Candy Butchers

Primarily built around singer/songwriter Mike Viola, the indie pop/rock outfit Candy Butchers began when he first used the moniker for a duo alongside Todd Foulsham, performing across New York throughout the mid-'90s. Once Foulsham departed to raise a family, Viola secured a deal with Blue Thumb Records under the Candy Butchers name and completed an album slated for 1996; the project never surfaced after the label folded, although Blue Thumb did issue the EP Live at la BonBonniere. Viola later posted the unreleased LP on his site, mikeviola.com, titling the files Blue Thumb.

That same year his voice appeared on the theme for the film That Thing You Do!, issued as a single under the Wonders (the picture’s fictional group) and climbing to number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1996.

Viola then moved to RPM—the Sony subsidiary overseen by Danny Bennett, also Viola’s manager—which put out Falling into Place on August 31, 1999, billed to Mike Viola & the Candy Butchers. The lineup at that point featured Viola handling vocals and guitar, Pete Donnelly on bass and vocals, and Mike Levesque on drums. Candy Butchers returned on March 12, 2002, with Play with Your Head, followed by Hang on Mike on January 20, 2004; by then RPM had severed ties with Sony.

Viola struck out on his own beginning in 2005, issuing the live solo acoustic set Just Before Dark through his Good Morning Monkey imprint. The 2006 release Making Up Time gathered previously unheard Candy Butchers recordings from 1994–1998, the era when the duo still included Todd Foulsham. In 2007 he unveiled two further projects under his own name: Temple of Static, an archival collection of 2001 songs and studio experiments, and the fresh studio album Lurch.