"We're too old to bother unless it's gonna be worth it. This music is worth it."
-- Matt (Wellvis) Hahn.
Matt Hahn is an award-winning family physician (Maryland Family Doctor of the Year 2025). Before that, though, he was a rock 'n' roll front man for DC's Young Caucasians. They made vinyl records, toured hard, and opened for everybody from the Ramones to NRBQ, but it came to an end after 8 years. Hahn went to medical school, and for the next three decades he was known as Doctor Hahn.
Karl Straub is a well-known Washington, DC area songwriter and guitar ace. After recording two albums of his original material with his band, the Graverobbers, Karl went back to school at Howard University to get trained in classical, jazz, and music composition. Karl's songs have been recorded by a bunch of artists in different genres, including Virginia Coalition, Last Train Home, Kelly Willis, Eugene Chadbourne, and the Kennedys. Two Straub recordings were used in a Netflix movie called "I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore," starring Melanie Lynskey and Elijah Wood. Karl teaches his innovative songwriting method, the Song Factory system, in group classes and individual lessons.
Matt saw Karl playing psychedelic honky-tonk lead guitar with Paisley Tonk; they had both known the bandleader Colonel Josh for many years. Matt told Karl he liked his guitar work; Karl remembered being in the audience when Matt's band played 35 years earlier.
Not long after they met, Covid hit, and Matt's small rural medical practice was was on the front lines of the crisis.
But in August 2020, a vicious dog attack left Matt with a severe hand injury. During the long months of recovery, Matt thought about his dream of playing rock 'n' roll again. He had always intended to add nasty electric guitar to his singing skills. He had almost lost his chance (and his hand). He took it as a sign. And playing electric guitar was a great way to rehabilitate his injured hand.
Matt spent the next 5 years building his hand strength back up, practicing on a Fender Telecaster. And then he called Karl. Would Karl be interested in playing superlong guitar solos in a band covering the Stooges, the Faces, Bowie, T. Rex, and the Cramps? Yes, apparently.
They formed a band, and Matt named it Wellvis.
The name Wellvis is a combination of wellness and Elvis. When he was known as Doctor Hahn, Matt always encouraged patients to take care of themselves, and current research shows that music makes a huge contribution to people's wellness. If you boil it down -- rock 'n' roll is good for you. (One of the few human activities that lights up your brain as much as music is dancing, by the way.)
Wellvis -- we make rock 'n' roll that's good for you, baby!
While they were woodshedding on Stooges and Bo Diddley songs, Matt decided to take a few of Karl's songwriting classes. The songwriting bug bit him, and he started writing his own material. It quickly turned into an obsession.
At first, Matt was coming up with song ideas, turning them into verses, choruses, and bridges, and asking Karl to doctor them here and there. Working this way, they ended up with some songs they really liked, inc. Superhigh, Brandine, and You Gotta Let Go (If You Want To Rock And Roll). Matt bought some recording gear and set up a home studio, and they started cutting tracks with the help of engineer Boris Dancy, Karl's longtime production partner.
Then, one fateful day, they shifted into creative overdrive, employing a controversial method sociologists refer to as SIBWOOT (Snowed In, But Wife Out Of Town).
This method, which people tend to assume involves sleep deprivation and a diet high in chicken wings and root beer, led to a new level of obsessive writing and writing and writing. They got deep into a song called The Best Thing, revising it over and over every day from early morning to late at night. When the snow melted, they had a lovely tribute to Matt's wife Bibi, whose absence had made their new level of focus possible. Also made possible-- their new level of chicken wing and root beer intake. People's assumptions, it turned out, were correct.