The journey began twelve years ago in a typical American high school, but until separate cruise lines beckoned the two to “Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with me,” Ben McLain and Paul Peglar never realized what they would soon create.

After hanging up their life vests, the two friends reunited to create the comedic singing act, Dakaboom.

“We spent five years performing for just our friends,” McLain said. “It takes time, dedication and it just started out as a fun thing we love doing.”

The “two peas in a pod” mixed Peglar’s renowned falsetto and McLain’s operatic tone with their real life experiences to create the act.

“Signature, we do acapella duets, which I don’t think anyone else does…But that is not exclusively the show,” Peglar said. “People say we are very hard to define because we do a lot of different stuff, so they say ‘What do you do?’ ‘Oh it’s music, it’s comedy, it’s just – see it.‘”

Dakaboom has been on a tour of the East Coast in support of their first album, “Get Awesome,” which included the April 3 performance at Grand Valley State University, hosted by Spolight Productions. Touring, promoting and the occasional acting gigs are part of the duos normal careers.

They live, as roommates in Los Angeles, and were some familiar faces to a few GVSU audience members. Peglar held a role in the TV show, “Glee,” along with landing a spot in the recent movie remake of “Fame.” The duo has also performed on the show, “The Sing Off.”

But it’s not all about the fame and money, although they said it would help them snag more ladies. Peglar recently learned an important fact about all women – they love cheesy love songs. So, with to the best of his knowledge, Peglar developed his own heartwarming love song.

“…One of their videos is cheesy love songs, but incorporates cheese names, like Gouda and Mozzarella and stuff like that, ” said Erika Noth, Spotlight Production member.
However, not all of these two studs experiences are used in their act.

“Well a lot of what we want to include is unfortunately not appropriate,” McLain said. “I could think of a number of things that are not appropriate, but we like to use, like stories that are entertaining that we tell each other like ‘Oh my god this just happened to me, I have to tell you about it.’ But we want to stay appropriate and not talk about that girl I just hooked up with, or maybe we do want to talk about what happened.”

As Dakaboom looks to the future McLain plans to remain in California and Peglar prepares to move across the country to the New York. But since McLain “Ain’t never had a friend” like Peglar, Dakaboom plans to stick together, as long as fans keep supporting them.

“That is the end of the show but our CD is for sale on Facebook,” McLain said. “The CDs are not free but hugs are always free.”

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