Stevens' friend Chris Skane played guitar in an early incarnation of The Exies, but left citing other priorities.
When the Beatles were touring around Hamburg, Germany in the 1960s, they encountered three distinct social groups among the kids: the mods, the rockers, and the art students (who referred to themselves as "the existentialists").
While touring, they caught the attention of Grammy-winning record producer, Matt Serletic, who bought their contract from the indie label they were on.
The Exies continued touring in 2003 in support of Inertia, with "My Goddess" being performed on the Late Show with David Letterman and peaking at No.
The album's first single, "Ugly", was used by World Wrestling Entertainment as the theme song for that year's Survivor Series 2004 pay-per-view event in November 2004, and was featured in a commercial for the Warner Bros. television network.
The song "Slow Drain" was featured in the video game NFL Street 2, which was released on the Xbox and PlayStation 2 consoles.
Their second single from Head for the Door, "Hey You", is part of the PlayStation 2 video game, Guitar Hero, released in 2005.
The song "Slow Drain" was also featured in the games NFL Street 2, and the PlayStation 3 version of Full Auto 2.
This left Stevens and Herrera alone, and decided to reunite with former guitarist Chris Skane and began writing songs.
On 26 May 2006, the band announced on its blog that they were returning to the studio with producer James Michael to work on their fourth album.
The band released five songs on MySpace and radio from A Modern Way of Living with the Truth: "Different Than You", "Once in a Lifetime", "These Are the Days", "This Is the Sound", and "A Fear of Being Alone".