[3] Doe moved to Los Angeles, California, and in 1976 met guitar player Billy Zoom through an ad in the local free weekly paper, The Recycler.

[4] As a musician with X, Doe has two feature-length concert films, several music videos, and an extended performance-and-interview sequence in The Decline of Western Civilization, Penelope Spheeris's seminal documentary about the early-1980s L.A. punk scene.

Doe recorded the song "Unforgiven" in 2007 with Aimee Mann on A Year in the Wilderness, an album which also featured Kathleen Edwards, Jill Sobule, Dan Auerbach.

"The Meanest Man in the World" by Doe was featured in Season 4 of the television series Friday Night Lights and included on the second soundtrack album.

The label was founded by The Grahams, who originally met with John Doe to record the session in Austin, TX at the ChurchHouse, produced by David Garza.

Other movie acting credits include Road House, Vanishing Point, Salvador, Boogie Nights, The Specials, The Good Girl, Gypsy 83, Wyatt Earp, Border Radio, The Outsiders, and Brokedown Palace.

Doe has appeared on the television series Law & Order, Roswell, Carnivale, One Tree Hill, Childrens Hospital (alongside his bandmates in X) and The Wizards of Waverly Place.

The book, Under the Big Black Sun, incorporated the punk ethos of contributions from other musicians that were part of the scene, people like Exene Cervenka, Jack Grisham, Henry Rollins, Mike Watt, Jane Wiedlin and others who wrote chapters.