Alex and Phil Hicks met Levi Stugelmeyer as children in southwest Minnesota. After teaching themselves how to play their chosen instruments, they began to record demos in their basements and decided to move to Nashville for some inspiration. Motivated by artists like the Flaming Lips, Weezer, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Wilco, they found their own sound personally defined as somewhere between alt. rock and “Midwestern” rock. After 2 years in Nashville, the boys longed for the frigid temperatures, biting winds and Midwest hospitality they just weren’t getting in the south, and moved back to Minnesota in 2007. The following fall, Steve Bosmans joined the group on guitar in 2008, thus completing the inner sanctum known as Charn.