Crafting a heavy but poppy sound that recalls contemporaries like Queens of the Stone Age as well as classic arena rockers like Free, Bluebird consists of guitarist/vocalist Paul Figueroa, bassist/trumpet player/vocalist Jim Brown, drummer/percussionist/vocalist Bryan Lee Brown, vocalist/percussionist Sam James Velde, and guitarist Barry Thomas. The Brown brothers began playing together while they were kids, and eventually ended up performing as an improv rhythm duo in Los Angeles in the mid-'90s. Velde and Thomas, an old friend, joined the Browns and added a little more structure to their still-spontaneous performances. The group edged toward becoming a full-fledged band, and Bluebird's mix of psychedelic heaviness and pop melodicism made its recorded debut in 1997 with a self-titled, six-song EP released on Revelation; the following year, they delivered High Atmosphere for Lovitt. In 2000, the band found a fifth member in Shelby Cinca, formerly of Frodus, who arrived just in time to help record Bluebird's full-length debut, The Two, which was released later that year. Cinca left and was replaced by Figueroa before the band recorded its second album, Hot Blood, which arrived in late 2002 on Dim Mak. In 2003, the band issued a split EP with Dead Meadow courtesy of Buddyhead magazine, as well as the Black Presence EP, which was released by Dopamine. The band returned to Dim Mak for the Falling Back to Earth EP, which came out in 2004.