The String Cheese Incident is a Colorado-based band that has been captivating audiences with their unique blend of bluegrass rock, and electronic music since 1993. Producing sound that is both energetic and soulful, the band has become known for their improvisational live performances and ability to seamlessly blend genres. Their loyal fan base, known as "Cheeseheads," continues to grow as the band tours extensively and releases new music.

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After a few years of playing local ski resorts and private functions, the band formed the independent record label SCI Fidelity, on which they released their first album, Born on the Wrong Planet, an album split between originals and covers. The album featured melody-driven music with room for improvisation. Instrumentals and covers constituted half of the album. Many songs from the first album are still frequently played by the band, including "Black Clouds", "Land's End", "Texas", and "Jellyfish."

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Less than a year later, SCI released a compilation of ten songs, including "Land's End", on their self-titled live album A String Cheese Incident, which chronicles a single concert from the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado and adds pianist Hollingsworth to the ensemble (he was not in the band during the recording of Born on the Wrong Planet). Despite spanning only one disc and containing only ten tracks, the album clocks in at 72 minutes even (thus, with an average track length of 7:12, displaying their propensity for extended jams).

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'Round the Wheel, released in 1998, refined the band's sound and displayed a marked increase in both musical and lyrical maturity, and added Paul McCandless as a guest player on soprano and tenor saxophone and Tony Furtado on banjo, but did not earn them quite the level of fame that they would achieve in the next millennium. From 1998 through 2001 SCI toured the country extensively and steadily, playing over 500 "Incidents" in hundreds of cities, including an appearance at Woodstock '99.

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In 2001, with the help of guest producer and Los Lobos member Steve Berlin, they released their third studio effort, Outside Inside. This album marked a shift from the band's traditional bluegrass leanings to a more standard rock sound, thus making it the most accessible album to a mainstream audience to that point. The band did not completely abandon its bluegrass roots, however, sneaking in the short three-minute track "Up the Canyon" at the end of the disc, which has become one of many live favorites along with "Rollover", "Close Your Eyes", and others.