They joined the thriving inner-city music scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s that featured artists such as The Cosmic Psychos, Frenzal Rhomb, and Kiss My Poodles Donkey, as well as Tumbleweed, The Meanies and Nitocris.
Nunbait were leaders in the second wave of punk inspired bands that followed the Black Eye Records groups, such as Thug, Lubricated Goat and Box the Jesuit.
[2] In the late-1980s, Butcher, Fraser and Guthrie had each migrated separately from Queensland to the Sydney suburb of Newtown, where they formed the band with Doherty, a native of Mudgee, who took up drums despite limited experience.
[1] The band's first release was a 500-copy run of a self-pressed single, "Track Trauma" (June 1990) on Masterbait Music Inc.[1] After winning a battle of the bands at Sydney's Lansdowne Hotel, Nunbait secured a contract with local underground label, Waterfront Records,[4] and released an extended play, The Hub (named after a Newtown porn theatre), in the same year, which was produced by Stu Spasm.
[7] The band's final release, on tiny Melbourne label Hippy Knight, was a hastily mixed album, Busted, the production of which left the members extremely dissatisfied.