High school friends Dan Nigro (lead vocals & guitars), Saen Fitzgerald (guitar, keyboards, & percussion), Brian Fortune (guitars & keyboards) and Cliff Sarcona (drums & percussion) founded the band in December 2001 as they were looking to continue the momentum of a previous project, a group called SundazE. Nigro and Fitzgerald came from
Massapequa, while Sarcona was based in
Smithtown.
Blood and Aphorisms Blood and Aphorisms was released in July 2002, at local venue Backstreet Blues. Upon its release, vocalist Dan Nigro sent the
EP to some websites, which caught the attention of then-influential "thescout.net". The EP garnered the band local radio airplay and the attention of the local music scene. Without a permanent live bassist however, the band used studio engineer Rich Leigey, who had worked on the EP, and friend Julio Tavarez, before Dan Nigro began auditioning and recruiting bassists. It wasn't until October 2002 that the band brought on board bassist Brian Caesar. A few months later, the band signed a joint development deal with Island Records and Triple Crown Records. After their signing, the members of the band dropped out of college to focus on the band full time.
Lafcadio In May 2003, the band relocated to
Chicago,
Illinois, to record their debut album
Lafcadio with
Sean O'Keefe. Asked to re-release the EP by the label, the band re-recorded tracks from
Blood and Aphorisms and wrote new songs.
Into the Flood and ''You Can't Take It with You'' Reformulating previous ideas, As Tall as Lions began writing what would become the EP
Into the Flood. On November 27, the band released the EP to
iTunes, charting the Top 50 the first week of release. During its release, drummer Sarcona and bassist Tavarez went on a national tour with
the Dear Hunter. An As Tall as Lions tour with
Silverchair followed in December. The EP was released on vinyl on March 17. In January 2008, the band began work on their new record, ''
You Can't Take It with You'', Upon announcing the news, their last shows sold out and more were added to the schedule. They immediately planned their "reunion", which was performed in 2015 without new music. Fitzgerald became the drummer for the band Willis Work, while Parr joined
the Dear Hunter as a guitarist and backing vocalist. Fitzgerald, Tavarez, and Sarcona also formed the experimental instrumental band Kilimanjaro, with Tavarez and Sarcona additionally creating a side project called The Black and The White. Nigro moved to
Los Angeles and initially worked as a jingle writer for
McDonald's, though he later experienced widespread success as a songwriter and producer for artists such as
Kylie Minogue,
Chappell Roan, and
Olivia Rodrigo, receiving a total of 16
Grammy nominations ==Musical style and influences==