Danny Seim began the Lackthereof project in 1997. His other band Menomena started as a side project in 2000, and took over because Seim felt less self-conscious as a drummer than as a singer-songwriter.
The first six Lackthereof releases were CD-Rs, that Seim gave away freely to friends. This ended in 2004, when Portland, Oregon indie label FILMguerrero released Christian the Christian.