The band is led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Matt Mahaffey, additionally consisting of keyboardist Chris James, bassist Mac Burrus, and drummer Jason Rawlings.

The group began as a duo on Spongebath Records with the Mahaffey brothers, immediately picked up by Zoo Entertainment to release their debut album, Subliminal Plastic Motives (1995).

After expanding the lineup for live performances, the band embraced an experimental approach with The Half-Baked Serenade (1997), followed by a compilation of demos, Feels Like Breakin' Shit (1998).

In 2000, Gizmodgery, an album created entirely with toy instruments, showcased the band's creativity and featured the fan-favorite single "Trunk Fulla Amps".

Matt Mahaffey pursued solo projects, including Wired All Wrong, and continued producing music for other artists.

While James worked with Prince, Rawlings played drums in Suburban Tragedy, and Burrus joined the Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Self reunited for the EP Super Fake Nice (2014), highlighted by the single "Runaway", and celebrated the twentieth anniversary of Subliminal Plastic Motives with a vinyl reissue and live performances.

Simultaneously, his band Ella Minopy with Seth Timbs disbanded, and Spongebath Records was founded by the two and talent manager Richard Williams.

[8] After release, Self recruited three more members for live performances: keyboardist Chris James, a college friend of Mahaffey; drummer Jason Rawlings, from the local band Brian Cuzies; and bassist Tim Nobles.

He additionally felt that his first album gave the band an inaccurate public image, reinforced by Mahaffey's discomfort with his extravagant new lifestyle.

[3] Various scrapped songs and demos of the Subliminal Plastic Motives and The Half-Baked Serenade were saved by Mahaffey,[8] later compiled into a disc titled Feels Like Breakin' Shit.

Their significantly higher budget led the band to collaborate with acclaimed musicians, including Ken Andrews of Failure, Richard Dodd, and Hugh Padgham.

[11] Multiple issues occurred during this process, such as file corruption,[12] disagreements over singles for the album,[5] and numerous delays in the release date.

[11] "Paint by Numbers" was released as the first single of Breakfast with Girls on July 21, 1998,[15] as part of the soundtrack for the 1998 film Dead Man on Campus.

[9] To achieve the desired sound, Mahaffey extensively used Pro Tools to equalize and fix the audio's abundant mid-range frequencies.

[2][24][25] A music video for it was published in February 2001 as part of MTV's "Indie Day", but wasn't aired due to Self's DreamWorks connection.

[27] The compilation features scrapped songs and demos from the writing sessions of Gizmodgery and includes "Resurrect", the Japanese bonus track of the toy album.

Several videos of songs from the DVD, including the "Back in Black" cover, have been posted online on Mahaffey's MySpace and YouTube profiles.

Rawlings played drums in a group called Suburban Tragedy, and Mahaffey also formed a new band, Wired All Wrong, with former God Lives Underwater member Jeff Turzo.

[41] A sold-out reunion show at Exit/In in Nashville was played on December 29, 2012, with Fluid Ounces guitarist Brian Rogers filling Mike Mahaffey's position.

[30] Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the band performed the entire album at Gramercy Theater in New York City on January 10.