(SOUNDBITE OF MAZZY STAR SONG, "FADE INTO YOU")
NOEL KING, HOST:
Dave Roback was a guitarist. His band Mazzy Star was known for making these dreamy pop songs back in the '90s.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAZZY STAR SONG, "FADE INTO YOU")
KING: It was a really different sound compared to the loud, angry music of Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Green Day.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FADE INTO YOU")
MAZZY STAR: (Singing) Fade into you. I think it's strange you never knew.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
We are listening to their biggest hit, "Fade Into You." It peaked in the middle of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994. Roback started the band a few years earlier with singer Hope Sandoval. Roback died on Monday at the age of 61 years old. No cause of death was given.
KING: Roback never did much press, and so he avoided revealing too much about the craft of songwriting. In a rare interview back in 1993 with the Los Angeles Times, he said, you have to leave something to people's imagination so they feel they can participate. Mazzy Star's founder and guitarist Dave Roback was 61 years old.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAZZY STAR SONG, "INTO DUST") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.