Bios

Greg Roth

Greg Roth (Director / Writer & Executive Producer) Greg is best known as the founder and Creative Director of the local music website Seattle Music Insider. His curiosity about the complexity of the human condition as it relates to art and music, along with a passion for storytelling, is what drove Greg to photograph and interview award winning local and national music artists. Greg built SMI into what it is today, curating and inspiring a team of like-minded journalists and photographers who share his passion. Documentary filmmaking is the next logical chapter in Greg’s cumulative creative process.

Greg was raised in a musical family, and, like his brothers John and Robert, played in various bands, as well as writing and producing his own projects. Greg’s love of music was sparked to life by his mother Judy. Some of his most vivid memories are of accompanying his mom to the record store, where she would pick up the latest Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel record. Greg lost his mother to cancer at the age of 11. His mother, Judy, was only 31.

Greg retired from performing several years ago. He is currently the Creative Recruiter at Seattle’s zulily and has turned his passion to focus on one of his favorite sports, cycling. Greg has been riding for the past few years and credits cycling for jump starting a personal transformation and helping him rediscover his inner athlete. Greg rides with his club, Métier, and participates in several cycling events each year, training an average of 200 miles + per week.

In 2016 Greg participated in Fred Hutch Obliteride, a cycling event that raises money for cutting edge cancer research. He rode to honor his mother Judy. The following year he built a team and rode for his mom and two other special mothers who have battled or were currently battling cancer who remind him of his own mother and touched his heart.

#WeRideWhy is Greg’s first foray into documentary filmmaking. The project encompasses Greg’s passions for cycling and music and utilizes them in order to share a much more important message: the importance of life, love, compassion and healing.

Jason Tang

Jason Tang (Producer & Director of Photography) While attending Purdue University, Jason divided his time between engineering classes, working as a photographer for the daily student newspaper, and attending concerts. Those skills came full circle when he moved from Chicago to Seattle in 2006. He began working full-time at Boeing and shooting concerts nights and weekends, something he still does to this day.

Jason is currently Site Partner and Art Director at Seattle Music Insider and is one of the house photographers for Seattle Secret Shows, The Triple Door, and Columbia City Theater. He also works closely with local non-profit organizations Seattle Theatre Group and Melodic Caring Project.

His work has been published in local, national, and international press including Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, KEXP, Seattle Met, Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, and City Arts Magazine.

Over the past decade, Jason has documented the meteoric rise of artists such as The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile, and Allen Stone. From small living rooms and bars to huge festivals and arena shows, you can usually catch Jason covering shows around town. When he’s not working or behind the camera, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife Rita and their two dogs Munch and Chewie, playing sports, and traveling. He also has a strange fascination with penguins.

Andrew Joslyn

Andrew Joslyn (Music Supervisor) Seattle-native and multi-Instrumentalist, Composer, Orchestrator, and Violinist, Andrew Joslyn is a contributing songwriter and composer on Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’s 4x Grammy award winning album, “The Heist”, and contributed to their most recent project, “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made,” has performed on The Grammy Awards, The American Music Awards and The Tonight Show, toured with folk legend Judy Collins, and has had his work performed by ensembles nationwide. His formative years were spent studying classical music.

While studying music composition in college, however, Andrew broke from the regimented routine of his classical training and delved into his own exploration of contemporary music ranging from rock, folk, world, hip-hop, film and electronic. Now a seasoned performer, composer, and film scorer and, in addition to his work with Macklemore, has worked with some of the most iconic Northwest musicians and beyond, including David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), Mark Lanegan (Queens of the Stone Age), Duff McKagan (Guns N Roses), Doug Martsch (Built to Spill), Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate), Tom Chaplin (Keane), Shelby Earl, Kygo, Odesza, Audra Boo (Fly Moon Royalty), Will Jordan, Billy McCarthy (Augustines), Eric Anderson (Cataldo), and the Seattle Rock Orchestra.

Andrew’s first solo CD, a stunning collection of genre bending, Orchestral Pop called, Awake at the Bottom of the Ocean, was released in 2017 and is garnering rave reviews, including Paste, Yahoo Music, Huffington Post, Seattle Weekly, Nada Mucho, SMI and Afropunk. His music has been featured on KEXP, and on NPR.

Check out Andrew’s music here.

Wanz

Wanz (Narrator), whose real name is Michael Wansley, is a Seattle treasure. This singer, songwriter and rapper has had quite a musical journey since playing in his first band Boys Will Be Boys He performs in various genres, including rock, R&B, soul, hip hop, and pop. Wanz was featured on fellow Seattle-based duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ international hit single “Thrift Shop”, which received two Grammy Awards for “Best Rap Performance” and “Best Rap Song”. Wanz can be seen performing the national anthem at Seattle sporting events, like the Seattle Mariners When not writing music or doing community work, that he is passionate about such as working with at risk youth and other causes. Wanz is a cancer survivor himself and is passionate about helping others fight and help find a cure.

Bubba Jones

Bubba Jones (Sound and Audio Engineer) is a producer, engineer, composer and multi-instrumentalist from Seattle Washington. Born in the year of the Aquarius (1969), Bubba was a latecomer to playing music but an early bird when it comes to listening and studying the production of the music of the greats. From the age of 10 he began collecting records that pushed the sonic limits of the artist and technology. Beginning with the Beatles, he expanded his collection to include Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Bootsy Collins, Led Zeppelin, Parliament/Funkadelic, Marvin Gaye, Black Sabbath and many others who offered sea change recordings. He began recording his church choir at the age of 14 with a crude Peavey mixer that summed to a old Teac cassette recorder.

But a year later another dimension of his creativity was unleashed when he bagan plucking on the church piano, Hammond B3 organ and an old sears guitar. Within a three year period he had expanded from 1 to 7 instruments and by year 5, he could proficiently play 11 and was composing in genres from Classical to Gospel, Rock to Hip Hop as well as EDM, Country, Blues and folk.

And there was more. Upon meeting his friend Oliver Archute, Bubba was introduced to the world of audio engineering where he helped Oliver to build the world renown Jester Enterprises and TAB-Funkenwerk, where they made amps for Keith Richards, Billy Gibbons and Eric Ambel. The also designed, built and repaired mic preamplifiers, compressors and microphones for Paul McCartney, Paul Allen, Butch Vig and countless other world class artist and engineers.

From this platform, Bubba turned his sights on helping other artist in all the above genres record, perform and promote their projects. His list his list of contributions ranges from indie to major artist: Erik Blood Mountain Con The Turn Ons The Peels The Lights Shabazz Palaces Wayne Shorter Erykah Badu Digable Planets Kim Waters Brand New Heavies The Caligeraphs (Co Produced with Stone Gossard) Alan White (Drummer John Lennon, Yes) Questlove Dr Fink (Prince & The Revolution).

Chris Wilson

Chris Wilson (Associate Producer) Chris is a well respected photographer and videographer. Chris work has been featured on online retailer, zulily’s website and has had his work featured online. Chris is also a competitive, high-performance cyclist. He currently rides for the Metier Cycling Team and is ranked number 1 in the state of Washington in his category. His experience as a cyclist gives him unique insight and perspective when filming or photographing cyclists. 

Chris has a keen eye and a great feel for the cycling aesthetic. 

Judy Roth

Judy Roth was the mother of Greg Roth and Greg’s two brothers John and Robert. Judy was born in Frances Holm Wisconsin. Judy married Greg’s father Jan Arthur Roth and soon after, she gave birth toGreg at the young age of 20. Her love of art and music was passed down to her sons, as all three became musicians and artists. At the age of 25 Judy was diagnosed with Cancer. She had a double mastectomy and received radiation treatment to try to combat the disease.

During this time she continued to raise Greg, John and Robert and be involved in their lives. She shielded her cancer from her boys as long as she could. The last year of her life she could no longer conceal the ravages of her disease. The cancer spread to her bones and eventually she succumbed to the cancer on a hot August night in Los Angeles at the age of 31. Greg would turn 11 years old the next month.

Jenny George

Jenny George was diagnosed with leukemia at age 12, given less than 30 days to live, and told that she would never have children. Jenny beat the odds and credits her passion and love of music, particularly Duran Duran for helping her keep her spirits up during her illness and recovery. She did end up having a child, raising a wonderful son named Atticus, who is a DJ on Seattle’s KEXP. Jenny remains an advocate for cancer research and treatment. She has donated her DNA to help scientists understand, diagnose, and treat leukemia and lymphoma. As part of Jenny’s emotional healing process and drive to make a positive impact on those who have suffer, Jenny established Dancing On The Valentinein 2004 in celebration of another year of life. The event is held annually on or around Valentine’s Day (Jenny’s birthday), all proceeds from DOTV go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Ashley Berg

Ashley Berg was a single mother raising a 11-year old daughter. She continued to battle stage-four cancer throughout the production of this film. Ashley’s indomitable spirit and love for her daughter, her family and life itself drove her to keep fighting. She did everything within her power and every resource available to beat cancer. Her body may have given up but her spirit never did.

Ashley passed away of cancer on May 14, 2018. One day after mother’s day. Despite her disease, Ashley has raised a beautiful daughter in a loving and positive way. Like Jenny, Ashley loved music and often takes her to family friendly music events and festivals. She and Piper attended Timber Outdoor Music Festival since its inception Ashley tells her story of the pain and isolation of cancer and the deep impact that it has had on her daughter and their relationship. Through the darkness and the struggle, Ashley and her daughter shared a very special and beautiful bond.

Piper

Piper (Camera Operator & Ashley’s Daughter) Piper is the daughter of Ashley Berg, who passed away of cancer on May 14, 2018, the day after Mother’s Day. Piper shares the same energetic spirit and passion for life as her mother. The bond that Piper shared with her mother is unbreakable, even in death. Piper was often present during Ashley’s chemo therapy and provided emotional support for her mother as much as Ashley did for Piper.  

Piper is also quite a talented camera person. Some of Pipers shots can be seen in the first official #WeRideWhy tralier and her footage will be used in the film. Piper shot some of the footage strapped in the back of the van, while Ashley drove the vehicle.