The band were formed in Brighton in May 1992 by Mikey Georgeson, songwriter, singer, guitarist and keyboard player, Foz Foster, the ex-guitarist of the Monochrome Set, Jem Egerton, a classically trained musician, who played bass, and the drummer Graham Carlow.

Georgeson derived the name for his band from a second-hand copy of My Magic Life, the autobiography of the great English stage magician, David Devant (1868–1941).

Georgeson told the Sunday Times, "I knew it was lazy just to nick the name, David Devant and His Spirit Wife, so I decided to research the man.

[2] Georgeson explained the idea behind the band to the Brighton Punter magazine: "It's quite simple really, as a magician Devant didn't really fulfil himself so he said 'I shall walk down the corridors of contemporary music', so he chose us.

The line-up was completed by "the Lantern", who provided film and light, and two "Spectral Roadies", known as IceMAN (Nick Curry) and Cocky Young'un (Gary Smith), who accompanied the music with visual jokes and magic using cardboard props.

In concert, the Vessel, who wore a black pompadour Elvis wig and a pencil moustache, might appear flying on a magic carpet, projected as a shadow on a paper screen, or be sawn in half by the roadies.

At one Halloween concert, at the Duke of York's Picture House, Brighton, he was fired out of a cannon from the stage, emerging at the far end of the hall in tattered clothes, his face blackened.

After the 1997 release of their first album, Work, Lovelife, Miscellaneous,[4] the Radio One Breakfast DJ, Mark Radcliffe, told the Sunday Times, 'Initially I was intrigued by the look of them, by the name, by the image.