Jonathan Marks began playing drums at the age of 5 after taking over the blue-sparkled Rogers kit his older brother received as a gift for Christmas. Before becoming a professional musician, he ventured through an obsession with heavy metal and Lars Ulrich as a youth, jazz, Afro-Cuban rhythms, Jeff Buckley, and J-Dilla in high school, and everything in between as a music composition and theory major at Princeton University.
He has since moved to Chicago where he performs regularly with the city's best rock, pop, latin, and jazz musicians. He co-founded the electro-synth-pop outfit, Hey Champ, whose highlight performances include the main stage at Lollapalooza and tours with Lupe Fiasco and the Sounds. Jonathan took the throne as drummer for Grammy-nominated, acid-jazz sensation Liquid Soul for 3 years and is the first-call drummer for the Chicago Diamond Trio, winner of the 2014 Chicago Music Award in Jazz. He works as a producer/DJ under the moniker, Rogue Vogue, and as a freelance percussionist and music instructor for Columbia College's Community Schools program. His latest production/drumming project, Monakr, is signed to Embassy of Music in Germany and released their debut EP in January 2016. He currently performs with Minneapolis-based pop artist, Dessa, and has toured across North America in support of her new album, Sound the Bells.
Jonathan has performed throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, Russia, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico. He has won a number of awards including an "Outstanding Performance" award from Downbeat magazine and the 2005 Ira Sachs Memorial Prize for Outstanding Musical Performance from Princeton University.