It’s quite possible you’ve heard Mike Viola’s work without even knowing it was him.
Maybe it was the main vocals in the 1996 movie “That Thing You Do!” or several songs in 2007’s “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” It could have been from his touring with Panic! At the Disco or his production work for Mandy Moore, Dawes and others.
But Viola also has a 25-year solo career that includes more than a dozen albums and EPs, with the latest being 2024’s “Rock of Boston.” He’s on the road for three weeks, including a Feb. 20 stop at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh’s South Side.
A Boston native, Viola said he holds an affinity for Pittsburgh, from the old brick buildings to the Andy Warhol Museum to “Night of the Living Dead” to Little Giant studio (even naming the street it’s on). His band even includes a Pittsburgh resident, drummer Brian Wolfe (as well as Atlanta-based bassist Dan Green).
“I love Pittsburgh. I love the city a lot,” he said. “… I come from a working class background, and just the grit of that city and it just feels like there’s a real brotherhood there.”
In a phone call Tuesday from Los Angeles, Viola spoke with TribLive about the full band show, collaboration, returning to the world of “Walk Hard,” doing a movie with Will Ferrell and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.
This is going to be a full band tour, so what are the pros and cons of that compared to solo acoustic shows that you’ve done in the past?
I love doing the full band tour because of the camaraderie, again going back to that word brotherhood. We don’t have to do this – I certainly don’t – but I do, I have to. I have no choice. I really have to do this, but it’s hard. It’s getting harder to do a full band tour, just because of the economics of everything. The three of us, we all met each other in New York, but we spread out with our lives. But we get together and we’re able to do these tours and we make really good money because we really do it low to the ground. It’s like three dudes in a van, no tour manager, no merch person, no roadies, nothing. It’s just the three of us.
You stay in Comfort Inns and you become a rewards member. You just kind of game the system. … If you love something enough and you feel like you have no choice with it, you’ve got to do it, and we feel that way about touring and getting out there, rolling into these cities. And as long as there are venues like Club Cafe — which, as you know, closed for a beat there, which was devastating. I was like, no, but now they’re back open — as long as those venues still will have us, I’ll definitely just keep going out there. Being in the band, it’s harder logistically, but I have a really good agent and we’re able to get good routing and we just play every night. We don’t have a day off. We just play everywhere for three weeks and then we come home. It’s work, but it’s just the best. I do it twice a year, and it’s just really good.
When it comes to the shows, is every night different as far as the setlist?
Oh yeah, for sure. I’m not promoting a new album so this tour, I’m going to play a lot of older songs. I’ve been making music since the ‘90s so I’ve got records people really like that I just completely forgot about. So this tour, I’m playing a lot of those old songs. The band wanted to do that. They were like, instead of playing new songs, why don’t we just play some old tunes from the catalog, so we’re doing a lot of that. It’s definitely more of a rock show, whereas when I’m solo acoustic, it’s not, it’s more singer-songwriter style.
From the most recent album, there were definitely some songs that lent themselves to a more full band sound, like “Welcome to the Thunderdome,” “The Bansch” and “Death Speed Stay Teen.”
Oh yeah, those would be brutal to do acoustic. (laughs) In fact, we’re doing a couple of those you mentioned. … I’m in the middle of making a record right now that will come out in the fall, and I’m very conscious of when I go on tour, when I’m writing these songs and recording them, I picture Club Cafe. I picture the Mercury Lounge. I picture the Rumba Cafe, the Beachland Tavern. I picture these little rooms that I play and what songs would fill those spaces in cool ways. I don’t make these records thinking like, oh, I’m going to make this song for the radio or I’m going to make this song because I want to get a bunch of plays on Spotify. I do it for the interface with people, connecting with people in small clubs and what would sound really cool, so that’s how I do it.
What is it about the small venues that you like so much, because I know that you’ve also got to play some big arena shows with Panic! At The Disco? What’s the appeal, what’s the magic of those smaller places?
The magic is there’s less fuss about what you’re doing. There’s more spontaneity. There’s more room for creativity on the spot. There’s a lot of room for that, whereas when you’re in an arena show, it’s pretty much like a Cirque du Soleil situation where you’ve got to be there to catch the other person or they’re going to (fall). It’s like a choreography kind of affair, which is fun and exciting and cool for what it is.
But what I love about the small clubs is that you can roll in, be late, miss soundcheck, but just load from the van straight onto the stage and it’s going to be something brand new and unique and people that bought tickets and have paid for a babysitter and they’re out to see the show, they’re going to see something that’s alive and trying to connect with them vs. somebody trying to sell them something. We’re there to perform. We’re performers. We’re in show business so we’re there to be an escape for people. Honestly, it’s like connecting. By the end of the hour-and-a-half set, I’ve locked eyes with everybody in that room if the lighting’s good, because you’re not blinded by a big light show and fire spitting behind you. (laughs) You’re just there, and there’s actually no border between you and the audience. That’s what I always loved about the punk rock shows. The audience was just as part of the show as the band.
In a more overview perspective, whether it’s a producer, songwriter, musician, what is it that you think makes you a good collaborator with other artists?
It’s really connecting with people. It really is that. I don’t try and put my own mark on people’s music. So when I’m collaborating with somebody, it’s really all about them. In my mind, I’m just like, I want to help you, but not like, I can help you. It’s more like, we can do this together. I want to be in your band for three months and make a record with you. I really like the camaraderie. I like being in bands. And it’s basically every time, whether it’s producing a Dawes record — I joined their band for a few months — or Andrew Bird or Panic! At The Disco. Sometimes, like with Panic!, it was two years. I was just working with that band and also making my own music. I think that’s the kind of value I bring to these projects that I’ve worked on is that I’m not there to put my mark on it. I’m just there to be part of the process.
I imagine that selfless attitude is probably not very prevalent in the music industry.
Yeah, it’s true. And I got to say, I make plenty of money, I’m fine. But I’ve had managers approach me saying, dude, you are selling yourself short. You only charge this much for that record? And sometimes I feel like, yeah, but I would have done it for free. I learned so much and I had a (expletive) blast. I don’t need that much stuff. The wisest manager that I know — and he manages Sia, Lorde, Weezer, Green Day, he’s a big manager — and he’s an old friend of mine, and he’s like, you’re doing the right thing, staying low to the ground, because the more entrenched you get in the business, the further away from the music you get.
So I’ve got my little home studio that I’ve recorded hit records in. It’s literally 9 feet by 16 feet. It’s really small, and you can touch the ceiling, but it sounds really good in there and it’s comfortable. There’s something about staying in a zone where it’s not about me, it’s not about my career, it’s not about the money I want to make. It’s more about the music and connecting. Sometimes these things turn into hit songs that connect with a lot of people. Not personally, I haven’t had Mike Viola hit songs. I’m not surprised, because my music’s not made for that. It’s not.
I’ve also had people come at me like, man, you’re such a great songwriter, you could easily write a hit song. It’s like, that’s not true. There’s a lot that goes into that that has nothing to do with calculation and ability and craft or anything. I’m just of the mind that if you’re an artist, just be an artist. Some people really want to be a commercial artist, and that’s great, go for it. But I think for me, it’s really staying low to the ground and connected to those 250 people in those small clubs and keeping everything in a van feels (expletive) good to me. (laughs) It just does. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been in tour buses, private jets. I’ve done it with Panic!: we had a private jet and actually with the movie “Walk Hard,” we did a tour with Dewey Cox and we had a private jet and I’ve done those things. It’s fun, but nothing beats the van, man. It’s so great.
Speaking of Dewey Cox (played by John C. Reilly), I saw that the band’s going back out on tour. Are you going to be a part of that next year?
I am. Dewey texted me (laughs) a couple weeks ago, I think from the JPL lab in Pasadena. They took him out of some cryogenic storage and he texted me and he’s like – he calls me the Bard – ‘We need new songs. I got the greatest hit song makers all reaching out to me and my manager, but I want you.’ (laughs) So we’ve been starting to write. We’ve been starting to write songs, me and Dan Bern.
You’ve also been working on music for an upcoming Will Ferrell movie. Is that “Judgment Day”? How’s that been going working with these different comedians?
I’m just so lucky. It’s something about my music, like the tragedy in my music or something. There’s something about tragedy and comedy that just go hand in hand, and I am just really fortunate that I get the call when I do. I worked with Will last year on a John Oliver show spot that we did together, and I wrote a song and then I produced it, and he was just great. Working with him on this, I got to act in the movie, too. We were in the studio, it was with Zac Efron and Will and he was like, ‘We gotta get Viola in the movie.’ I was like, oh (crap), I’m not an actor. But it was really fun, so it was a blast, man
As a frontman in a band, you’re used to being in front of people, but it’s got to be different from an actor.
It really is a skill. It’s so foreign to me and I hate my picture being taken, but I’m not stoked about the way I look. I never loved the way I look. (laughs) So it’s just like, oh man, you want to put me in a movie? Come on! Then I think everybody’s making fun of me. I’m so self-aware and then just collapsing inside but apparently it came out really funny and it’s gonna be good. I just got back from Atlanta. I was just working with Zac again on some more vocals. He’s a great singer so it’s gonna be really cool.