Southwest Florida rallies for Soapy Tuna, Cinder guitarist after cancer diagnosis
Rock guitarist James Wilder admits he doesn't love the spotlight. He prefers leaving that to the band’s frontman.
“I like being the guy that’s kind of slightly out of focus in the back while the singer gets all the credit,” Wilder says. “I’m OK with that. … For me, it’s just about the music. You don’t need to know my name.”
But then Wilder got cancer ― stage 4, metastasized colon cancer, to be exact ― and suddenly everyone seems to know his name. He’s all over Facebook, and people are organizing fundraisers to help pay for his medical bills and other expenses.
Is it overwhelming? Sure. Wilder says that word gets overused, but it aptly describes what he’s feeling right now.
“It’s amazing,” Wilder says. “It is dizzying, almost.”
A Southwest Florida rock veteran with Soapy Tuna, Cinder and more
It’s not surprising that the 50-year-old Wilder has so many friends willing to step up and help: He's been rocking Southwest Florida with various bands since the ‘90s, including current gigs with popular rock acts Cinder and Soapy Tuna.
So when Southwest Florida’s The Tabarrini Foundation posted a GoFundMe page for Wilder last week, many of those friends and fans reached for their credit cards and donated. Now the page has raised nearly $20,000 ― almost halfway toward its $50,000 goal.
Wilder, like many musicians, doesn’t have health insurance.
“We started the GoFundMe, and what followed was a snowball effect,” says foundation director Karen Morreale. “The Southwest Florida music community is that way. When one of our own ― or anybody in the community, really ― is in need, everybody just steps up in a huge way.”
Wilder has also raised money through donations to his Venmo and Cash App accounts and local nonprofit Music aLIVE SWFL, but Wilder and Morreale say they don’t know how much has been raised through those methods.
More money will likely be raised Wednesday, July 12, at Fort Myers’ concert venue Buddha LIVE. Wilder’s bandmates and musician Bob Tabarrini (aka SideShow Bob) have organized a 7 p.m. fundraiser/rock jam featuring Tabarrini, Soapy Tuna and more local musicians.
Other fundraisers are happening, too, including $25 "Jammin' for James" T-shirts, donation jars at Buddha LIVE and other local venues, and concerts in the works.
“All of the sudden, I look at Facebook and it is JUST ME,” Wilder says. “And I’m like, ‘What is happening?’”
Bassist Steve Reich of Soapy Tuna says it’s been great watching everyone rally to help out his bandmate ― a singer and multi-instrumentalist who's played with many local bands over the last three decades.
“As a community, it’s just been amazing,” Reich says. “James has been a journeyman for a long time. …
“Everybody’s played with him and everybody knows him. So people just came out of the woodwork. This community’s tight-knit.”
A visit to the ER, a cancer diagnosis
Wilder’s cancer diagnosis came Saturday, July 1 ― just three days after he first visited the Gulf Coast Medical Center ER with breathing difficulties. He was having a hard time singing in Soapy Tuna after a bout of pneumonia, and he finally decided to seek medical help.
“I’d kind of been struggling and was kind of tired,” he says. “I was losing my breath.”
At first, doctors focused on Wilder’s breathing issues and diagnosed him with congestive heart failure. But then he mentioned problems he’d been having with his bowels, and that led to a colonoscopy and finding a tumor in his colon.
Then an MRI showed the cancer had spread to his liver, too.
“Everything kind of hit me all within three days,” Wilder says. “That part was really tough. … I went in because I couldn’t sing, not for anything else.”
The tumor was subsequently removed in surgery Wednesday, July 5. Wilder’s been recovering at home in North Fort Myers since then.
Reich says the diagnosis has been tough for Soapy Tuna, too. Wilder isn’t just a bandmate. He’s also a friend.
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“It was an absolute gut punch,” Reich says. “We didn’t see it coming. We knew James had been sick for a while, but it had all been chalked up to pneumonia.”
Wilder isn’t sure what’s next for him. Survival rates for stage-4 colon cancer are typically low, but he’s hoping for the best. After recovering from his surgery, he plans to meet with his oncologist and other doctors to discuss treatment and the prognosis.
It hasn’t been easy, Wilder admits. But the outpouring of love and donations online have helped ease his burden.
“Honestly, I really didn’t expect it,” he says. “I also kind of feel like I’m not kind of worthy of this kind of attention.”
It’s been an emotional roller coaster ride, he admits. Surprisingly, though, the most emotional part came after he saw the response on GoFundMe and Facebook.
“Seriously, my first breakdown wasn’t after I heard my diagnosis,” he says. “It was actually when I saw all that, you know?”
How to donate to James Wilder
Money is being raised through various methods to help pay for Wilder's medical bills and other expenses. Those include:
Venmo: jameswildermusic
And Cash App: $JamesWilderMusic
— Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. For news tips or other entertainment-related matters, call him at 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at crunnells@gannett.com. You can also connect with him on Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), Twitter (@charlesrunnells) and Instagram (@crunnells1).
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Soapy Tuna, Cinder guitarist James Wilder: How to donate to cancer battle
