[2] The founding members were Sean Kelly (Guitar/Vocals), Charles Hambleton (Guitar), Andy Sheldon (Bass/Vocals), Jeep MacNichol (Drums/Vocals), and Al Laughlin (Keyboards/Vocals).

Singer/songwriter Sean Kelly and guitarist Charles Hambleton met in 1985 in Burlington, Vermont at an open mic called The Sheik, leading to the formation of the band Secret City in 1986.

[3] After playing together in Burlington for a year, the pair moved to Boulder, Colorado, and met up with Andy Sheldon, a friend and member of a prior band with Kelly.

Fans in college towns formed street teams to distribute the band's music and help them get shows by popular demand.

However, the band found itself at odds with Arista's personnel, who neglected to market their debut album and wanted to change their sound.

After an unproductive studio session with an outside producer hired by the label, band terminated their contract with Arista in the fall of 1991 and continued to tour unsigned.

[6] The Samples continued to tour and released their own self-published EP, Underwater People, composed of both studio-recorded and live tracks.

Sean Kelly, as the main songwriter, wrote songs about nature and the environment giving the band an "eco-friendly" reputation.

Sheldon's thumping bass, MacNichol's Stewart Copeland-inspired beats and Laughlin's off-beat reggae chords supported Kelly's inspired songwriting and Sting-like vocals.

Though many tracks still had elements of reggae and world music, songs such as "Streets in the Rain" and "Everytime" featured more streamlined productions and opened the band to wider audiences.

tour shows in 1993 and 1996 and they shared the bill with big names such as The Allman Brothers Band, Blues Traveler, and Phish.

They chose the album's name because the band had gone straight into the studio after a long tour and was able to perform on "autopilot" without much preparation, according to MacNichol.

The original lineup did a short farewell tour and played its last show on May 14, 1997 at the Bluebird Theater, with Charles Hambleton joining them as a special guest.

Only two months later, the band released the semi-concept album The Tan Mule, an Internet-only collection of tracks described by Kelly as "kind of western" and a "cultish, fan thing".

The band intended the album to be bad enough in order to get themselves released from their ill-conceived management contract, but still good enough to not be a total loss.

The band began to release albums independently, beginning with 2001's "Return to Earth", which featured new drummer Sam Young.

reunited the original five-piece lineup for an in-stadium concert on July 4, 2009 as part of the state's largest Independence Day celebration that year, at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.