Meet Jesse Shiroma of Streetlight Cadence in West LA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse Shiroma.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jesse. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It started with a black eye and a cut lip on the streets of Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii. My friend and now bandmate Jonathon moved to the island of Oahu on a violin scholarship to study at Hawaii Pacific University (HPU). While his tuition was covered he still had to find means to pay for rent and the general cost of living.

While exploring the tourist district of Waikiki he noticed multiple street performers who would paint themselves silver and just stand impeccably still. Whether it was a good paint job or impressive body control we won’t know for sure but regardless these performers were making money standing still and glittering. At this sight, Jon thought to himself “Hey, I play the violin and surely if I put my case out I can make enough for a sandwich.” With that thought in mind he raced home to grab his instrument and returned in the evening. After a few songs, he had enough for a sandwich which was purportedly the best one he ever had (although this may have been tinted by the fact that he hadn’t eaten in a few days due to lack of funds.)

Upon realizing the lucrative possibilities in street performing in Waikiki, Jonathon became a regular sight until one day he was mugged in plain sight across from the police station during one of his performances. With a damaged ego and face he returned to his apartment scarred from the experience and swearing never to risk performing in Waikiki again.

That is, until he met me, arguably Hawaii’s only black belt accordion player.

As an accordionist in an island state there weren’t many opportunities to play out with others so I’d end up on Craigslist meeting many sketchy dudes and awkward situations. A few months into this process I was about to give up when I found one last post looking for someone trying to put together a folk band. The wording caught my interest and I figured I’d give it one last shot. I replied to the post and it turns out the guy lived just a few blocks away from me. That guy was Jonathon and together we started Streetlight Cadence. When he found out, I was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido I’m not sure if he initially wanted me as a bandmate or bodyguard when he suggested we play in Waikiki haha!

Regardless, what started some college friends playing on the sidewalks for fun has turned into an international music experience with tours across the world and an Emmy-nominated television show.

Has it been a smooth road?
We’ve been an independent band from the start and (literally) started from the bottom on the sidewalks of cities around the world and our struggles have been numerous.

The first challenge we faced was finding enough dedicated members to convince them that our dreams of achieving a sustainable career as musicians was totally feasible (mind you we still haven’t played a venue bigger than the sidewalk of Kalakaua Avenue at the time). Somehow we were able to convince our friends Brian and Ben that this was (or at least would be) a lucrative opportunity.

Second was learning how to navigate the behemoth music industry of America. When you’re an independent band it’s more than just writing songs and playing them. You need to research upcoming trends, popular supervisors, learn production software, understand the PRO system and the difference between mechanical and songwriter royalties, and so much more. We quickly realized we needed to be more than a band, we needed to be a business and behave like businessmen in the process.

The third point is somewhat obvious, but we had to be competent musicians making competent music. No one is going to want to listen to you if you’re not practiced or relatable and we are a band with a cello, violin, accordion, and drummer. The odds were already stacked but thankful we shared a common passion for contemporary rock and pop so we figured if we just take what we know and do what we want we can create something no one has ever seen before!

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Streetlight Cadence story. Tell us more about the business.
Streetlight Cadence is a band and a business. The four of us (Jonathon, Ben, Brian, Jesse) all specialize in a particular field that keeps SLC running and growing daily. We’ve divided the business into the four quadrants of legalities, booking/event coordination, social media, and IT with the four of us each taking one field and becoming the best we possibly can at it.

This means we don’t overburden ourselves with the immense amount of responsibilities a solo artist might have to bear without a management team and on that note we have been able to turn down management deals simply because we’ve already learned how to execute most tasks they would do for us at a cost.

We’re hungry to learn and develop new skills to help the band overall while always trying to keep our songwriting and arrangement skills at their very best. Because of our willingness to grow and learn we branched into television to create a travel-documentary series called “Will Play For Food” which was recently nominated for an Emmy earlier this year! We didn’t take the win but we learned a ton and chalk that up as a victory towards the future. Nothing is ever lost if you walk away knowing more.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
You can crack open any contemporary music mag or pull up a 5 second Google search and realize that the music industry is in a wild state of flux right now.

Streaming is literally the new wild west as the government had no means of regulating this new and swiftly growing trend as albums quickly faded into an item for the hardcore fans rather than the standard.

As it stands the majority of artists are outright robbed of any feasible income for their work as many streaming platforms are free to set whatever prices they want and can therefore charge less than a cent for hundreds if not thousands of plays. Thankfully there are organizations lobbying for songwriters and artists to earn them fair pay for their work.

There is still so much to be worked out but we are hopeful!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.streetlightcadence.com
• Email: band@streetlightcadence.com
• Instagram: @streetlightcadence
• Facebook: facebook.com/streetlightcadence
• Twitter: @TheBandSLC

Image Credit:
Landen (Genki Media), Mike Daneberg

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