Canada recruited friend and Texas based blues rock singer and songwriter Seth James to be co-lead on guitar and vocals, well known red dirt keyboardist Steve Littleton, and fellow Yukon, Oklahoma native Dave Bowen on drums.
The band's cover version of the Red Dirt Rangers song "Staring Down the Sun" was the only released single from the album.
On August 24, 2012, now billed as simply The Departed, the band announced on its website and in social media that it would release its first original album, Adventūs (Latin for "arrival") on November 13, 2012, on Underground Sound.
The band moved to an alternative rock and grunge sound with driving electric guitars and the power vocals of James and Canada.
East Texas native Ross Smith replaced Littleton on keyboards and took up rhythm guitars, while Eric Hansen became the drummer in place of Doege.
In late November 2015, the band produced a music video for the song "All Nighter" on HippieLovePunk at John T. Floore's Country Store in Helotes, Texas.
The song and the video were dedicated to the former bass guitar player for Micky and the Motorcars Mark McCoy, who had died in Idaho in 2012 while on vacation.
In early 2016, the band announced on social media that it would be releasing an album consisting of cover versions of classic country songs.
This project was named Jeremy Plato And The Departed: In Retrospect, honoring 1960s era country music with songs by Johnny Paycheck, Stonewall Jackson and Charlie Walker, among others.