In 1977, friends Frank Navetta and David Nolte began writing songs on acoustic guitars with the intention of forming a band.

[2] In late 1978 Navetta, joined by drummer Bill Stevenson, and with Nolte switching from guitar to bass, revitalized the Descendents project.

[2][1] Nolte sang with the group at several of their early performances alongside Navetta, but by the spring of 1979, The Last were becoming more active and he left the Descendents again, being replaced by bassist Tony Lombardo.

"[4] Steven Blush, author of American Hardcore: A Tribal History, describes the single as "a blend of Devo-style new wave and Dick Dale-like surf.

"[1] Ned Raggett of AllMusic describes it as surf-inspired power pop with a New Wave edge: "Not quite Devo if they grew up on the coast, but there's something to that comparison.

"[5] After a six-month trial with a female singer, Cecilia Loera, they recruited Milo Aukerman as their new vocalist after Navetta and Lombardo got tired of singing.

It was a record which established the band's presence in the southern California hardcore punk movement with its short, fast, aggressive songs.

"[1] The album's title and cover illustration referenced Aukerman's departure from the band to study biology at the University of California, San Diego.

The band continued performing for a time with Ray Cooper on vocals, who would switch to rhythm guitar, when Aukerman made return visits to Los Angeles.

[6][12] Drummer Bill Stevenson acted as producer of the album, working with recording engineers Richard Andrews and Ethan James.

[6][12] The lyrics of "Hürtin' Crüe" derived from a high school classmate of singer Milo Aukerman who had earned a score of 1420 on the SAT, gaining him entry into the United States Military Academy.

[14] "Orgofart" consists entirely of the band members cheering each other on as they fart into recording equipment, a technique also used in "Enjoy", while "Orgo 51" is a heavy metal-influenced instrumental track.

[13] One week later, on Stevenson's birthday of September 10, Stephen Egerton and Karl Alvarez moved from Salt Lake City to fill the vacant guitar and bass positions.

[6][15] Dez Cadena sang backing vocals, while Stevenson created the album's cover graphics and Alvarez provided illustrations for the sleeve and liner notes.

"[1] Stevenson described the concept of "All" as "the total extent", and he and McCuistion had quickly written several short songs that would later be recorded by the Descendents, including "All" and "No, All!

Following Aukerman's departure the band added singer Dave Smalley of Dag Nasty and rechristened themselves All, a change Stevenson claimed he had wanted to make for eight years.

"[2] Aukerman described his decision to rejoin the band as "really just my re-entry into the song writing, I had been away for so long and I just wanted to make music which is what I love to do.

"[2] Everything Sucks was recorded in June and July 1996 at The Blasting Room, a studio built and run by Stevenson in Fort Collins, Colorado.

[18] The Descendents supported Everything Sucks with a series of tours from September 1996 to August 1997 covering the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe, touring with Swingin' Utters, the Bouncing Souls, the Suicide Machines, Shades Apart, Guttermouth, Less Than Jake, Handsome, Electric Frankenstein, Social Distortion, Pennywise, H2O, and others.

Stevenson explained that the gap of eight years between Descendents albums was due to the band members having children and to his father's death.

[27] A documentary called Filmage documenting the story behind the Descendents and All[28] premiered at Bloor Hot Docs cinema in Toronto on June, 15th 2013 as part of the NXNE Music and Film festival.

On April 22, 2016, it was announced that the band's next album, Hypercaffium Spazzinate, along with an accompanying EP with five bonus tracks from the recording sessions entitled Spazzhazard would be released through Epitaph in July.

[32] In July 2016, Milo announced he would be leaving his scientific career to pursue the Descendents full-time, citing burnout with biochemistry and getting laid off from DuPont.

[35] On May 4, 2021, the band put out a single called "Baby Doncha Know" and announced their eighth album that would be released on July 23 titled 9th & Walnut, named after the intersection in Long Beach, California, where their first rehearsal space was located.

The playing of the core band is even better than before, never mistaking increased skill with needing to show off; the Lombardo/Stevenson rhythm section is in perfect sync, while Navetta provides the corrosive power.

The songs on Everything Sucks and Cool to Be You address topics including love and relationships, sociopolitical commentary, the death of parents, nerdiness, and flatulence.

[7][40] "'Merican" addresses positive and negative aspects of American history, celebrating cultural figures such as Otis Redding, Duke Ellington, and Walt Whitman while condemning slavery, Joseph McCarthy, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Vietnam War.

[44] In addition to appearing on much of the Descendents' merchandise and promotional materials, the Milo character has been reinterpreted by other artists for all of the band's releases since 1996: The Descendents have been cited as hugely influential to a large number of modern-day punk bands such as Blink-182, MXPX, NOFX, Green Day, Pennywise, Propagandhi, Rise Against, the All-American Rejects, the Bouncing Souls, the Offspring, and the Ataris.

[48][49] "Everything about how I sing and play guitar came from this band [...] Blink is absolutely a product of The Descendents," said Blink-182 vocalist/guitarist Tom DeLonge in 2011,[50] while vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus called "Silly Girl" from I Don't Want to Grow Up (1985) "the first song that really altered my life.

[citation needed] In 2016, a Descendents branded IPA entitled "Feel This Coffee" was released by the San Diego branch of Mikkeller Brewery.