As the contemporary a cappella revolution started rolling in the early '90s, Rockapella-- the most famous, and arguably most influential of early contemporary groups-- fully committed to the vocal band concept in 1993 by hiring vocal percussionist Jeff Thacher. Thacher later remarked "I never expected to actually be paid to do this!". He was immediately plugged-in to the national media exposure and touring Rockapella had been garnering as of 1990, which continues to this day (see http://www.rockapella.com). Over the course of his more than 15 years with Rockapella, Thacher's become a pioneering legend among professional mouth drummers. His powerful virtuosity forms the funky rhythmic heartbeat of Rockapella, delighting and astonishing audiences everywhere. Born of a musical family and raised on piano lessons from an early age, he dabbled in other instruments as well and added frequent vocal and choral experience, with a cappella singing getting in his blood as early as 2nd grade. After a very musical high school life, he received a degree in music and recording from Boston's renowned Berklee College. Thacher spent a few years working in the radio and television industries while singing and continuing to experiment with vocal percussion on the side. As small pockets of mouth drums-with-a-cappella started to appear around the country, Thacher answered an audition ad to form the Boston a cappella group Five O'Clock Shadow, adding at his vocal audition that "perhaps we might find a use for" his mouth drumming skills somehow. With Thacher on occasional lead tenor, those skills were soon put to good use in other songs. After a successful run with FOCS, things evolved quickly for him, and Thacher set off to look for a change of scene and work in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Rockapella had been featured on the now-legendary 1991 PBS special "Spike & Co.: Do It A Cappella" with Take6, The Persuasions, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, among others. A now-defunct group called TruImage was performing on the show with them and utilized a full-time mouth drummer; the first ever in a contemporary group, as history has since shown. Rockapella founder Sean Altman realized this idea was the way to go and would liberate any group of a cappella singers doing contemporary music. Options were considered and eventually an audition ad was placed. "At a financial turning point", as he puts it, Thacher found Rockapella's audition ad in the CASA (!) newsletter, and the rest is history. Now Jeff can be found producing and recording albums for other musicians, including many a cappella groups, in addition to touring with Rockapella as they travel nationally and throughout Asia and Europe.