Drawing from roots rock, folk, gospel, and psychedelic music, the band's image and sound evoke the hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

members are Nicolo Aglietti, Mark Noseworthy, Orpheo McCord, Josh Collazo, Christian Letts, Seth Ford-Young, Mitchell Yoshida, Crash Richard, Stewart Cole, and Alex Ebert.

The band also operated Big Sun, a non-profit focused on funding and developing co-ops and land trusts in urban areas around the world.

[4] After years of the Los Angeles party life and subsequent drug addiction, Ima Robot frontman Alex Ebert broke up with his girlfriend, moved out of his house, and spent time in rehabilitation.

[5] During this time, Ebert began to write a book about a messianic figure named Edward Sharpe who was "sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind, but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love."

"[6] Ebert began initial writing and recording completely alone, doing "the horn lines with [his] mouth or a kazoo on the demos" and "all the background vocals layering ... pretending that there were people there.

Says Ebert, "My dad would be doing therapy in his office upstairs and I'd hear screamings, because they'd be role-playing and he'd be acting as his patient's father and they'd get upset and hit him and all this stuff.

The tour was also the subject of Grammy-nominated director Emmett Malloy's latest documentary Big Easy Express, which strove to capture "the pure joy of music" through Americana folk imagery.

In an in-depth interview with Transverso Media, Ebert explained his desire to evolve on PersonA, stating, "In a lot of ways this album does things that are missing."

"[7] As of marketing on the band's Facebook page in 2013[16]: As listed in the iTunes LP for the most recent album, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, 2013, or present tour: In addition to Arntz and Embry: