They produced two self-released albums before signing to Serjical Strike, Serj Tankian's vanity label at Universal Republic.
Tentative plans for a fifth album had been discussed at the end of the Arrows and Anchors touring cycle, but the band became inactive in 2013.
Fair to Midland was formed in 1998 by friends Andrew Darroh Sudderth and Cliff Campbell, both of Sulphur Springs, Texas.
[5] After their independent debut album in late 2001, The Carbon Copy Silver Lining, Pintler left the band and was replaced by Brett Stowers.
While he was replaced by Jon Dicken, still, a lack of progress, combined with increasing costs of self-funding all of their efforts, and Sudderth and Campbells college aspirations, led the band to contemplate breaking up.
[2][6] Shortly after signing to the Serjical Strike label, The Drawn and Quartered EP was released, featuring demo and live tracks from inter.funda.stifle, and a mini-documentary titled The Drawn and Quartered Kinescope, which served as an introduction of the band, including interviews and past concert footage.
For it, the band chose to rerecord many of the songs from inter.funda.stifle which they felt could benefit from a professional music producer and bigger production budget.
[2][10] Notably, they even teamed up Tankian at times for a live improvisational version of their song "The Walls of Jericho".
[12] In November, the band announced they had signed a record deal with E1 music, and that they were aiming for an early 2011 release date.
By March, they had revealed the title, Arrows and Anchors, and in April, they released the first single, "Musical Chairs", on iTunes.
As of September 2012, the band had finished touring in support of Arrows and Anchors, and announced intentions of creating a fifth album.