Pogo Studio founder Mark Rubel

Illinois Pioneers host David Inge sits down with Mark Rubel, founder of the legendary Pogo Studio. Rubel has played bass with Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets for more than 30 years.

From the mid-1980s until last year, Rubel worked at Pogo Studio in downtown Champaign. Now he lives in Nashville, where he teaches studio technique at the Blackbird Academy.

“When Rubel was 8 years old, his parents gave him a little battery-powered tape machine,” David said. He experimented with recording and then splicing, cutting and altering the tape any way he could. When he was 12, he took up the bass after seeing an instrument in a store shining like it was “lit from heaven,” David said. “So it’s probably not a surprise that he became a musician.”

“He recently purchased a home that came with its own studio, where he says Pogo will rise again,” David said.