Mike Viola

Mike Viola entered the music industry during the mid-1980s as a singer, songwriter, and producer whose melodic power pop approach earned notice both in his solo work and through projects with outfits such as Candy Butchers. Co-production duties on the Academy Award-nominated 1996 track "That Thing You Do!" shared with Adam Schlesinger quickly led to steady assignments as producer and session player, and Viola supplied the lead vocals on that recording. Once Candy Butchers dissolved in 2004, his focus turned almost entirely to solo releases, beginning with Lurch in 2007—the same year he supplied songs for the musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Across the 2010s he put out Electro de Perfecto in 2011 and Acousto de Perfecto the following year, along with the 2018 EP Bitten and Cursed, while also taking the position of head of A&R at Verve Records. In parallel he produced, wrote, and performed for an array of artists that included Mandy Moore, Fall Out Boy, and Ryan Adams. Thirty-five years after his debut EP, the full-length Godmuffin arrived in 2020.

Raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Viola issued his first self-released EP, Not the Only One, in 1985 before joining drummer Todd Foulsham, guitarist Ed Cavallo, and bassist Ward Clifford in the brief project Snap! (also known as Mike Viola & Snap). He and Foulsham subsequently moved to New York City and launched Candy Butchers, which delivered a live EP in 1996. During the same period Viola appeared with local indie pop acts such as Ivy and John Flansburgh’s Mono Puff, a side project tied to They Might Be Giants.

Adam Schlesinger, songwriter for both Ivy and Fountains of Wayne, collaborated with Viola on co-production and lead vocals for the title song of Tom Hanks’ 1996 comedy That Thing You Do!. Candy Butchers signed with Blue Thumb that year and released the live EP Live at La Bonbonniere. Their self-titled debut album remained unreleased after the label’s bankruptcy, yet the duo issued two EPs in 1999—Let’s Get Serious and Let’s Get Christmas—before RPM, a Sony affiliate, picked them up and put out the full-length Falling Into Place. Viola revived Candy Butchers for 2002’s Play with Your Head, by then functioning essentially as a solo effort, and RPM followed with the 2004 album Hang on Mike, still credited to the band name.

Viola operated completely independently from 2005 onward, issuing the live solo set Just Before Dark on his own Good Morning Monkey label. Making Up Time surfaced in 2006 with previously unreleased Candy Butchers recordings from the 1990s. In 2007 he oversaw two archival projects—Temple of Static, drawn from 2001 sessions, and the new studio album Lurch—while also contributing to the soundtrack of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which contained more than two dozen songs, many written with Dan Bern; Marshall Crenshaw and Van Dyke Parks each added one track. Viola produced and performed on John Wesley Harding’s Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead and Mandy Moore’s Amanda Leigh in 2009, then returned to film work for 2010’s Get Him to the Greek, writing material for the fictional character Aldous Snow portrayed by Russell Brand. The same year saw the release of the duo album Melon with Kelly Jones.

Electro de Perfecto appeared as Viola’s next solo LP in 2011. Its 2012 acoustic companion Acousto de Perfecto featured violinists Eric Summer and Kate Reddish. Songs written that year by Viola and Tim Adams were featured in the comedy That’s What She Said. In 2013 he issued the limited-edition GHOUL, a set of trading cards each containing a download code for one track among three covers and twenty-one originals. Earlier in the decade he also produced material for artists including Matt Nathanson, Fall Out Boy, and Jenny Lewis. One year after the solo EP Stairway to Paradise in 2015, Viola was appointed Vice President of A&R at Verve Records.

Further solo output arrived in 2018 with the album The American Egypt, the EP Bitten and Cursed, and the holiday single “Here We Go, It’s Christmas Time.” His subsequent studio album, the analog-recorded Godmuffin, came out on Good Morning Monkey in late 2020.