Geographically speaking, Virginia Coalition are from Alexandria. Musically speaking, Virginia Coalition are from a million different places. New Orleans. Liverpool. Memphis. Detroit. Appalachia. Athens, Georgia. Wherever Paul Simon was on the map, depending on the album. The Caribbean before it got ruined by Jimmy Buffett. Overnight radio out of DC during the Marion Barry years. Alan Thicke’s cerebral cortex when he was writing theme music for sitcoms. R and B when Jheri Curl was a thing. Soundtracks to John Hughes movies. Workout montage songs from the 80s that always seemed to have the word “winner” in them. Piano-heavy coffee advertisements. Local car dealership jingles. Junkyard and James Taylor. REM and EU. The Beatles and Bela Fleck. It’s all in there somewhere and somehow.

The band is a collection of suburban latchkey kids with tons of musical equipment who all came together in basements and living rooms and clandestine keg parties all over Alexandria. Everybody went to college. Everybody got a little smarter and a little better and a little more experienced. Everybody came back and started playing in bars in Virginia, DC, and Maryland. Then they started playing on the surprisingly lucrative Shenandoah Valley fraternity party circuit. Then clubs. Then bigger clubs. Then clubs out of town. Then bigger clubs out of town. Then a record. Then tours. Then another record. Then more tours. Then another record. Then more tours, and so on and so on. This sort of schedule isn’t possible these days, but they haven’t ever stopped playing, and haven’t been able to figure out why anyone would.