[1] Plum is proficient on multiple instruments and yet is entirely self-taught; his biography on the Making Fiends website claims his only formal musical training was completing a tap dance class at East Los Angeles College.

He has listed further influence from punk rock and new wave, in particular Devo, Oingo Boingo[3] and the Dead Kennedys, as well as the work of film composers Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann.

After making the rounds as a drummer in the Los Angeles punk scene, Plum's first break came in 1996 when he contributed several songs to the soundtrack of Blood Slaves of the Vampire Wolf, a no-budget independent horror film directed by Ed Wood regular Conrad Brooks.

[4] Plum spent most of his twenties working in a cubicle at the University of California, Los Angeles, making music in his spare time as a hobby, with a wish to score cartoons.

Critical response to the album was largely positive, including "highly recommended" praise from BlogCritics, which succinctly concluded their review with "[Ego Plum]'s got skillz".

[8] Plum continued his work in scoring animated television with the Disney Channel original series Star vs. the Forces of Evil, composing the ending credits theme with Daron Nefcy.

[12] Plum subsequently scored A Noise Within's 2012 adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and partnered with the Rogues again writing original songs and music for their 2013 production of Pinocchio.

According to J, he was "enormously impressed" by Plum's music: "All lush film noir atmospherics, Rotaesque strings and what sounded like the fever dreams of Raymond Scott.

[18] In 2009, Plum engineered and recorded drums and keyboards for the David J-produced Petits Fours, the debut album from Grand Duchy, a project fronted by Black Francis of the Pixies.

In December of that year, Plum accompanied J for a five-song set with Black Francis as part of an all-star benefit show at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, performing guitar, banjo and ukulele on covers of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy", Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last a Long Time", the Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven", "In Heaven" from Eraserhead and Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes".

Plum has worked on several projects with the Orange County comedy punk band The Radioactive Chicken Heads, receiving credits on their albums Growing Mold and Music for Mutants for additional guitar tracks and songwriting.

He also helped produce, arrange and record the debut album from the Chicken Heads garage pop side project the Purple Mums and in March 2015, Plum wrote and directed a three-act absurdist stage play entitled The Radioactive Chicken Heads Tanksgiving Special which premiered at The Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles, featuring the band performing live music to a comedic narrative featuring guest appearances from actor Dukey Flyswatter, Mike Odd of Rosemary's Billygoat and Hunter Jackson of GWAR.