After high school, they played bass in a group with guitarist Kenny Lyon and members from bands such as Devo, Geza X, The Screamers, and Sparks.

[7] Metro Silicon Valley described IBOPA as a collision of "dance, lounge, disco, and ska" with the horror of Red Asphalt,[8] and noted the band for bringing attention to South Bay music.

[9] IBOPA was briefly signed to an Elektra Records subsidiary in 1999, and broke up in July 1999 when the label dropped most of its artists.

[10] Ten in the Swear Jar (abbreviated as XITSJ) continued IBOPA's "unusual approach" with eccentric and erratic music.

The band found its first tracks to match the "rotten realness" spirit of the film, "that sometimes life turns out with a worst possible case scenario".

Stewart described the period between Knife Play and A Promise as full of "really bad things" in their personal life.

[16] Brandon Stosuy of Pitchfork said that Stewart, "one of underground music's consistently brilliant anomalies", "came into [their] own" on A Promise, and that their vocal style was compared with Robert Smith, Annie Lennox, and Michael McDonald.

[19] Outside of music, Stewart said that they had written a "failed attempt" at a humorous novel based on "very, very peculiar sexual encounters" they had through their life.

Among their favorite authors, they listed Yukio Mishima, Dennis Cooper, Charles Bukowski, and Kenzaburō Ōe.

Stewart's father and uncle were both musicians and songwriters: Michael was the co-founder and guitarist of 1960s folk-rock group We Five and a music producer.