Roster McCabe: What’s in a Name?

By Jeannette Madden
Staff Writer

Minneapolis-based reggae/rock/funk band Roster McCabe plays the Miramar Theatre in Milwaukee this Friday, May 14, two weeks after their shows in Fargo and Grand Forks.

What’s behind the name Roster McCabe? Said Alex Steele, lead singer and keyboardist of the band, “The name itself has a very logical explanation.” And he explained it. But then he said I couldn’t print it. “It’s kind of a secret.” He said. “But I have a really hard time lying to people, so I couldn’t NOT tell you. But it’s off the record…” So for anyone reading this, it’s really too bad because it’s a cute story…

Steele said that Roster McCabe “started as an acoustic band, me and the two guitarists, probably four years ago. January, 2007, was when we figured out what we really wanted to do and where we wanted to take the music. Did we actually want to proceed as a career? Did we want to find a show wherever and just work? We picked up a full-time drummer and bass player and played locally for a year and tried to work our way out to the Dakotas and Wisconsin and Iowa when we could. We started touring full time last year…played 167 shows. We’ve traveled from here to Austin, Texas to Denver and everywhere in between. It’s been a good gig so far.”

Roster McCabe features Steele, Michael Daum on lead guitar, Drew Preiner on rhythm guitar and synthesizer, Jeff Peterson on drums and Scott Muellenberg on bass. Steele said Daum “is the main songwriter. As far as the music goes, he’s the directional leader…I really like singing his songs and working through his songs with him because I think that even if they’re about like sad things, they’re still positive—a good spin on things.”

Preiner “works really hard for the band. He does tour manager duty…I couldn’t do it – I’m not that organized.” laughed Steele. “He’s back-up vocalist as well. Between Drew, Mike and myself, we’re the three original members…but I shouldn’t say that because I really think that the bass player and the drummer are the final pieces…so vital to our success.”

Peterson is “from Grand Forks originally. He is definitely like the final piece…that made it so possible for us to go. He just keeps it together and he’s got like a huge pocket for us to sit in and play.”

And, Steele described Muellenberg as “this super funky kid…all he does is listen to old school funk. He bleeds funk, man. It’s like he should have been born in the 1960s.”

Steele said that at first, Roster McCabe was ‘just kind of a thing we did…an excuse to get out and play and hang out with friends on a Wednesday night. It snowballed. Someone asked if we had a couple of original tunes…we did a really cheap recording on our own on our computer, burned a bunch of copies, put a little stamp on it and sold them for like a buck or two…it went like that for awhile into what we’re doing today, 167 shows a year.”

And what does Steele see as the future of Roster McCabe? “It’s definitely wide open. We’re all at a point right now in our lives where we’re all committed to being artists, which is good because that’s a hard thing to find. Most people can’t go out touring for five or six weeks if they want to because they have jobs or they have too many bills to pay or they have a family. We’re lucky enough to not have any of that stuff right now. And, we’re all on the same page as far as where we want to take it. I wouldn’t mind playing big arenas [laughs] but if we don’t ever get that far, you know, I’m happy. You don’t have to play big arenas to make a career out of it. I guess we’ll just keep going and keep growing the audience and keep growing the fans and I’m really interested and excited to see how far we can take it. So far it’s been a really positive journey…it’s been an uphill climb, too. It kind of depends on everything else, too, but we’re going to take it as far as we can…”

Steele says that part of what works for Roster McCabe is that the band members are “all so different from each other and we’re all just a little too selfish to give up our influences, you know? It creates an interesting groove. Mike is influenced by a lot of things. He tries to keep pop music in mind but definitely like classic rock and really good guitar players but it’s hard for me to narrow Mike down. Drew is really influenced a lot by a lot of things as well but he’s been to a lot of live, more
dancey, kind of electronic-y music. Progressive, instrumental stuff. Scott, obviously with the funk music, old school R & B. And Jeff, with his drumming, a lot of funk, just keeping it super tight. Anything with a good drummer is stuff that Jeff listens to and he’s actually influenced by a lot of pop music as well. And myself…my dad’s from Jamaica so I grew up listening to him sing. Every Jamaican thinks they can sing [laughs]. Some of them can, some of them can’t…I’m probably somewhere in between, you know? I grew up listening to a lot of reggae music and I guess when I got a little bit older I got more into the soul and R & B.”

“We’re finishing our new record right now. The tentative release for it is going to be in the fall…we hit it really hard for like three straight weeks, pretty much the whole month of March and got most of it done. Most of the instruments are done, I have four more tracks to do vocals for.” With any luck, North Dakota will see Roster McCabe back in support of their new release later in the year.

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