Epiphone Viola Bass - so confused!

Hello, hoping for some input here!

I Picked up a Epiphone Viola bass last week. I immediately changed the strings to some Chrome flats, medium scale, fit great. This is my first experience with a floating bridge, but I expected to have to mark it and check intonation both because it’s brand new and from changing the strings. Anyway, after all of that I’ve got an issue where when playing acoustically (meaning just not through an amp) I am getting what sounds almost like distortion on some notes. At first I thought it was the bridge or the tail piece, and while I can stop it by shoving some foam or cloth under the tail piece to dampen or mute it, it actually seems like the actual cause could be the top layer of the body veneer (I don’t know if that’s the correct terminology…) becoming unstuck from the body. Like when I push down firmly on the body of the bass, anywhere around or below the bridge pickup, the issue stops momentarily, and I can audibly hear a clicky sound when I release the pressure of pushing down almost like it’s sticking/unsticking. I really don’t even know if that would make sense as a potential cause of the issue, and I’m trying to figure out If maybe I just need a tech to do a real setup or if I should be considering exchanging the bass where I got it. Any input would be appreciated.

thanks
Steve

 

Thanks, yeah I got in touch with the shop where I got it, I’ll drop it off there and see what they say. Thanks for the responses.