VHS or Beta formed in 1997 in Louisville, KY, when bassist Mark Palgy and guitarists Zeke Buck and Craig Pfunder met after high school. After a brief stint with noise punk and the addition of drummer Mark Guidry, they reformed in response to their love of house music, soul, and disco. The new sound, enhanced by keyboards, vocoder, samples, and electronic drums, eventually brought in hundreds of dancing people at their shows. Soon, the band released the vinyl-only EP ON & ON. After playing the 2000 South by Southwest music festival and negotiating with record labels, they released Le Funk on their own label, ON! Records, in June 2002. In summer 2002, VHS or Beta toured with I Am the World Trade Center. Chea Beckley was added for the band's performances to handle vocoder, samples, and keyboards. By the time the band's Astralwerks debut, Night on Fire, arrived in 2004, their sound owed more to dance-punk than Daft Punk. Over the next three years, the group hid out at Echo Mountain Studio in Asheville, NC, and concentrated on writing songs with producer Brandon Mason for their 2007 release Bring on the Comets.