A common fantasy for many teenagers is becoming a rock star. 

There are plenty of Jewish role models: Drake, Billy Joel, Lenny Kravitz, Pink, Bob Dylan. Alas, success as a performing musician is an elusive dream. 

That hasn’t stopped these Jewish St. Louisans — adults with day jobs, mortgages and family commitments — from picking up a guitar and taking the stage to belt out a tune. 

They do it not for fame and fortune, but for pure enjoyment.

Barry Newmark, sound engineer

Age: 68
Congregation: United Hebrew
Band(s): Rock Opera (classic rock) and Pink Houses (John Cougar Mellencamp tribute band)

Defiance Ridge Vineyards was hopping. A packed audience swayed and danced to the music of Deep Purple, the Beatles, Elvis Presley and the Who. 

The scene was a bouncy set from the band Rock Opera. When they meet up for weekend gigs, the group sounds remarkably like the famous bands they cover. Ron Kemm, Rock Opera’s drummer, explained one important aspect of their success.

“Barry Newmark is a key part of why we sound so good,” Kemm said, referring to their sound engineer, a Jewish St. Louisan who plays guitar and has become an in-demand sound engineer for local bands. After spending a career in the furniture business, Newmark is now semiretired. 

During a recent Rock Opera performance, Newmark was constantly in motion, listening intently to the music from various locations. He carries an iPad and constantly checks the sound levels. Newmark grew up listening to music. His mom played piano and, as a teenager, he became an ardent Beatles fan.

“I’ve always loved music, and I became a musician because of it,” Newmark said. “Then I started playing in bands. I played in a band in 1975 at Parkway Central High School in a concert to raise money for the school yearbook. We covered the Allman Brothers, Elton John and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I remember we played ‘Free Bird.’”

Later on, Newmark played in a band at the Jewish Community Center when summer parties were popular. Classic rock continued to be his genre of choice. The J concerts featured the music of Alice Cooper and Deep Purple. 

Besides his interest in music, Newmark has always enjoyed learning how things work.

“I wanted to record what we were playing, so I found a reel-to-reel tape recorder in a pawn shop,” he said. “I figured out a way to turn off the erase head, and we started multitracking over time. I’m very technically driven. And I started doing the sound recording. I got the software so that I could record at home, and I built a studio.”

In 2020, Newmark got a tryout as Rock Opera’s sound expert. The band was talented but sometimes, during a performance, their sound was off. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and his first gig was an outdoor concert. That type of setting can be challenging for sound mixing. But Newmark worked his magic, and everyone agreed the group never sounded better.

“The wives and girlfriends of the band members said, ‘You’ve never sounded like this.’ It’s not like I want to take all the credit, but I had a role,” Newmark said. “And then the band said, ‘Barry, we want you to do this all the time.’”

Newmark especially enjoys the challenge and reward of helping bands sound great.

“I jam with a lot of different musicians, but I’m very comfortable running the sound,” he said, adding that it’s a great feeling to know he’s helped a band hit a sweet spot.

“When the harmonies are right on, and everybody’s where they’re supposed to be, and then the crowd erupts in applause,” he said. “If their talent is there and they’re shining, all I do is put it out there, and make sure everybody hears how good they are.”

Jeremy Lieb, vocalist

Age: 45
Band: The Side Hustle
Congregation: Temple Israel

Jeremy Lieb came from a musical family. His grandfather was in a jazz band and blew the trumpet in the Army.

“I grew up very close with him,” Lieb said. “He would put on records of old jazz and blues artists. I was always drawn to music, and I would sing in the shower or the car. When I was in my room alone, if I was playing an audio cassette or CDs, when no one was looking, I’d grab a pen or whatever else could be a makeshift microphone.”

Lieb, who works as a realtor with the Gellman Team at EXP Realty, now croons into a real microphone Thursday evenings. That’s when he rehearses with four friends who make up an alt-rock band called the Side Hustle.

After growing up in Chicago, Lieb earned a degree in radio and TV communications at Bradley University. In 1997, Lieb was a freshman and a member of AEPi when he and a group of friends and fraternity members assembled a makeshift band. They decided to play a few songs for an audience and, during the Edwin McCain song “I’ll Be,” Lieb discovered the thrill of performing.

“It’s a slow ballad, and you have to be able to vocally hit a fairly high note and hold it every chorus,” he said. “And it has to be pretty flawless, because there’s not a lot of music behind it. I got up there, and I just remember the very first time hitting that note. It was a little scary, but the funny thing is, I got off the stage and for five seconds I felt like, ‘Oh, I totally bombed that,’ but everybody was still clapping. Everybody was still having a good time, saying, ‘Hey, you did a great job!’ That was kind of my first time playing in front of a crowd. And that was basically where I was hooked.”

Lieb plays guitar and sings by ear. He doesn’t read music, just like one of his musical heroes, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana.

“He taught himself how to play guitar, even though he was a drummer,” Lieb said. “He just knows where he puts his fingers on the fretboard, and when he strums, it makes a sound that he likes. Elton John and Billy Joel don’t read music, either.” 

After college, Lieb began working in radio and, after moving around the country, he landed in St. Louis in 2006. He got involved with the Jewish community and met his wife, Wendy Rosenblum, who previously worked at Jewish Federation. Eventually, Lieb met other music-minded friends. They formed a few different bands, including a group called Three Handsome Guys — the joke was the band actually had four members. Three Handsome Guys performed at weddings and b’nai mitzvahs. They eventually broke up, but a reunion concert is under consideration.

Now, Lieb lets his inner rock star loose Thursday nights when the Side Hustle gets together to rehearse. Along with actual gigs, Lieb looks forward to those weekly practice sessions.

“You build up a lot of stress by sitting in a sedentary job all day,” he said. “I love being on stage and being able to get that stress off of my shoulders. I enjoy playing with a group of guys and being able to pivot and bounce off of each other, and just kind of see how music is made while we’re making it. And there are no egos in our band. That’s the cool thing. We all realize it’s a hobby, and it’s fun.”

Neil Peters, bass guitar

Age: 49
Band: The Side Hustle
Congregation: B’nai Amoona

Neil Peters first picked up a guitar at age 15. He also has a vivid memory of his first band gig. It was his high school prom when Guns N’ Roses was popular. 

“I remember playing ‘Paradise City,’ I can picture it perfectly,” he said. 

The song drew applause from his classmates and “for a hot minute,” Peters thought about a future as a rock star.

To hone their skills, Peters and his friends had a band room at his parents’ house, where they would practice.

“We would bash out terrible tunes, and the neighbors would call on Sunday afternoon to complain about us playing too loud,” he said. “We were kids in high school. We were trying to make it work. But as soon as graduation came around, we all had completely different plans. I went to college and my friends went other places. We didn’t have any big dreams about it.”

Peters earned his degree from the University of Georgia, where he met his wife, Rachael. In 2000, the couple decided to move to the West Coast, so they loaded up a U-Haul truck and started driving, stopping in St. Louis.

“We were going to stay here for a while and figure things out. Rachael’s parents graciously let us move into their basement,” Peters said. “We ended up putting down roots here and having kids, and we’ve been here ever since.”

Peters works in IT at Boeing, but that first taste of rocking out in front of an audience never faded. He would periodically jam with friends on his acoustic guitar through the years and, in 2015, the family moved to Shrewsbury.

The Peters children attended Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School. Another Mirowitz parent introduced Neil and Rachael to their neighbors down the street, Scott Rhea and his wife, Stephanie Lander Rhea. The Peters invited the Rhea family to their sukkah for dessert when Lander Rhea noticed Neil’s guitars.

“She said, ‘You should come down and play with my husband sometime,’” Peters said. He walked down the street to the Rhea house and entered the basement “band room” where the magic happens.

The band already was set with six-string guitarists, but they needed a bass player. So Peters picked up the instrument and said, “Tell me the key and I’ll figure it out.”

He’s been laying down the bass line ever since. 

The other Jewish connections in the Side Hustle are vocalist Jeremy Lieb and Stephanie Lander Rhea. Peters enjoys getting together for the band’s weekly rehearsals and for gigs. 

“It was something I enjoyed when I was younger,” he said. “Now, being in the band, it makes me practice. We show up to practice, and we have to memorize the songs. You’re part of a team, and you don’t want to let anybody else down.”

Mark Gubernik and Marc Johns

Band: M Generation

Despite the common aspirations of many Jewish boys to become rabbis, doctors, lawyers or teachers, there were those among us who harbored dreams of rock star fame. And while most of us dreamers keep on dreaming, the same cannot be said about Mark Gubernik and Marc Johns. These two Jewish St. Louisans are living the dream many of us could not. They are rock stars.

Mark Gubernik and Marc Johns are the founders and the “M” (for the first letter of their first names) of the new band “M Generation.” Their rock star story spans decades.

Gubernik, who initially delved into hard rock in his youth, took a hiatus from drumming for nearly 20 years. It wasn’t until his early 40s that he resurrected his passion, forming the cover rock band “Mack Daddyz,” which thrived for nine years before disbanding in 2019, just before the pandemic hit.

Meanwhile, Johns continued his musical journey, exploring various styles in original bands during the 1990s and 2000s.

“Marc and I got together a little over two years ago with the intention of just jamming and maybe writing some original music,” said Gubernik. “We thought that we would focus on more different styles other than hard rock and started writing songs with more of a melodic pop rock, country feel that could be appealing to any age demographic or music style.”

Johns had written several songs, and the two began collaborating on them and making changes along the way.

“We would write and change melodies, lyrics or structure of the songs multiple times before we ended up with a finished product,” said Gubernik. “I also started writing lyrics to several other songs that Marc had composed music for. We both spent many hours mixing the recordings that we had done.”

Once they had about a half dozen or so songs completed, M Generation was created, and the duo started working on performing the songs as a group.

“We did some additional recording, mixing and producing over the last year and finally released the album, ‘This is Our Time,’ on Halloween,” said Gubernik.

“It has been a really fun experience and I love playing original music versus cover songs,” said Gubernik. “Everyone who hears the music seems to hear a different style or genre which is exactly what we want. We did not want to get style-boxed in one area.”

Rock on fellas. Rock on. 

Information on the Side Hustle’s upcoming concerts is available at thesidehustleband.com. You can watch and hear Barry Newmark perform his sound mixing magic with Rock Opera at upcoming concerts listed at www.rockopera.net/shows. M Generation’s album, “This Is Our Time,” is available on online music services including Spotify and Apple Music, or at https://mgeneration.hearnow.com.

Editor’s note: Unfortunately, one of the bands that was to be included in this roundup, which was made up of women, disbanded prior to the story’s publication.

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