OBITUARY: Flat Duo Jets vocalist/guitarist Dexter Romweber dies aged 57 in Carrboro, NC

John Michael "Dexter" Romweber II, the musician best known for his work with the seminal group Flat Duo Jets, died February 16 from cardiac arrest in Carrboro, NC at the age of 57. In addition to his solo work and The New Romans, he also fronted the Dex Romweber Duo with his older deceased sister and fellow musician Sara Romweber (drummer for Snatches of Pink and Let's Active). Well known indie rock musicians Jack White, Neko Case and Cat Power number amongst his fans.

CARRBORO, N.C., Feb. 20, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- John Michael "Dexter" Romweber II, the musician best known for his work with the seminal group Flat Duo Jets, died February 16 from cardiac arrest in Carrboro, NC at the age of 57. In addition to his solo work and The New Romans, he also fronted the Dex Romweber Duo with his older deceased sister and fellow musician Sara Romweber (drummer for Snatches of Pink and Let's Active). Well known indie rock musicians Jack White, Neko Case and Cat Power number amongst his fans.

Dexter's death is just the latest in a string of tragic deaths the Romweber family has endured over the past five years, Sara Romweber's 2019 death from glioblastoma. Brothers Joe and Luke Romweber subsequently died within weeks of each other. And the family matriarch, mother Sara, died of complications from a stroke in October 2023.

"I'm in shock," said Randy Evans, a longtime friend who worked as Dexter's tour manager for five years. "We just spoke a couple of days ago. I always thought of him as Keith Richards status, like he'd be taking my kid on the road someday. But at the same time, he really held tragedy tight the past few years." It may have all been too much for one heart to take.

The Romweber clan originated in Indiana, spending eight years in Florida before the family moved to Carrboro, North Carolina, in 1977. Dexter's earliest music enthusiasm was for the band Kiss at age 12. Around that same time, he took up guitar and discovered rockabilly, which would prove to be the most important base element of his own music.

By his teenage years, Dexter was playing in bands including The Remainz and Kamikazes with a revolving cast of characters including future White Zombie bassist Sean Reynolds Yseult and Sara's future Snatches of Pink bandmate Michael Rank. But it was with Flat Duo Jets, formed in 1983, that he truly scaled the heights.

Flat Duo Jets started out as a guitar/drums duo with Dexter and drummer Chris "Crow" Smith, eventually expanding to a trio with the addition of bassist Tony "Tone" Mayer. Using cheap Sears Silvertone guitars, Dexter played old-style roots rock as if delivered by a massive rocketship. He could generate a tidal wave of sound with a single guitar, and his classic voice was well-equipped for either crooning ballads or howling at the moon. Dexter was blessed with an amazing interior jukebox, too, with total recall of seemingly thousands of songs both famous and obscure.

"People would call Dexter rockabilly, but I always thought he was punk rock even when it was just him playing an acoustic ballad," said Michael Benson, a photographer, Chapel Hill nightclub owner and longtime friend. "He was loud, chaotic, dangerous with fire and rage and beauty, all in three minutes. Or sometimes 10 if he was really feeling it."

Having one's mind blown by Flat Duo Jets became a rite-of-passage experience for generations of new arrivals to Chapel Hill. Tom Maxwell, hitmaker in Squirrel Nut Zippers, has talked of coming to Chapel Hill to attend UNC, encountering the Jets at Cat's Cradle nightclub and feeling like he'd been given "a secret handshake: 'Welcome. You have come to the right place and found your tribe.'"

From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, the Jets were tireless road warriors as they crisscrossed America beyond Chapel Hill. They spent just enough time in R.E.M.'s Georgia hometown of Athens to appear in the 1986 documentary "Athens, GA: Inside/Out," stealing the film out from under better-known participants including B-52's and Pylon. They played stages large and small, highlighted by a brilliantly intense 1990 performance on "Late Night With David Letterman," and released one brilliant album after another.

If the general public never quite caught on, other musicians sure did. In the 2008 movie "It Might Get Loud," White Stripes guitarist Jack White was shown playing the Jets for Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and U2 guitarist The Edge. Black Keys, Neko Case and Cat Power bear Dexter's stamp, too. Following his death, some of them took to social media for tributes.

Writing on Instagram, Chan "Cat Power" Marshall called Dexter "responsible for me playing guitar…I cannot comprehend a world without you." Jack White was even more effusive, writing on Instagram that Dexter "wasn't a Rock N' Roll musician, he WAS Rock N' Roll inside and out…He was the type that don't get 3 course dinners, awards, gold records and statues made of them because they are too real, too much, too strange, too good…He was one of my favorite people I've ever known and one of my most cherished influences."

After Flat Duo Jets disbanded, Dexter continued playing music as a solo act as well as member of The New Romans and Dex Romweber Duo. The latter act's five years with Dexter's sister Sara as drummer were especially productive, and strengthened the bond between them. That made for an even harder loss with her death, which he never got over.

Despite his many recent losses, struggles and momentous grief, he maintained a performing career to the end, playing live and releasing a solid album in 2023, "Good Thing Goin'." When the end came, it was sudden and unexpected.

"Other people say this more than me, but he was a tortured soul," said Dexter's sister Monica. "I say he died of a broken heart."

In addition to Monica, Dexter is survived by two brothers, Steve and Paul.

At this time, funeral and memorial arrangements are TBA.

Media contact:
Wendy Brynford-Jones for Propeller Sound Recordings
[email protected]

Media Contact

Wendy Brynford-Jones, Propeller Sound Recordings, 1 8183240978, [email protected], https://propellersoundrecordings.com

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SOURCE Propeller Sound Recordings