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Monday, February 15, 2021
Mike Viola continues science fiction themed series of music videos with new “Twilight Zone”-inspired “We May Never Be This Young Again.”
Latest album Godmuffin gets release by SONY Japan; Artist
launches “Songs Start To Finish” series, a fun look into his creative process.
+++
Mike Viola as photographed by Silvia Grav +++ Mike Viola is a Grammy®-nominated
producer, musician, songwriter and singer best known for his work with Panic!
At The Disco, Mandy Moore, Jenny Lewis, Ondara, Matt
Nathanson and Fall Out Boy. His original music has been
featured on soundtracks for movies such as ”That Thing You Do!,””Get Him To The Greek,” and ”Walk
Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” Viola’s latest album Godmuffin is out now via Good Morning Monkey / Grand Phony. +++ Mike Viola | “We May
Never Be This Young Again”
[VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I51HAhtVsXs +++ “I’m a huge fan
of ‘The Twilight Zone,’ especially
the episodes where Rod Serling
addresses some nuanced existential dilemma hidden inside a gimmicky science
fiction idea,” says Mike Viola of the video for his single
“We May Never Be This Young Again.”
Hear it now at Brooklyn
Vegan and see the video via The
Big Takeover. “For this video, the director, Silvia Grav, envisioned me running, just vaguely running through
Los Angeles at night. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be running from, but
she had this vision while listening to the song over and over. “There are a handful of ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes about Air Force pilots who are distressed
and disoriented by something or other. I bought a blue jumpsuit online and put
together a little crew and we drove around filming me running in downtown Los
Angeles late at night, which during COVID, was empty. “We knew we wanted to have vignettes of a couple not
getting along great, Like, normal stuff we all go through in our relationships,
nothing too dramatic. Just that kind of subtly that can slowly tear apart a
marriage. Something always saves us in these moments of subtle destruction. You
guessed it, love.” +++
Latest album Godmuffin gets release by SONY Japan; Artist launches “Songs Start
To Finish” series, a fun look into his creative process. Mike Viola has launched a series of fun,
short behind-the-scenes videos, documenting his creative process leading to the
completion of the 11 songs that comprise Godmuffin. See the “Songs Start To Finish” series at
YouTube now. The first two installments feature the songs “All You Can Eat” and “Drug Rug,” with new posts happening on
Wednesdays. Godmuffin
was also recently released in a special two-CD edition,
packaged with Viola’s previous solo
album The American Egypt, by SONY Japan. +++ Mike Viola Godmuffin Out Now (Good Morning
Monkey / Grand Phony) Streaming Link: STREAM FULL LP
Track Listing: 01. USA Up All Night 02. Creeper (STREAM) 03. Drug Rug (STREAM | VIDEO | LYRIC VIDEO) 04. We May Never Be This Young Again (VIDEO | LYRIC VIDEO) 05. All You Can Eat 06. The Littles 07. Superkid 2, Trying To Do The Thing I Was Born To
Do 08. Honorable Mention With Jam Show 09. People Pleaser, You’re The Man Of The House Now 10. Ordinary Girl (STREAM
| VIDEO | LYRIC VIDEO) 11. That Seems Impossible Now +++
[VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQokPDo77c [STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/MikeViola-DrugRug +++ “Legend has it that vampires can’t expose themselves
to sunlight, but Mike Viola begs to
differ,” explains
Rolling Stone in its coverage of
Viola’s horror short for his latest
single. “He’s a pool-lazing vampire in the new video for ‘Drug Rug,’ a track off his upcoming LP Godmuffin. Directed by Caitlin Gerard, the video opens with Viola lying on a float in Mandy Moore’s pool. “Viola
channels his preternatural gift for directness and warmth into a celebration of
youth,” BuzzBands.LA says it its premiere
post of the song. Viola explains
that the tune is “a look back at my icy days in NYC. This is an ode to my
beloved classic rock, as well.” +++ Mike Viola | “Ordinary
Girl”
[VIDEO]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBQYXSlgeFM [STREAM]:
https://fanatic.lnk.to/MikeViola-OrdinaryGirl +++ “It’s a girl power song,” Mike Violatells
American Songwriter in its premiere
coverage of his single “Ordinary
Girl.” “We all have superpowers. For me, the scariest thing out there in
the world is blending in, disappearing into the status quo. This is like a John Hughes version of that concept.” An obsessive monster movie fan, Violacontinues the series he started
with the video (see
below) for “Drug Rug” (which co-stars
Mandy Moore (and her swimming pool)
alongside a hilarious turn as a vampire by Viola
himself) with the video for “Ordinary Girl.” With a team comprised of all women
creators, including sisters and co-directors Kelsey
and Rémy Bennett, alongside
acclaimed 26-year-old photographer turned cinematographer, Silvia Grav, “Ordinary Girl” redefines power as we
know it through the perspective of a horror obsessed suburban girl. The video, shot like a short film,
bears witness to the main character as she harnesses her transgressive creative
gifts in a manifestation of self-reflection, exploration, and an otherworldly
growth of inner strength that will break your heart just to see what it’s made
of. The lyric video for the song
finds Viola in a real moment with
his “monster thumb,” following his young daughter around the sidewalks of Los
Angeles as he teaches her to roller skate. Stereo Embers says, “While Springsteen’s songbook is filled with
tracks told from the perspective of a guy who wants to get out of town, ‘Ordinary Girl’ might very well be the
first song written from the point of view of a parent wishing the same for his
children.” +++ Mike Viola | About
Music lives in Mike
Viola. Shit, it’s his last name, right? Godmuffin
(Good Morning Monkey / Grand Phony) even opens with strings
and man, do they tug. Hard. “Don’t be afraid, no don’t be afraid / We still have
time, we still have time / There’s so much I wanna do” “I wrote ’Creeper’ the
morning I got the news my close friend died,” Viola says. “He
was my age. Now he can’t make music. I still can. I can still spend my time
looking for the secret cause, the next new song, even when it feels too late, ‘cause
I still have time.” Viola’s friend is the artistically immortal, Adam Schlesinger, to whom Viola will forever be publicly tied as
the voice of his friend’s perfect, Oscar®-nominated pop song “That Thing You Do!” At any other time, this association would be a fun
fact. A bullet point in a career full of them. But right now it’s painful to
listen to with Viola’s real-life
tragedy in mind. Somehow, hemakes
it sound beautiful. Godmuffin
follows-up Viola’s 2018 album The
American Egypt, and is his first return in over a decade to the more
conventional rock and pop sound that he first broke through with as front man
of Candy Butchers during that band’s
string of major label records in the late-90s to mid-2000s. Godmuffin
was written and recorded alone in Viola’s
home studio. He describes it as “11 songs about transformation” and Viola isn’t afraid to let you see. “It’s youthful in the chances it takes,” he says. “It
doesn’t give a fuck.” In the face of fine-tuning everything into oblivion, Godmuffin
is the least experimental-sounding experimental record you’ll hear this year. Viola records on half-inch tape and
mixes on a vintage Auditronics console without the advantage of digital
editing. “The
recording is linear, ‘cause I can’t punch and fix things very easily, especially
when I’m playing drums. On the computer, you
can repair all of your mistakes ‘til you sound perfect. Or even
worse, tune or beat detective the life out of it. I prefer rock music that’s
beautifully flawed.” “It’s
human,” he says. “Only the dead get to heaven / Here on earth we just
get lost” Human it is. Viola sings the chorus of the album’s first single “Drug Rug,” and it’s as if you’re
listening to recently re-discovered dedications from a high school yearbook. It’s not nostalgia, it’s time traveling written from
the point of view of the graduated Viola,
“who’s spent a lifetime doing windmills on Big
Star guitars, slick with Todd
Rundgren syrup hand-drawn from the tree.” Elsewhere on Godmuffin, Viola sings about being a teenager (“USA Up All Night”), about being the father of teenagers (“The Littles,”“Ordinary Girl”), and even offers up a sequel (“Superkid 2, Trying To Do The Thing I Was Born To Do”) to a
previously released song (“Superkid”)
about being a teenager. Youthful. Not giving a fuck. Is there a time in our lives when we feel more
invincible? Godmuffin is the sound of fearlessness. +++ Mike Viola | Links ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : INSTAGRAM : SPOTIFY : APPLE
: GRAND
PHONY +++ Josh Bloom at Fanatic
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