A local man is giving musicians who have been diagnosed with cancer a chance to go into a recording studio and produce a music video of one of their songs at no cost.
Music videos cost thousands of dollars to produce and for most musicians are only a dream.
“It literally is a dream come true,” musician Seth Lucash said. “Music has always been my therapy; it’s always been my release.
Lucash is a marketing consultant who never performed for anyone except very close family until he was diagnosed with cancer.
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“I was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2015, and in 2019, it had spread to my lungs,” he said. “Not a great diagnosis, and that’s when I wrote this song.”
That’s when he met Jim Ebert and heard about Cancer Can Rock, a nonprofit that pays professional musicians and studio technicians to record music videos for musicians who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Jenny Langer is a professional musician diagnosed with lung cancer, which inspired one of her songs.
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“So many people want to give you their sympathies when they hear you going through something tough, but for someone to give you the opportunity like that is life-changing,” she said.
Langer, who recently got married, credits Cancer Can Rock with helping her heal and move forward.
“The sadness and the anger and the confusion and everything that you go through when you’re diagnosed with cancer, but for me having something that I can share with others that maybe helps them is a beautiful way to come out of all this,” she said.
Of the 30 musicians who have recorded with Cancer Can Rock, four have died.
“When I told my wife about this opportunity, she didn’t say anything,” Lucash said, choking up. “Excuse me. She just looked at me and she smiled, and a tear just rolled down her face because she knew how important this was for me but she also knew that she’d be getting something from it, and I knew that she knew that this would be such a great gift to her as well as to me.”
“Exactly why I started this,” Cancer Can Rock founder Ebert said. “Regardless with what happens with the cancer, their family and friends will have this forever.”
Ebert, who survived brain cancer, recalled the session with Stewart Jewell — one of the artists who has passed away.
“At the end of the day, he looked at me and goes, ‘I forgot I had cancer today,’ and I thought, ‘That’s pretty good,’” Ebert said.
Cancer Can Rock is hosting a fundraising concert June 13, including Jenny Langer.
Find more information including ways to help or how to record a song here.
