Hefner's roots stretch back to 1992, when Darren Hayman and Antony Harding met at art school in Kent.

Dead Media is certainly different from previous records in the sense of its electronic weight,[2] an interest that led Darren to eventually create The French.

After the band's final gig at the ICA in London on 10 December 2001 and the release of an EP called The Hefner Brain the following March, the band went on a seemingly permanent hiatus, save for one reformation for the "Keeping It Peel" tribute show, marking the death of one of their biggest supporters, Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

In 2005 a T-shirt was released that read "Hefner, Britain’s Largest Small Band (1997–2002)", and in an interview Darren Hayman said "no, no reunion planned".

[citation needed] The band recorded ten sessions for John Peel's BBC Radio One programme, as well as a number of live performances, and eleven of their tracks made it into the Festive 50.

[5] Darren Hayman and Jack Hayter played Hefner songs at a number of dates in Europe in June 2008.