When the band was formed in Indianapolis in 2003, Alan "Alphonso" Raymond Sharland (drummer) and Irwin Nathaniel Sparkes (lead singer and guitarist) spent some time in the United States, encouraged by their chemistry teacher Grant Serpell,[4] (who was part of the band Sailor during their fame in the 1970s), in an attempt to broaden their horizons.

Having gathered enough material to compile an album, Sharland and Sparkes returned to London, where they met Swiss keyboard player and sound engineer Duri Darms and Martin Skarendahl, a Swedish ex-fireman who was then working with Darms as a recording studio engineer and studying at The London Music School.

[citation needed] The original group included two band members (Tony Byrne and Tom Easey) who had left by this point, leaving Sparkes and Sharland to replace them with Skarendahl.

This newly revamped trio of Sparkes, Skarendahl, and Sharland subsequently signed to RCA and released their first album The Trick to Life on 22 October 2007.

The band have spoken of their desire to write songs that are about more than just "boy and girl... finding love on a Friday night on the lash with your mates".

The Illusion of Safety gave the first single "Choices" and includes the song "Unlikely Hero", for which a video was filmed in a quarry in Derbyshire.

[7] It was announced on 1 April 2011, that the band had departed from their record labels RCA and Sony Music after a dispute over the promotion of their latest album The Illusion of Safety.

This tour would be their last with founding bassist Martin Skarendahl who left the band in July 2015, in what was described by the remaining members as "one of the most amicable decisions in music history".

[14] Reviews of the production were mostly negative, with Tom Inniss of Voice Magazine scoring the show 2 of 5 stars, claiming that despite "how strong the core components were... none of it gelled.

[16] James McColl of The Skinny also gave a low 2-star rating, claiming that whilst Sparkes and Sharland "are both good performers... Felix and The Scootermen feels like a self-indulgent vanity project.

[18] On October 18, 2019, lead singer Irwin Sparkes released the single "Give It Up, Son" under the name 'White Tail Falls,'[19] with an accompanying music video premiering November 15.