asked their label, No Idea Records, for $3,000 of financial support to help repair their tour van, which was broken and had no air conditioning.

The band then met Fat Wreck Chords employee Toby Jeg at a show in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.

In order to ensure that McGregor would be familiar with the new songs by the time they went to Memphis, the band recorded demos for the entire album at his Goldentone Studios in their hometown of Gainesville, Florida on July 15 in the span of a few hours.

Laura Jane Grace explained the album's speed was due to the band's collective anxiety on making records after bluffing their way onto the label; "All these songs are too fucking fast.

Fat Wreck Chords did not care about the album's short length, something which Laura Jane Grace attributed to the label's focus on their new signing, None More Black, instead of the band.

as the Eternal Cowboy four stars out of five, remarking that "the Gainesville, FL, outfit may have embraced a slightly slicker production than with its fan favorite, Reinventing Axl Rose, but no matter how you stack it, As the Eternal Cowboy is an accomplished record of country-folk-punk that would only qualify as over-polished by the most hard-lined, anti-bar code punk kids' criteria.

"[1] Nick Greer of Sputnikmusic also scored the album four out of five, noting that "This CD is the first in their discography to include a more rock feel to the music.

Some songs are riff-based instead of chord progression-based, which utterly betrays punk and folk alike for rock and roll.

[14] Reflecting on the session, Grace remarked that "The Original Cowboy was only meant to be a trial run, but, listening to it today, there's a part of me that feels foolish for ever recording these songs a second time.

"[5] The label posted an MP3 of the demo version of "Unsubstantiated Rumors (Are Good Enough for Me to Base My Life On)" for free download prior to the album's release.

[15] Corey Apar of Allmusic gave The Original Cowboy only two and a half stars out of five, calling it "one of those records that forces an important question – why was this released?