TJ Bahama – Lead Vocals, Hawaiian Shirts, Tequila Shooters
TJ started his singing career at The Baja Beach Club in Chicago in 1991. After leaving the music scene to pursue a career in finance, TJ was lured back into the spotlight after watching non-stop Jimmy Buffett videos at the Margaritaville Cafe in the Montego Bay Airport while on a layover to Sunset Waters Beach resort in Curacao. It was there that the CoCo Loco Band was born with the help of TJ’s friend Dave Olsen (a.k.a. Big Wave Dave). Upon returning stateside, TJ contacted some of his former musical partners, and like a tide swelling offshore, the Coco Loco Band was placed into motion. Today, the Coco Loco Band travels extensively providing a high-energy, take no prisoners, tropical escape for landlocked corporate types and those seeking the adverture and relaxation of warm weather destinations of afar.
Like blending the perfect margarita, the band mixes in songs by Jimmy Buffett and other tropically inspired artists, to weave a hammock of tunes that blend in all the elements of a tropical getaway. Warm weather, sun, surf, soothing beverages, distance ports of call and all-out no apologies revelry help transport Coco Loco fans to a place where as one song says….”Troubles I forgot ’em….I buried’em in the sand.”
TJ has won several vocal contests from Chicago to Peoria to St. Louis. ( Buffett fans have had to shake their head and clean out their ears as TJ’s soaring vocals have caused more than a few die-hard Parrotheads to remark “he sounds more like Buffett than Buffett does!) Never content to be categorized, TJ still likes covering all types of music from Garth Brooks to Elvis to AC/DC. One of TJ’s more memorable vocal moments came while vacationing in Las Vegas. While belting out Elvis Presley’s “American Trilogy” at The Barbary Coast Casino’s karaoke night, TJ literally brought the gaming tables to a stop as he delivered the final powerful crecendo of the song. Afterwards the host of the evening zipped over and remarked, “Of the hundreds of Elvis singers that have come through here-by far you are the best!” In the words of Waylon Jennings, “It’s the singer, not the song.”