Mario Rubalcaba

Mario Rubalcaba (also known by the pseudonym Ruby Mars) is an American drummer from San Diego, notable as a member of numerous rock bands including Clikatat Ikatowi, Thingy, Rocket from the Crypt, Hot Snakes, Earthless, the Sultans, and Off! He has also played on albums by The Black Heart Procession and Pinback and was formerly a professional skateboarder.

Skateboarding career In the late 1980s and early 1990s Rubalcaba was a professional skateboarder, skating for Team Alva. Though he no longer skates professionally, he does work at Black Box, a skateboarding distribution company and skate park in San Diego.

Musical career Rubalcaba's drumming career began in 1990 with the San Diego post-hardcore band 411. The group released the single Say It in 1990 and the album This Isn't Me in 1991 before disbanding. He next joined the hardcore punk band Chicano-Christ, playing on their eponymous 1991 album. In late 1993 Rubalcaba co-started the post-hardcore San Diego "supergroup" Clikatat Ikatowi (after the demise of Heroin), which included guitarist Scott Bartoloni, performing on Orchestrated & Conducted by Clikatat Ikatowi (1996) and August 29 + 30 1995 (1997) including Clikatat Ikatowi's final release, the EP River of Souls (posthumously released in 1998). In 1994 he became involved with the Louisville, Kentucky-based Metroschifter, a recently launched project of singer/guitarist Scott Ritcher. The four band members each lived in different cities and wrote songs by mailing recorded tracks back and forth to each other. The band's first tour in May 1994 was booked before the members had ever met each other in person, and they practiced together only twice before beginning the tour. Their first album, The Metroschifter Capsule, was recorded two weeks after the band formed. Lacking the funds to mix and release it, they took pre-orders for personalized copies and raised enough money to release it on Ritcher's Slamdek label. In 2003 he joined Mannekin Piss, in which he played guitar with future Sultans bassist Dean Reis, performing on the 2004 EP Planet Death. In 2004 he joined one of Rocket from the Crypt singer/guitarist John Reis' other bands, Hot Snakes, replacing drummer Jason Kourkounis. With Hot Snakes he performed on the album Audit in Progress (2004) and the Peel Sessions EP (2005). Earthless' debut Sonic Prayer was released in April 2005.

Rubalcaba (back) performing with John Reis in the Sultans at their final performance on January 10, 2007.After a tour of Australia in Spring 2005 Hot Snakes announced their breakup. A live performance recorded that May for Australian radio station Triple J was released in 2006 as Thunder Down Under. Rocket from the Crypt soon announced their breakup as well; their final performance on Halloween 2005 was recorded and released in 2008 as R.I.P. In January 2006 Rubalcaba replaced Tony Di Prima in another of John Reis' bands, the Sultans, which also included Reis' brother and former Mannekin Piss bassist Dean Reis. The Sultans performed infrequently until their breakup a year later. In 2007 Earthless released their second album Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky. Later that year Rubalcaba performed on the track "From Nothing to Nowhere" on Pinback's album Autumn of the Seraphs and filled in for J Mascis in Witch for several live performances. In October 2008 Earthless released the live album Live at Roadburn, an album that documents the bands unexpected promotion to the “big stage” and a much larger crowd. He is also part owner of the independent record store Thirsty Moon in the Hillcrest Area of San Diego. The band's first album, First Four EPs, was released in 2010.

Discography This section lists albums and EPs on which Rubalcaba has performed.