This local band found big success on cruise ships. Here's how to see them near Fall River.
FALL RIVER — When former Fall River police officer TJ Nowicki decided to spend his retirement playing in an '80s cover band, he had no idea it would take off the way it has.
“We’ve been very, very blessed,” he said.
Nowicki, a Fall River native and now a Westport resident, left the force in 2019. Around the same time, he pulled together a group of local musicians to form the Back in the Day Band, which covers artists like Journey, Van Halen and Styx.
“We’re hoping that everyone that comes to see one of our shows will relive their memories back from the '80s,” he said. “We really reach out and try to get our audience involved in every show that we perform.”
In 2019, Nowicki sent out a promo package to a talent agency in New Jersey. Just a few weeks later, they got their first offer to play as entertainment on a cruise ship with Norwegian Cruise Line. They lined up a few more cruise ship gigs soon after, traveling to places like the Baltic and Mediterranean seas.
The band was on a ship in the Caribbean when the pandemic hit.
“We got back the week before all the ports shut down,” Nowicki said. “We got very lucky.”
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The band’s composition has changed over the past few years. Now, it consists of Nowicki on keyboard, Scott Cooper on lead vocals, Tom Walason on bass and Amos Sanfilippo on guitar, with his son Nicco Sanfilippo playing drums while the band travels on cruise ships and Brian Johnson playing drums when they play locally.
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The pandemic meant the cruise industry was put on pause for a while. But starting earlier this year, Back in the Day has returned to Norwegian and booked a new gig with the Royal Caribbean cruise line.
They’re now playing as a main theater act for Norwegian, which Nowicki described as a “very big step up” from the shows they were doing in 2019.
They also continue to play in casinos like Twin River in Lincoln, RI and Foxwoods in Connecticut, venues in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont and local spots like the Oriental Pearl in Westport and Renegades in Warwick, Rhode Island.
Their next local gig will be on Wednesday, July 20, at 6 p.m., as part of the Somerset Recreation Department’s summer concert series at Peirce Beach. Then in August, it’s back on a ship.
“We are completely booked until the end of the year,” said Nowicki. “We’re living for today, not tomorrow because we don’t know how long this will last. We’re just enjoying every moment as it comes.”
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Audrey Cooney can be reached at acooney@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River native's band finds big success on cruise ships
