Songwriter Dee Kesler at the time was in a band called Shackleton along with Tadas Kisielius, and the two of them became the founding members of the group originally known as simply Thee Shallows.
Tadas soon moved away, however, and so Kesler brought in Jason Gonzales of the Cubby Creatures and Chavo Fraser, both of whom were performing as drummers at the time.
It was in a basement room in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco that the band began work on their debut album, A History of Sport Fishing.
[2] The band returned from their promotional tour filled with determination, soon building their own studio in Oakland in order to set about recording the follow-up.
One of the tracks on this release was a remix of one of their earlier songs by members of the San Francisco-based Anticon label, who the band eventually decided to sign with for their third studio album, Book of Bad Breaks, which came out in April 2007.