Indie pop quartet San Cisco were formed during 2009 in the city of Fremantle in Western Australia. The bandmembers - guitarist/vocalist Jordi Davieson, drummer/vocalist Scarlett Stevens, bassist Nick Gardner, and guitarist/vocalist Josh Biondillo - met during high school. All members except Stevens share duties on keyboards.
Davieson and Stevens played together in the Real Life Animators and the Flairz before they all decided to play together under the name King George. They soon changed their name to San CIsco and in 2010 released their first EP, Golden Revolver. The ultra-poppy title track gained a fair amount of airplay on Australian radio station Triple J, eventually being nominated for the station's Unearthed J Award.
As Golden Revolver continued to gain popularity, San Cisco performed at numerous festivals throughout 2011 including Fuse Festival in Adelaide, BIGSOUND in Brisbane, St Jerome's Laneway Festival in Melbourne, Pyramid Rock Festival on Phillip Island, Peats Ridge Festival in Glenworth Valley, and the Western Australian stops of the Big Day Out and Groovin' the Moo festivals. They also supported established Australian acts including The Grates, Jebediah and Architecture in Helsinki,and made appearences on BalconyTV and 3 News, New Zealand.
This popularity led to them being signed to Albert Production and their second EP, Awkward, was released in 2012 in Australia. The label describes San Cisco's sound as "rough, low-fi garage pop" mixed with "bright catchy hooks".
In a confusing move an EP of the same name containing four songs from both the band's releases was released in America by Fat Possum later that year.
Their debut album San Cisco, was released in late November 2012. Later in December Triple J announced that the listeners of the station had voted it at #10 in the Listeners Top 10 Albums Poll.
According to the band, "there is no link between the city San Francisco and our name San Cisco. .... The reason we went with San Cisco was because it is nothing; like a blank canvas which we were able to sculpt into whatever we wanted."
