The group, based in Vancouver, has continued to perform, including tour dates in support of the release of two studio albums, Men Without Hats Again (Parts 1 & 2), in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Men Without Hats was founded in Montreal in 1977, initially as a punk rock band featuring Ivan Doroschuk (vocals), Pete Seabrooke (guitar), Dave Hill (bass), and John Gurrin (drums).

[2] Years earlier, while in high school, Arrobas and the Doroschuk brothers had played together in a short-lived band called Wave 21,[1] along with drummer Igor Krichevsky.

[citation needed] Many years later, Stefan would reuse the Wave 21 name for a country-pop band founded in the late 2010s with his daughters Mary-Lynn and Emmy-Lou.

The Doroschuk brothers, all three of whom are classically trained musicians[citation needed], were born in Champaign, Illinois while their father, a Canadian, was earning a doctoral degree.

[5] Ivan and Stefan (now promoted to full membership status) subsequently recruited Allan McCarthy (percussion, electronics) to join the group, and recorded their 1982 full-length debut album Rhythm of Youth.

Adding Pierre (who had guested on Rhythm of Youth) as an official fourth member, Men Without Hats released the album Folk of the 80's (Part III) in 1984.

The group's next album, The Adventures of Women & Men Without Hate in the 21st Century, released in 1989, featured a cover of ABBA's song "SOS".

The 1991 album Sideways, dominated by electric guitars instead of keyboards, revealed a dramatically different sound for the band, based in part on Ivan's exposure to Nirvana.

[citation needed] After disbanding, lead singer Ivan and keyboardist Bruce Murphy went on to record several demos in 1993 for a concept album tentatively titled UFO's Are Real, which was never released.

[10] Under the name MacKenzie-Parker Gang, Stefan and Mack MacKenzie (of the Canadian alt-country band Three O'Clock Train) released Ride for Glory (1999), a post-modern Western-themed album.

Ivan reformed Men Without Hats in 2010 as the frontman and lead vocalist, and was joined by musicians Derek Mansfield (synths) James Love (guitar) & Lou Dawson (synths) [12] The band returned on September 24, 2010, at the Rifflandia Music Festival in Victoria, British Columbia, performing ten songs and hits from the Men Without Hats back catalogue.

[14] Despite these initial reactions, the band's "Dance If You Want Tour" opened in March 2011 with a well-attended and positively received performance at Austin's South by Southwest event.

[15] In June 2011, Ivan told a festival audience that the group would record a new studio album, announcing the news at North by Northeast in Toronto.

The album was originally to be titled Folk of the 80's (Part IV), but in March 2012, the band posted on Facebook that it would be called Love in the Age of War and would be released that summer.

Ogilvie and Doroschuk set out to faithfully reproduce and update the group's classic synthesizer sound of the 1980s, intentionally making a follow-up album to 1982's Rhythm of Youth.

After the album was recorded, Doroschuk doubled down on the band's synthesizer-heavy sound by replacing Olexson with Vancouver musician Rachel Ashmore, on keyboards and backing vocals, as the group's second synthesist.