In concert, he might wear tall silver boots worthy of Ziggy Stardust while carrying on with the crazy abandon of an athletic Ozzy Osbourne. His buff body was wired and spasmodic, as if he were being electroshocked by some mysterious psychic force. He’d put down his guitar and bodysurf the crowd or scale the scaffolding high above the stage, microphone in hand, singing all the way.
Beej Chaney, always a bold adventurer as a guitarist and performer, had a ritual of swimming in the Pacific Ocean almost daily. The Twin Cities-reared musician did so Jan. 5 around sunset, and his body was found on Hermosa Beach that night.
Chaney, the colorful co-founder of the popular Twin Cities band the Suburbs, was 67.
“We texted a bunch over Christmas and he said, ‘How ‘bout we talk on Sunday night?’ and I said, ‘Just call me by 10 o’clock Minnesota time,‘” said Suburbs drummer Hugo Klaers, who had seen Chaney a lot over the past year. “He didn’t call me Sunday night. I wasn’t surprised because that happens with Beej. His time clock is way different than anybody else’s.”
Then Klaers received a text from Chaney’s ex-wife on Tuesday morning with the news.
In a report from the Hermosa Beach Police Department, police and fire crews responded to a call around 7 p.m. Sunday when the body of a man washed ashore along an area called the Strand. His death was deemed an accident by officials.
Klaers pointed out that Chaney, who was living in the Hermosa Beach/Manhattan Beach area, survived a near-death incident last year after a long swim in the Pacific. At the time, he collapsed on the beach.
“His body temperature had dropped to like 75 degrees,” Klaers said Tuesday. “They put him in an induced coma for three days, and he actually came back, and the doctor called him ‘her little miracle’ because she said most people when their body temperature gets this low don’t survive. They told him he couldn’t swim for a month and any future swimming he had to wear a wet suit because he was only wearing swim trunks when he was swimming in the ocean.”