James Mastro, a music veteran who played with a post-Television Richard Lloyd as a teenager, and St. Vincent DeNunzio (former Feelies and Richard Hell drummer) first began jamming in their kitchen in the early '90s. After adding bassist Tony Shanahan, guitarist Kerryn Tolhurst, and fiddlers Todd Reynolds and Eileen Ivers, the power country sextet signed with Bar/None and released their 1993 debut, Tonic.