Photo Via The R&B Cadets - Facebook
The R&B Cadets
In a recent free range conversation, Milwaukee songwriter John Sieger spoke of his cancer experience (“treatable and beatable”), gratitude for his health, capturing ideas that hopefully turn into songs and a lifetime of musical collaborations.
Sieger is part of the R&B Cadets, the long-running dance band that plays selective dates these days. They are at Shank Hall on Friday and Saturday.
He broke the news of his cancer diagnosis on his email list and Patreon page. He relied on advice that it was better to tell it himself and avoid speculation. “I had it explained to me by a very wise woman who said if you don’t talk, people make up stories anyway.” The treatments ended in November.
He also was grateful for a second opinion from a doctor who guided him through the process. He says the experience offered perspective and gave him greater understanding. When the conversation turns to the idea of dark moods affecting songwriting and art, Sieger’s dry wit naturally finds an angle. “Every polka band singer must have had a happy childhood,” he quips as conversation confirms our shared weakness for the charming local television broadcast “Polka! Polka! Polka!”
When the Muse Knocks
“I realized if you are sitting around at 10 o’clock at night and you get an idea, it is an idea. If you are sitting around trying to get an idea it is not an idea—it has to occur to you. You don’t go chasing it.” The elusive muse he’s been courting over the years has been wrangled a bit with cellphone captures and cloud technology. Sieger says his phone contains ideas going back over eight years.
“Shine It Now” was of those magic moments. He recently found a song he couldn’t recall recording. “I had no recollection of it. We had the whole floor at Pfister and Vogel and were set up to record. I’ve got three songs with “shine” in the title,” he laughs. The ripping tunes blends blues and rockabilly; it dates back to the early days of Semi Twang with the late Mike Hoffmann on guitar. In January he posted the song to his Patreon page.
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Sieger has been digging through his archives and agrees a Bandcamp page would be a perfect place to make many of these recordings available to the public. These days Sieger is finishing up a record he began three years ago, with the usual suspects, as the John Sieger Combo.
Teachers and Mentors
Photo by Erol Reyal
R&B Cadets
The R&B Cadets
At this stage of the game, the R&B Cadets are a legacy band performing a few times a year. Active since the ‘80s, the group features a trio of lead vocalists, horns and keyboards and one of the best rhythm sections you will likely hear anywhere—the group still packs dance floors.
The Cadets’ funky sartorial mission statement is backed up by their vintage gear. Sieger and his brother, bassist Mike, favor Silvertone and Danelectro guitars while Paul Cebar has long picked his Harmony. What where originally sold as budget instruments, turn magician’s wands—on these occasions wood and wire conjure ecstatic grooves.
With the benefit of hindsight Sieger can pick chapters where he gained valuable insights into his craft.
Two semesters of music theory at UW-Parkside got his feet on the ground harmonically. He learned enough about musical laws to start breaking them. A songwriting partnership with Michael Feldman was a quantum leap. “I was a freshman in high school compared to him. But the more I wrote with him the more I absorbed. Not to waste words.” Feldman had written parodies of songs when he was in high school—he taught himself. Feldman was strictly a lyricist; Sieger says it was a perfect collaboration right from the start—sending ideas via mail and later email, that the other loved.
Sieger made two albums with Greg Koch (A Walk in the Park and Plays Well With Others) and they also played a European tour. “Writing with Greg was fun. He is a real composer and made a lot of interesting choices I never would have thought of.” He recalls the tour drawing fans of Koch’s guitar virtuosity. “I look out and no one is looking at me. They are all looking at Greg, just geeking out on him—a lot of lonely bachelors in the crowd.”
From Mike Hoffmann, Sieger learned how to record. “How to enjoy it and not be terrified of it.” He says his original teacher was his brother Mike. “He was in bands before I was--in high school. He was a killer. Singing rock and roll and just burning it. He may not think so but I have a recording of him back in the ‘70s just destroying a song I wrote—in a good way.”
The Cadets lone album included one song produced by Nick Lowe. In what could be seen as a missed opportunity, Sieger says he would have loved to have had Lowe work on Salty Tears, the album that Semi Twang later recorded for Warner Bros. Some misguided soul at the label decided otherwise. Sieger admits he was too green back then to put up much of an argument. With both Lowe and Sieger still making music, who knows? The stars might align yet.
