Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (born May 27, 1966) is an American keyboardist, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the bands Jellyfish, the Moog Cookbook, and Imperial Drag. He has also spent several years as a member of Beck's backing band, contributed to several recordings by the band Air, and toured or recorded with acts such as Jay-Z, Blink 182, and Johnny Cash. In 2005, he released his first solo record, Solid State Warrior, followed with Robo-Sapiens (as "Mailibu", 2007), Catnip Dynamite (2008), and Glamping (2018). He is usually credited by his full name to avoid confusion with the folk musician Roger Manning. Early life Roger Joseph Manning Jr. was born May 27, 1966, the first child of Roger Manning, a businessman for Monroe Calculators, and Jane DeLara, a schoolteacher. He has two brothers: Chris (born October 6, 1968) and Tim (born September 10, 1970). The family later moved from Valencia, California to Pleasanton. As a child, Roger was enamored with ragtime music and took piano lessons; later he taught himself to play the drums. The first records he bought with his own money were Kiss' Alive! (1975) and the Beach Boys' Endless Summer (1974). Career Jellyfish Manning attended Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton in the 1980s. There, he met drummer Andy Sturmer. After graduating, Manning moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at USC to study musical composition. He involved himself with the local scene and began auditioning for various bands. He later joined Sturmer in the San Francisco band Beatnik Beatch. Sturmer was the group's drummer, singer, and songwriter, while Manning was keyboardist. The duo soon began collaborating with one another, writing compositions that were stylistically different from the songs the band was producing at the time. In August 1989, a year after Atlantic Records released Beatnik Beatch's eponymous debut album, Manning and Sturmer left the group to continue songwriting with one another and formed the band Jellyfish. Jellyfish released two albums: Bellybutton (1990) and Spilt Milk (1993), whose combined sales totaled over 269,000 copies. During this era, Sturmer and Manning worked with Ringo Starr, for his 1992 solo album Time Takes Time, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Wilson and Jellyfish had one songwriting session and it was unproductive; Manning described the experience as "utterly surreal". By 1994, Manning and Sturmer were drifting apart musically, and in May, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Jellyfish had disintegrated due