The original five members formed from other bands from the Bay Area scene, with Omar Cuellar and Matt Fazzi previously playing together in Tragedy Andy and Eric Frederic and Rene Carranza in Locale A.M.. Bass player Brandon Canchola was added to complete the line up. In early 2004, the group participated in the VansWarped Tour 2004 on select dates. They sold their self-released EP, Swimming Not Treading to customers queuing to get into the shows, and it was successful enough to get the band signed to Five One, Inc. The band's self-titled album was released on August 30, 2005. In March 2006, the band undertook a tour with fellow label mates Eastern Youth, and then with Taking Back Sunday in the Western United States in April of the same year. The tour then lead them traveling as far as Japan, in early June 2006, to do a series of shows again with Eastern Youth and the Japanese indie rock group, Toe. In July 2006, Carranza stated he would be leaving the band to go back to school. Carranza played his last show on September 1 in San Francisco, and the remaining members finished off the remainder of 2006 with a headlining tour throughout the US, with friend and label mate Gavin Castleton filling in. In March 2007, the band participated in the South by Southwestmusic festival and wrote new material which they performed at the festival. Fazzi played his final show with the band on April 19, 2008 at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill. The encore featured Carranza back again on keyboards for a dramatic finale. It was revealed on May 5 that Fazzi had joined Taking Back Sunday, after the departure of Fred Mascherino. The band released their second album, Get Hot, on October 14, 2008. The album received a B+ rating from The A.V. Club, with reviewer Chris Martins calling the album "worth discovering...a sturdy work that's artful as well as entertaining". The band has cited Pixies, The Jesus Lizard, and Yes to Talk Talk, Failure and Shudder To Think among their influences. They were described by Allmusic as "a second-generation emo band with some progressive and post-rock tendencies". The LA Weekly described the band: "There's some prog-rock here, a little Steely Dan sophistication, and a whole lot of Parliament-Funkadelic's surrealistic whimsy, filtered through the band's non-genre-specific rambling." Frederic also performs solo as Ricky Reed. In November 2018, the band announced via Instagram that their third full-length album, entitled "Dogtown," would be released December 14th.
