Mark Buchanan and Sean Ou Tim were veterans of the music industry, each being involved with numerous experimental, and many successful South African bands over the years.
In the year prior to the formation of Max Normal, Tudor Jones released his debut solo album Memoirs of a Clone, which featured the band on some of the tracks.
Max Normal was formed in 2001 by Mark Buchanan (electric bass/electric guitar), Sean Ou Tim (drums/keyboards/samples), Simon Ringrose (turntables/backing vocals) and Watkin Tudor Jones (vocals/programming).
[5] In early 2008, the final Max Normal release Good Morning South Africa was bought out and the band broke up soon afterwards, to concentrate on Tudor Jones' new project Die Antwoord.
As a footnote of what was to come of Die Antwoord, the album Good Morning South Africa gave out certain references as various lyrics, ideas and beats were used on the debut web release of $O$.