Christopher Baio is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 musician, best known for being the bassist for the New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

-based indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 band Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The Band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard...

.

Early life

Baio was turned on to music at an early age, purchasing his first album at the age of seven and going to his first concert, a live performance by the band Cracker

Cracker (band)

Cracker is an American alternative rock band featuring founders/songwriters singer David Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman. They are best known for their platinum-selling 1993 album, Kerosene Hat, featuring the hit songs "Low", "Euro-Trash Girl", and "Get Off This".Founders Lowery and Hickman...

, at the age of nine. Baio said that, as a child, he would go to sleep with Doolittle

Doolittle (album)

Doolittle features an eclectic mix of musical styles. While tracks such as "Tame" and "Crackity Jones" are fast and aggressive, and incorporate the band's trademark loud–quiet dynamic, other songs such as "Silver", "I Bleed", and "Here Comes Your Man" reveal a quieter, slower and more melodic...

 by The Pixies playing.

Baio attended Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in New York, majoring in Russian and Eurasian Regional studies and minoring in Math, finally graduating in May of 2007. He served as College Rock Music Director of WBAR

WBAR

WBAR is the college radio station of Barnard College in New York City. Currently online-only, WBAR was developed as a freeform alternative to WKCR on the Columbia University campus. In addition to broadcasting an array of shows, WBAR hosts several shows per year in Morningside Heights, including...

 during his time at school.

He is a cousin of actor Scott Baio

Scott Baio

Scott Vincent James Baio is an American actor and television director, best known for his roles as Chachi Arcola on the sitcom Happy Days and its spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi, and as the title character on the sitcom Charles in Charge....

, who played Chachi Arcola on Happy Days

Happy Days

Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....

 and Charles on the hit 80's television program Charles in Charge

Charles in Charge

Charles in Charge is an American sitcom series which starred Scott Baio as Charles, a 19-year-old student at the fictional Copeland College in New Jersey, who worked as a live-in babysitter in exchange for room and board...

.

Musical career

During high school, Baio was lead guitarist, song writer, and vocalist in a local Bronxville, NY band known as Underrated.

Baio was in a country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

-influenced band called the Midnight Hours with Vampire Weekend's current drummer, Chris Tomson

Chris Tomson

Chris Tomson is the drummer of New York based indie rock band Vampire Weekend.-Background:Tomson grew up on a farm in Imlaystown . His father is an engineer and his family is of Irish and Ukrainian heritage . His full name is Christopher William Tomson...

 at Columbia University, where the rest of the Vampire Weekend band members were also attending. Following the breakup of Midnight Hours, Baio was working as a DJ as a side job until Vampire Weekend was created. The band members got straight to rehearsing for their first gig, which was booked before the band had even started practicing.

A year after Baio graduated, Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album

Vampire Weekend (album)

-Japanese Bonus Tracks:-Personnel:*Ezra Koenig – lead vocals, guitar, piano, hand drum*Rostam Batmanglij – organ, chamberlin, piano, harpsichord, guitar, vocal harmonies, drum and synth programming, shaker, producer, string arrangements, engineering, mixing...

 was released. It peaked at number 15 on the UK Album Chart and number 17 on Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

. Also one of the album's singles, "A-Punk

A-Punk

"A-Punk" is a single by indie rock band Vampire Weekend, released on February 28, 2008. The band made their network television debut by performing "A-Punk" on The Late Show with David Letterman...

" was voted the 4th best song of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine in addition to being featured in the film Step Brothers

Step Brothers (film)

Step Brothers is a 2008 American slapstick buddy-comedy film directed by Adam McKay, produced by Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller, and stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, who originally teamed up in Talladega Nights . The screenplay was written by Ferrell and McKay, from a story written by Ferrell,...

 with Will Ferrell

Will Ferrell

John William "Will" Ferrell is an American comedian, impressionist, actor, and writer. Ferrell first established himself in the late 1990s as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, and has subsequently starred in the comedy films Old School, Elf, Anchorman, Talladega...

 and John C. Reilly

John C. Reilly

John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...

, and the popular UK television series The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners

The Inbetweeners is a British sitcom which aired for three series from 2008 to 2010 on E4. Created and written by Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, the show follows the life of suburban teenager Will , and three of his friends at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive. The Inbetweeners Movie was...

. On June 14, 2008 they played Central Park SummerStage in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, and a benefit for democracy in October.

In January 2010 Contra

Contra (album)

Contra is the second album by American indie rock band Vampire Weekend, released in January 2010 on XL Recordings. It debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 200...

 was released, the band's second album. It reached number one on the Billboard 200

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 and on January 9, 2010 the band appeared on MTV Unplugged

MTV Unplugged

MTV Unplugged is a TV series showcasing many popular musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.-Unplugged:...

. Then on March 6, 2010, the band appeared as the musical guests on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

; the second time the band had appeared on the show.

Musical Influences

In an interview with the British newspaper column "Hugs and Kisses 23" Baio said, in reply to the question 'what his favorite album of all time was', "Queen

Queen (band)

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...

, Classic Queen

Classic Queen

-Charts:...

. I still like it. It could be Greatest Hits. It's the one with 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on it. They were selling it on MTV with an ad trailer featuring the guys from "Wayne's World"

Wayne's World (film)

Wayne's World is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Penelope Spheeris and starring Mike Myers in his film debut as Wayne Campbell and Dana Carvey as Garth Algar, hosts of the Aurora, Illinois-based Public-access television cable TV show Wayne's World...

 singing along to it in the car. I was maybe seven, and I was like, I really like that song, so I'll get that album."

Vampire Weekend also used The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 as an influence saying to Columbia University's alumni journalist "they played extremely popular music but at the same time drew upon Eastern and Western sources. Whereas today, rock music

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 has killed itself by being so white bread. We’re trying to mix sounds that are old and new and sounds that are Western and that are not Western. I think that’s our vibe.” The band also has taken its style from a form of music called Afrobeat

Afrobeat

Afrobeat is a combination of traditional Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, funk and chanted vocals, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularised in Africa in the 1970s. Its main creator was the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Fela Kuti, who gave it its name, who used it to...

 which is a mix between jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, and highlife

Highlife

Highlife is a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s and spread to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920...

, all cemented together by heavy traditional African influences. Before Vampire Weekend, Rostam Batmanglij

Rostam Batmanglij

Rostam Batmanglij is a producer and multi-instrumentalist of New York-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend and co-founder of electro-soul group Discovery.-Background:...

 and Chris Tomson were in a bluegrass

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 band
called Lion in the Grass, as well.

Equipment

Baio's primary bass is an old hollow-body Kustom

Kustom

Kustom Amplification or Kustom Electronics is a manufacturer of guitar and bass amplifiers and PA equipment and accessories based in Hebron, Kentucky. It is part of the Hanser Music Group as of 1999, which also includes B.C. Rich Guitars, and Traben Bass.- History :"Kustom" was a brand and...

 brand bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 in teal. He also is frequently seen using a Rickenbacker 4003

Rickenbacker 4001

The Rickenbacker 4001 is a bass guitar that was manufactured by Rickenbacker as a "deluxe model" of the 4000 between 1961 and 1981 before being replaced by an updated version, the Rickenbacker 4003...

 bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

 and an Epiphone

Epiphone

The Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Musical Instrument Company, which also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market...

 Jack Casady

Jack Casady

Jack Casady , is an American musician considered one of the foremost bass guitarists of the rock music era and best known as a member of Jefferson Airplane. First playing as a lead guitarist with the Washington D.C...

 bass guitar

Bass guitar

The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....

See also

• Vampire Weekend
  Vampire Weekend
  Vampire Weekend is an American indie rock band from New York City that formed in 2006 and signed to XL Recordings. The Band has four members: Ezra Koenig, Rostam Batmanglij, Chris Tomson, and Chris Baio. The band released its first album Vampire Weekend in 2008, which produced the singles "Mansard...