After forming under the name Sefler in 1994, Saves the Day released their debut studio album, Can't Slow Down, through Equal Vision Records in 1998.

[7][8] Sefler was a four-piece band, formed in 1994, which performed in the New Jersey area, and featured Chris Conley on bass guitar and vocals.

The album had a poppier feel, with more intricate guitar work and arrangements rather than the previous power chord-based sound.

[10] With the success of Stay What You Are, Saves the Day signed with major label DreamWorks Records, who would co-release their next album with Vagrant, who still had them under contract.

The album was dedicated to former bassist Sean McGrath, who died in 2004 at age 28, after a two-year battle with intestinal cancer.

Saves the Day was relatively inactive in 2004, though during that time they set up their own studio, The Electric Ladybug, located in Chico, California.

I felt like all twisted up and broken inside and just angry and confused and depressed and sad and I couldn't really deal with the world or myself.

So I dove into the depths of my mind and brought out what I was finding, so the first album was filled with all the anger, the surface pain, and all the paranoid delusional thoughts that were there.

So Daybreak is coming to terms with everything and trying to understand why I actually got that way and learning to accept it by exploring what it is and why it was there and simultaneously trying to grow through it and be a better person, not purely full of anger.

Chris Conley said in an interview that the next Bug Sessions would be a collection of live songs recorded on their 30-date acoustic tour.

[16] Continuing this string of events, on December 21, it was announced that bassist Manuel Carrero and drummer Durijah Lang would be leaving to focus on Glassjaw.

In September 2010, Peterson's personal website announced that he had left Saves the Day and joined Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz's new electropop group Black Cards.

In October 2010, the band announced that they would be selling dropcards to access a digital-only EP, 1984, while on tour with Say Anything and Motion City Soundtrack.

This was the first time Saves the Day had released an album without a single band member (besides Conley) having played on an earlier record.

In a December 2011 interview, Chris Conley revealed that an eighth Saves the Day album was in the works and that he was hoping that the band would be back in the studio in the fall of 2012 to record it.

They released a demo to "pledgers" of one of the songs on the new album, "Ain't No Kind of Love", when pledging started.

[18] On May 20, 2013, it was announced that Dennis Wilson had joined Saves the Day on a permanent basis, replacing former drummer Claudio Rivera.

and Hostage Calm supporting, and a North American holiday acoustic tour, with Walter Schreifels and Jon Simmons.

[23] Conley admitted to "making an unacceptable number of inappropriate missteps causing irreversible harm" and said "I am truly ashamed and embarrassed by my abhorrent behavior."

Equal Vision Records, which released Saves the Day and 9, stated "We are working diligently to uncover the truth behind what happened and our actions moving forward will reflect what we are able to find.

"[24] In 2009, Chris Conley and former Saves the Day guitarist David Soloway got together with Max Bemis and Coby Linder of Say Anything to form the supergroup Two Tongues.