Mopey's beat goes on

When he’s not consulting with industries to clean up waste materials, he’s keeping the beat.

Mark Wildhagen has been doing both for decades, and turning 75 isn’t slowing him down.

Wildhagen continues to run Step I Environmental Inc., in Port Washington and play the drums for the local band Shad Lads.

“I can’t stop,” he said.

Most people know Wildhagen as Mopey, a nickname from childhood that stuck despite it being the polar opposite of his personality.

The upbeat, friendly guy always donning a smile got the name from his older brother John, who he said “Velcro-ed” it to him in fifth grade.

“There are classmates who don’t know my name is Mark,” he said.

“Everybody seemed to have a nickname and it usually didn’t fit. I’m happy to wear it.”

The 1967 Port High grad is also thrilled to still be performing live music. Wildhagen celebrated his 75th birthday on Sunday with a party at the Shipyard in the Town of Port Washington that drew hundreds while raising more than $2,500 for Saukville adolescent Layden Rosario-Murphy, who was injured in a car accident in July.

The eight-hour bash had four bands performing, including Wildhagen’s Shad Lads.

The group started in late December 2018 when Wildhagen’s former band Vinyl Groove was asked on short notice to play a cancer benefit at the Newport Shores restaurant by John Weinrich. A few band members couldn’t make it.

“I got ahold of some musicians I knew and we played it,” Wildhagen said.

Weinrich liked the set so much he wanted to hire the group.

“You guys, are we a band?” Weinrich asked at the end of the night. That’s how Shad Lads got off the ground.

But they weren’t called that yet. When they were asked to play a benefit for Possibility Playground in Port, they needed a name for the brochure.

Band member Dennis Schmitz came to practice with the name. Schmitz’s older brother Dave was in a band called Shad Lads in Port during the 1960s — one of three bands in the city and Wildhagen knew players in all of them — and he said they could use it.

One Shad Lads member was thrilled.

“Great, now I’ll get royalties,” Wildhagen’s friend Ray Freese said.

Every several months, Wildhagen makes sure to mail him a check for $2 and change.

“Never more than $3,” he said.

Shad Lads runs a busy schedule with 30 to 40 shows per year. Some are private or company parties and some are public events and festivals.

Members have all been playing music since they were teens and hail from the area. Gary Haseley of Port plays keyboard and sings, Rob Chalifoux of West Bend plays rhythm guitar and sings, Brian Saaben of Germantown plays bass and sings and Schmitz of Belgium plays lead guitar and sings.

Wildhagen is the only member not on vocals.

“They don’t let me sing. I’ve been trying to get the bandmates to let me sing, but they won’t. It’s a short conversation,” he said.

That doesn’t dampen his love of performing.

“At this age, you have to have the passion,” he said.

Wildhagen’s passion started when he was a teen growing up in a typical two-story house on Moore Road in Port. His friends Jerry Lauters and Mike Schreiner each had drum sets.

“I got attached to the drum set,” Wildhagen said. “It was fun to hang out with them, but it was more fun to play on their kits.”

At 15, Wildhagen’s father bought him a drum set “and that was it,” he said.

“To this day, why he didn’t buy me a harmonica, I’ll never know. It’s easier to set up and take down.”

Wildhagen is self-taught. He practiced in his upstairs bedroom while wearing a headset. His mother once went to his room and asked her son to come downstairs. The kitchen ceiling had fallen down from Wildhagen’s banging to “The Letter” by the Box Tops.

“You look up and you could just see the slats,” Wildhagen said.

His other teenage hobby was sailing. While many kids were buying cars, Wildhagen got a boat called Wind Drift. His father was a commercial fisherman who taught him to respect the lake, he said.

“My first loan was for the sailboat. I think it was $600 total,”

After high school, Wildhagen moved to Oshkosh, where he connected with his late friend Brad Wiskirchen. He served as a conduit to meeting a couple of other guys to form the band Rusty Tumbling. They practiced in a cleaned-out chicken coop on a farm and played a four-state area from 1969 to 1973.

Later in the 1970s, Wildhagen ran a scrap company called Sunshine Salvage with his friend Terry Cottrell for a year. Cottrell went into roofing, and Wildhagen, then 24, on the advice of his father, bought land in Port and started Port Recycling.

Wildhagen also kept sailing, often with Ozaukee Press publisher Bill Schanen III.

He later moved to Houston and started a waste management company with Henry Krier and Mike Vilione. The company moved to Milwaukee in 1992, and Wildhagen sold his shares when he started Step I Environmental, a consulting firm for hazardous and nonhazardous waste.

In the early 1990s, Wildhagen found his way to the Green Bay Packers’ sideline as an assistant with longtime Packers’ photographer Vern Biever.

Wildhagen sold Port Recycling in 2016 when running two companies became too much.

Now, he’s down to one company and one band.

Shad Lads plays oldies and classic rock and some country. They add songs and practice hard during winter when its slow.

“It’s just a great feeling when you’re playing with good guys,” Wildhagen said. “We all have the passion.”

He loves the local support of live music and appreciates the large attendance at his 75th birthday bash. People came from as far as England.

“It was pretty nuts,” Wildhagen said. “Plans are already being made for the 80th.”