No Turning Back (2013): A Rock EP by Gary Marks
Privately released digital EP by Gary Marks, American singer-songwriter, recording artist and author.
Open Tunings and Skylar's Harmony
Many of Gary's compositions on this EP were written in open tunings. His daughters, Skylar and Annabel Marks, added their voices to Gary's harmony tracks. Gary and Lynn Peterson, who worked with Fleetwood Mac, mixed the songs and had a great time, even at 2 a.m. Special thanks to the great visual artist, Dario Campanile, for the use of his painting on the front cover.
No Turning Back came together almost entirely in open tunings, which is probably why it sounds a little different from everything else in Marks's catalog.
Skylar on Background Vocals
Marks's daughter Skylar sang harmony on several of these tracks. As Marks puts it, there's something about hearing your own kid's voice merged with your own that changes how a song sounds... to a dad.
Mixing With Lynn Peterson
Marks mixed the record with Lynn Peterson, who has worked with Fleetwood Mac, and they kept strange hours doing it. More than one session ran past 2 a.m., and they were both too deep into the songs to notice or care.
One small secret: a few of the "techno" drum fills on this record came out of the same ancient Roland drum machine Marks used twenty-five years earlier. He created all the drum tracks for his album The Real World on that little battleship gray machine all the way back in 1988.
Cover Painting by Dario Campanile
The cover painting is by visual artist Dario Campanile, best known for painting the Paramount Pictures logo.
Marks has leaned on Campanile's work for many of his latest albums, including his current album Crossroads, which was selected by Record Store Day UK/Europe for exclusive release in April of 2026.
Released Without a Label
No Turning Back never went through a label or any conventional distribution, like most of what Marks recorded during that stretch of his career before Crossroads. It just went out into the world quietly, for whoever found it. Marks calls it one of the records he'd point to if someone asked what his music sounds like when nobody is around, with no label expectations, no touring plans… just experimenting with open tunings, with three kids running around the living room, and recording tracks with Lynn Peterson, just the two of them, ‘til 2a.m.
Then came 2026, and Record Store Day came calling.