Violabajo by Violabajo

I first met Amelia, baby Aryeh in tow, at a Roomful of Teeth/Far Cry gig in JP 2014. We discovered that we both had Jersey, NEC and Arlington connections in common as well as a mutual love for The Raincoats. In the years since, I’ve roped her into adding Viola to my cruddy little guitar tunes and we’ve played a few Porchfests in our Menotomy town. After decades spent blowing out my eardrums playing in loud amplified rock bands, I was struck when I would listen back to our P’Fest recordings, by how rich and full a sound the Viola provided. How could I have forgotten the lessons taught by John Cale and the Velvets?

At the end of the day, I’m a bass player but I don’t get to play it as much as I would like, sadly. And for some odd reason, bassless bands proliferate in the indie rock world (Sleater-Kinney, White Stripes etc). In the Summer of 2019, I determined that I would write songs around the bass first and have the Viola take the place of the guitar for a change. At the same time, I wasn’t interested in having the Viola simply mimic the guitar nor was I interested in having the music be “Folk/Americana”. I wanted something in between…? And of course, I wanted drums.

There was no other person better for the job than my perennial bandmate and longtime friend Ernie Kim. Ernie had joined us on those Porchfest performances already and I knew his creativity would be a valuable asset behind the kit. I wrote a whole batch of basslines and words over the course of the Summer of 2019. I used my son’s Viola as a reference point and would throw hand-scribbled parts to Amelia and then giggle at how effortlessly she would sightread them. I was really excited to put the Viola, Bass and Drums all together to maybe play some shows in 2020…

We all know what happened next.

Here we all are now, though, “bruised, battered and scarred, but hard” as Chuck D said, finally finding our way back to the things we put on hold before the tidal wave swept the world. We may not have been able to all get together in the same room at the same time but Nicholas Burgess found a way to turn my living room into a studio and to unite these three elements technologically. As the wave slowly recedes, we may even find ourselves on the same stage, playing these tunes and many more for your open ears. In the meantime, here is a long overdue introduction to Violabajo!

Brian Church was born in Somerville, NJ. He lives outside of Boston, MA. He played bass and sang in Tristan Da Cunha. He sings classical music around Boston also. He is married and has two sons.