Mark Roberts (singer)

Mark Roberts (born 3 November 1967, Llanrwst, Wales, UK) sang and played the guitar during his teenage years in the local Welsh band, Y Cyrff. He then met Cerys Matthews and formed Catatonia along with Paul Jones.^[1]

He claimed for a number of years that he had stumbled across Matthews busking in Cardiff and offered her a guitar string she was missing,^[2] which led to their playing together, but actually they were in a long-term relationship busking and cohabiting when they formed the band. The string story was a fabrication by the band's publicist. Their split ended their songwriting partnership, and subsequently Roberts was responsible for much of the band's lyrical output.

In Catatonia, Roberts shared main songwriting duties with Matthews, whilst also playing guitar and providing backing vocals. After Catatonia split, he did a spell of record producing, and together with Paul Jones formed Sherbet Antlers (joined by John Griffiths and Kevs Ford of Llwybr Llaethog).

Roberts and Jones went to form the band called Y Ffyrc, which is a play on (or an anagram) of Y Cyrff. By 2012 Roberts had formed a Cardiff based soul inspired band The Earth with Dionne Bennett (ex The Peth) and Dafydd Ieuan (of Super Furry Animals)

References