, which was another hugely pivotal decision in my life. I was working a day job at a fiber optic cable company outside of Atlanta and spending huge amounts of time in the studio when not at work. In the early days it was truly an internship, cleaning the studio, taking care of the gear and bands, helping set up and tear down recording sessions. Eventually it grew into me assisting as an engineer on some projects, and taking on some projects of my own as a freelance engineer. I would often be in the studio by myself until 2 or 3 am just recording things and figuring out how things worked and learning all of the gear.

Although I knew David’s credentials, it never really occurred to me that I could possibly be working in the studio with bands I knew and respected. Over the next 4 years, I worked on sessions with the B-52’s, Drive By Truckers, Jerry Joseph, Bloodkin, Of Montreal, and many local Athens bands as well. The experiences I had working on these sessions was just incredible.

The most important thing during this time, however, was I could sense that David wanted to feel out WHY I was there, for what reasons. Did I really want to learn recording, or did I just want to say I “worked” at a recording studio? He wasn’t the kind of person who was going to SHOW you things. He wanted to see the wheels turning in your head, figuring things out on your own, and would answer questions. I like to think that my work ethic and attitude gained David’s respect.

So things were going well enough, and then in 2009 I decided the one thing I still wanted to accomplish was to move to Colorado. It had been calling me for quite some time, and now that I had established the groundwork for a career in music, it was time. I already had a network of friends and musicians in the Denver area that I knew I could jump in with right away.

Upon my move to Colorado, I had hoped to continue in recording. I met with a few studios and nothing was panning out. I also was looking for employment and also not having much luck. I was playing a lot of music immediately upon arriving in Colorado, including playing a lot of solo shows, and forming the second band to feature a lot of my material, the Sneaky Bastards. We would play regularly throughout Colorado for almost a decade.

Atter a period of time and a lot of effort, I started to get discouraged about my lack of being able to land anything. I put some heavy thought into what to do and how I could sustain myself in the music industry. It occurred to me, “I know how to book shows.” I had a conversation with my good friend Eric Martinez, and we discussed possibly forming a booking and management company, and in August 2010, Rocky Mountain Artists was born. I don’t know that I really ever expected it to be a long term thing, and Eric ended up dropping off, but I started loosely booking shows for a few clients, and next thing you know, it was a full time venture. I started getting clients by word of mouth.

By 2012 I had hired my first employee, Erwin Schemankewitz. Erwin worked for me for a few years and then moved on to start his own booking agency, and eventually ended up being one of Leftover Salmon’s managers and has gone on to work for Regime Management. It has been great to watch his success in the industry.

I continued developing Rocky Mountain Artists through the rest of the 2010’s. Our niche for a while was breaking bands into the Colorado market. From my time in the southeast and growing up in the northeast, I had many contacts in these areas as well, and we developed a diverse roster of bands from all over the country.

Obviously the pandemic was a challenging time. Just prior to the pandemic, I had agreed in principle to merge with another similar agency. About 3 months into our transition, everything shut down. After a period of time, we realized this was going to be a long and unknown path back to normalcy, so we decided to go back to what we were doing with our individual companies.

The road out of the pandemic was also full of curveballs and unknowns. We continued to have cancelled shows and tours well into 2022. I actually ended up taking on a remote corporate job for a short time for some stability until things stabilized again.

We are now in 2025 and while the industry has resumed, we face new challenges with the economic and political climates in this country. The industry is oversaturated, and things are as challenging as ever for touring bands to not only break through, but to stay financially solvent. What may have worked for us 10 years ago is not working now. But this has also opened up the opportunity to try new things and new avenues to get our roster bands into successful shows and tours.

Some days it is hard to believe that I have been doing this for almost 15 years. It certainly has ups and downs and is most definitely a 24/7 business. Being an independent agency in an industry that has become dominated by the Live Nation’s and AEG’s and other corporate run events and venues is a daily challenge. But ideally, I like working for myself.

I could always take my roster and join a bigger agency, and we occasionally have bands that reach a certain level of success and feel they want to go bigger agencies. But overall, I like the independent culture we have created with RMA, and I like to think our bands feel part of this culture or family.

In addition to doing RMA, I have remained active as a musician over the past 15 years in Colorado as well. I continue to play many solo shows every year. In 2015, I joined the band Ignatius Reilly as their bass player. I already knew the guys in the band and liked what they were doing. I had never played bass in a band before, so it was a unique challenge. We ended up playing a lot of shows in Colorado and toured to the southeast. Now 10 years later, I am still in the band, and we released a new album last fall called “Superstitions Fade.” I also have several albums in the can of my material as well as my former band The Sneaky Bastards, that I hope to release soon. I also have been incredibly fortunate to play in the annual Last Waltz Revisited shows in Denver and Boulder every year that features over 50 of the areas best musicians.

So I would say my story is one of how it really is never too late to realize your dreams, or make a drastic change in life when you realize you aren’t on the right path. It was and continues to be a lot of hard work and perseverance. I always say I never like to use the word “frustrated” in this industry, as more often than not it will be. But when you see the results of your efforts, it can be extremely rewarding. And honestly, running Rocky Mountain Artists now for almost 15 years. the most rewarding thing to me has been the relationships I have built with our bands, my employees, and the many other talent buyers, agents and others in the industry.

I always have to remind myself that networking is everything, and it truly is. Being a genuine, reliable and positive person in the industry and in life goes a long way in establishing relationships, and you never know when someone you crossed paths with years ago may now be someone you are now working with. I try to remind myself of that every day.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think my overall story paints a picture of the level of work required to blaze your own trail. It’s a whole another level than working for someone else and you have to be honest and accountable to yourself. But the difference is, you WANT to do it, so you do.

When I left corporate, I was heading into the great unknown, no job, just some ideas of what I wanted to do. When I was living in Athens and interning at the recording studio I really had little money but I knew that I was being afforded an incredible opportunity to learn from a great mentor, and also from the people that came through that studio, the musicians and other engineers I worked with. So I had to take advantage of that for the right reasons.

With the booking agency, there have been some tremendous highs and lows, especially through the pandemic. It is also a very cyclical business, where most of your money is made in the warmer weather months.

The music industry is also always going on, so I have to draw some boundaries with my time, Even though it is a 24/7 business, I can’t always be available, for my own physical and mental health.

If there is any advice I could give to those starting out, it is be smart with your money regardless of what you are doing. I was definitely not very good at that in my younger years and it could have made my path a lot easier.

I also can honestly say I would not have been able to make the life transition that I did without the support of mu family, especially my mother, who encouraged me to follow my heart with music.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Rocky Mountain Artists?
Rocky Mountain Artists is a Denver based national booking agency that was formed in 2010. We are an independent agency that focuses on growing a diverse roster of small to mid level bands of many genres and locations. While we have provided management and publicity services, we currently are mainly focused on booking.

In our early years, our specialty was helping bands break into the Colorado market, which was an anchor for bands to be able to route to the western United States. We booked many bands from the eastern US for their first tours of Colorado and subsequent return tours.

We have now been in business for 15 years and have developed a reputation as a reputable agency for bands seeking to grow and get over the hump from being “bar bands” to being able to have successful ticketed shows.

We have also typically operated as a non-exclusive booking agency, which allows bands to maintain some level of their own bookings if they choose, but more importantly, allows us to build a working relationship with our bands without requiring them to hand everything over before we know how we work together.

Right now, we are raising the bar for the level of bands we are taking on, but have typically engaged with most of our clients through word of mouth. We rarely activity solicit bands to join our roster.

As the owner of the company, I like to think we have established a reputation of a agency that has high standards for the way we interact with our roster bands, not setting false expectations in a challenging industry, and achieving solid results. We are still here 15 years later, still independent, and have established our brand not only in Colorado but nationally as well.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
I think a lot of this is detailed in my story, but if I could give advice to myself starting out again, it would be be prepared to work hard, do not be afraid to take chances. And if you are going to take chances, being smart about your money, physical and mental health is vital to being at your best.

And as I mentioned, networking with other people is incredibly important. You never know when building genuine connections with people will make your path a lot easier down the road.

The biggest thing though, is you can ALWAYS go back to a more stable situation, but you can’t get the years back you spent playing it safe. Do it now, while you are young.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rockymountainartists.com/wordpress/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockymountainartists/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rockymountainartists/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-brut-5a87014/
• Other: http://markbrut.com/

Image Credits
Photos – Traci Lynn Markle
Logos – Diana Azab