- [John] Look at this.

I'm from Kenosha.

I grew up there.

And Mike was in bands.

He was a year ahead of me in school.

He was a great singer back then and he was rocking out and it just looked like so much fun.

- You don't need me to be that loud, do you?

- I've been singing with Mike since we were teenagers, though.

And you can't buy brother harmony if he's not your brother.

We had a friend down the block who had a guitar and we both played, and that was it.

That pretty much did it.

♪ I found out ♪ ♪ I could get lost ♪ ♪ I found out I could get lost and she wouldn't care ♪ - I'm mostly self-taught, but we had a little circle of these three people, you know, it's, "Show me a B7."

Okay, now you can play "Marching to Pretoria."

At one point I took one classical lesson, which really, really helped.

I should have taken more, but everything else was self-taught and watching and stealing.

When I was about 27, Michael Feldman moved to Kenosha.

I wound up getting some lyrics from him that were so good.

Just watching him, I learned about lyrics.

I did study music theory and that really helped too.

♪ Yeah, won't you please remember me ♪ ♪ When you get down on bended knees to say a prayer ♪ ♪ Won't you remember me ♪ - And then the last cherry on the sundae was a guy named Mike Hoffman, who was in Semi-Twang with me, who taught me how to be relaxed in the studio and have fun.

♪ I would've loved to take you ♪ ♪ Baby for a night out ♪ ♪ Come home exhausted ♪ ♪ Let me turn the light out ♪ - Otis Redding's a big influence on me.

I love the band.

I think they're the tops.

It's just impossible to do something as good as what they did.

Of course, The Beatles, I love the British invasion.

So that's an influence.

Bob Dylan.

Actually, you know what?

Tina Turner.

I wanted to sing like her.

That's weird, isn't it?

But it's just the way she phrased and everything.

I could go on, you know, I've got a lot of influences.

I think there's a lot of talent here, a lot of talent we don't know about.

And a lot of it came out of the churches in the middle of town, the gospel quartet singing, it's superb and it's so moving and so necessary.

I got involved with the gospel scene, just playing guitar for a group called The Masonic Wonders.

That's apart from Milwaukee and the regular music scene.

The regular music scene, I knew the BoDeans and the Femmes and we had a lot of fun together.

And there's always been good bands here.

Always a good band.

It's a pretty good music town.

I kind of wish it was a little bit better as a music town, but there's a lot of talent here.

♪ Found out what I was missing every day ♪ ♪ Every day ♪ - I wanna be right on the dividing line between rhythm and blues and serious country, which ended about in '65 or so, or '70, and folk music.

So I think I'm a folk rocker, is what I am.

I'm not trying to sound like a blues guy.

I think that's kind of silly for me.

It's pretty obvious I'm not, but I have a lot of influence of the blues in my music.

Live music is the other thing.

When I see people doing it, it's magic.

And that, a contract with an audience like that, the social contract is, "I'm giving you energy and you're giving it back."

It's a feedback loop.

I have a lot of luck with people recording my songs too.

Dwight Yoakam did one of my songs.

The BoDeans did.

Jerry Harrison did a couple.

So I would say I am a folk rock guy.

♪ The road is high, the wind is strong ♪ ♪ Could I get you to come along ♪ ♪ Could I get you to please remember me ♪ - I just went through, and this is not, I'm not trying to exploit this, but I just went through throat cancer and that was last fall and winter.

And I'm recovering from it and the prognosis is good, but at a couple points, I thought I'd never sing again, and I couldn't do that.

I don't know how not to sing and how not to write.

It's just something that's so ingrained in me now.

So it was an existential problem.

What am I gonna be?

But luckily it's coming back a little bit.

And I love my band.

They support me.

I love my friends, like Robin and Paul.

♪ Yeah, won't you please remember me ♪ ♪ When you get down on bended knees to say a prayer ♪ ♪ Won't you remember me ♪ ♪ Mm ♪