Vienna is Matt Wood and John Cotter. The way Vienna works is a little different than most bands. Vienna is a dual lead-singer band; Matt sings lead on the songs he writes and John sings lead on the songs he writes. John sings harmonies for Matts songs, Matt sings harmonies for John's songs; It works the same for guitar.

The lyrics are all from personal experiences. As Matt says, "We write what we know." The songs are about life, truth, and relationships. Death, love, and exposing lies.

Vienna is trying to build a foundation. For now, its all guitars/vocals. But eventually, drums and bass will be added. Too many good bands end too fast because no foundation was layed.

In Vienna's music you will definately hear influences of Dashboard (before MTV), Early November (acoustic stuff), Startling Line (acoustic stuff), Mineral, Ida Minus the Bear. You might hear influences of Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football , John Mayer, Smashing Pumpkins, Chevelle (before radio), Incubus, the Beatles, Thursday....

John started playing guitar in 10th grade. His first attempt at singing/writing music was with Alissa Robison in 1997; They wrote a few songs together. John recorded a twelve song solo album in Summer 2000 with the recording help of Chris Wilson and Jason Rundell. John moved on to college and to another duo with Zach Anselmo. Meanwhile, Matt was playing bass for a band called Many Sparrows. Matt's band split and the John and Zach duo faded because of distance. John and Matt met at Young Life through mutual friends.

One day, at a birthday party, a guitar was laying around. Matt played some songs he wrote which John immediately loved. John then played some songs that Matt loved. John said, "Hey Matt let's bust out some jams." So, John and Matt began playing together in mid 2002. Time passed full of practicing and a few small gigs. During that time John's brother, Michael, started getting really good at bass. John met Devin, a percussion major at Towson University, through mutual friends.

John and Matt had been thinking about a name for the band for a while and finally settled with Vienna. The name came from one night in Devin's apartment trying to think about a name. John picked up one of Devin's textbooks to look for a cool phrase. He found Vienna and suggested it to the band who gave the old "wink and gun". Vienna is a city in Austria which many consider the birthplace of classical music.

John finally purchased some recording equiptment. Currently, John and Matt are recording a demo CD. No drums or bass will be featured on the demo, but eventually new recordings with drums and bass will be released. The demo will also feature Nikki Rudolf (girl vocals on a song), Devin Livingston (shaker on a song), Jennie Beck (violin on a couple songs). John and Matt will begin selling/distributing the demo, playing at local gigs, and they will see what happens from there.