Founded in Oakland, California in 2017, Blues Lawyer launched as an outlet for friends Rob and Elyse to air their shared pop sensibility; originally the two had planned it as a comically brief experiment. Rob and Elyse first met as co-workers at a record store in 2012 where they bonded over bands from the Flying Nun label such as The Clean and The Bats, which surface in the music the two now make together. Their music combines punk-like pace and concision with a measure of pop sentiment and wit, eliciting comparisons to bands such as Television Personalities, The Vaselines, and Wire.