Originally from California's Sacramento Valley, True West were contemporaries and friends with Los Angeles bands such as The Dream Syndicate, Green on Red, Rain Parade, Thin White Rope, and The Long Ryders.

Their 1983 self-released five song EP, co-produced by Russ Tolman and Steve Wynn, enabled the band to tour the U.S. non-stop, coming to the attention of Television guitarist Tom Verlaine, who took them to upstate New York's Bearsville Studios to record demos for EMI America.

While not as gritty and psychedelic as the band's debut (which by this time had been re-released as an eight-song mini-LP called Hollywood Holiday), Drifters, with its folk-rock influences, was dubbed "guitar poetry" by Rolling Stone scribe David Fricke.

Other 1980s luminaries started noticing the band, such as Prince, who passed along the word after one Minneapolis show that he was greatly impressed with guitarist McGrath's lyrical leads.

True West landed in London in April 1985 amidst what the U.K. music press had declared "The American Invasion," which had been kicked off a few months earlier by the arrival of R.E.M.

Suddenly, England couldn't get enough of American guitar bands and True West made the front pages of the big three music publications of the day: the NME, Melody Maker, and Sounds.

Two years of constant touring and several disappointing close brushes with a major label recording contract had taken their toll on the band, and True West called it quits in the summer of 1985.