Viola Beach formed in Warrington, Cheshire, in mid-2013, the original members being Kris Leonard (guitar and vocals), Frankie Coulson (guitar), Jonny Gibson (bass), and Jack Dakin (drums). The band's last lineup was formed in May 2015 with original members Leonard and Dakin joined by River Reeves (guitar) and Tomas Lowe (bass).

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 self-financed the recording of their first single, "Swings & Waterslides", releasing it on their own record label Fuller Beans. The track was produced by Ady Hall and Lee McCarthy of Sugar House and recorded at Catalyst Studios in St Helens. "Swings & Waterslides" was added to the BBC Radio 1 playlist in September 2015.

The band were supported by BBC Introducing, a platform for emerging musical talent, which described their songs as "infectious anthems" with "hints of slacker pop". They performed at the BBC Introducing Stage of the 2015 Reading and Leeds Festivals. In November 2015, the band recorded a live session for BBC Radio 1. They released their second single, "Boys That Sing"/"Like a Fool", on the Communion label on 22 January 2016.

On 13 February 2016, the four band members and their manager, Craig Tarry, were killed in an incident on the E4 motorway bridge at Södertälje, southwest of Stockholm, Sweden. Witnesses saw the car fall through a gap in the bridge, which was open to let a boat pass. The band had played at the Where's the Music? festival in Norrköping the previous day. The cause of the crash was not immediately known. On 15 February 2016 it was announced that the Swedish police had opened an inquiry into the incident.

On 25 February 2016 a Stockholm police spokesperson was quoted as saying, “We can confirm that the very preliminary post mortem results show that the driver of the car had no trace of alcohol or drugs in the blood”. Police did not release the identity of the driver. On the same day, the police officer in charge of the investigation was quoted as saying, "We have been able to see that the car braked before reaching the bridge. That allows us to rule out that the driver fell asleep. But what has actually happened is completely inexplicable. Right now there is no hypothesis".

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_Beach