Viola Beach

Viola Beach were an English indie rock group formed in Warrington in 2013. The band's final line-up consisted of Kris Leonard (vocals, guitar), River Reeves (guitar), Tomas Lowe (bass), and Jack Dakin (drums). All four, along with their manager Craig Tarry, were killed during their first overseas tour when their car fell from a bridge in the Swedish city of Södertälje on 13 February 2016. As of 2025, founding members Frankie Coulson (guitar) and Jonny Gibson (bass) are the last surviving members of the band.

In the week following the crash, their single "Boys That Sing" entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 80 and their previous single "Swings & Waterslides" entered at No. 11 following a public campaign to boost sales. In the same week, "Swings & Waterslides" also entered at No. 3 on the sales-only chart (which excludes streaming data) and "Boys That Sing" entered at No. 27 on the same chart. On 29 July 2016, the self-titled album was posthumously released. It reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart on 5 August 2016.

Career

Viola Beach formed in Warrington in May 2013, the original members being Kris Leonard (guitar and vocals), Frankie Coulson (guitar), Jonny Gibson (bass), and Jack Dakin (drums). The band's final line-up was formed when Coulson and Gibson opted to leave the band in 2015 in order to focus on their university studies, and were replaced by River Reeves (guitar) and Tomas Lowe (bass) respectively.

By September of their formation year, their track "Daisies" was featured on Bandcamp's The Indie Cassette Player's (now known as The Mill Records) second compilation album, with "Love My Love" being featured on the website's third compilation album in October. The band's Twitter profile tweeted on 16 September 2013 "Daisies is being featured on @IndieCassPlayer compilation vol 2 this month which is dead lovely!"