Early years and ''Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum'' Andrew Horowitz, born in
Warren, New Jersey, began writing songs when he was eight years old and studied composition at the
University of Michigan. There he met
Rob Cantor, who had attended high school with Zubin Sedghi. Cantor and Sedghi had previously played in a band named listedBlack when both were in highschool. The three soon decided to play music together, going under the name 540 and playing small shows at the university. At the same time, fellow Michigan student Joe Hawley was studying film, and had formed the sketch comedy group anonyMous. Cantor eventually joined this group, and through this connection soon invited Hawley to join 540 upon learning he could play guitar, and had some musical experience writing songs for his film projects. The lineup was rounded out by drummer Steve Gallagher, and they soon went under various other names, such as Gallagher and PartyBoobyTrap. They eventually settled on Tally Hall, named after a local mall's food court. This lineup recorded various demo EPs, which were later collected and released as
Complete Demos in November 2004. Before the release however, Gallagher suddenly left the group in May of that year. He was replaced by Ross Federman, who had attended the same high school as Hawley, after the latter heard him bragging about his drum skills while passing by his dorm. in October 2006|297x297px On October 24, 2005, the band released their debut studio album, ''
Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, with violinist Jeremy Kittel contributing strings. They were awarded first place in the Pop category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2005 with the song "Just Apathy" from the album. They re-released the album on September 12, 2006, Tally Hall went on to receive national media attention, performing their song "Good Day" on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' on August 2, 2006, as well as appearing in
MTV's segment "
You Hear It First" in September 2006. They signed to
Atlantic Records in March 2007 and re-recorded their first album, releasing it on April 1, 2008. In August 2008, Tally Hall was a performer on the BMI stage at
Lollapalooza. Tally Hall was invited back by
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on September 16, 2008, to help promote the launch of ''Tally Hall's Internet Show
. They performed "Welcome to Tally Hall" in newly donned black vests on top of their traditional colored ties, white shirts, and black pants. The band worked on several projects after the completion of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
, including covering the song "Smile Like You Mean It" by The Killers for the sixth The O.C. soundtrack: Music from the OC: Mix 6''.
Tours and Good & Evil On September 9, 2009, Tally Hall released the song "
Light & Night", featuring
Nellie McKay, as a free download when customers of
Walmart purchased ''
The Magician's Elephant'' by
Kate DiCamillo, published the same day. In the band's 2010 March tour with
Jukebox the Ghost and
Skybox, Joe Hawley backed out of the tour and was subsequently replaced with Casey Shea, who wore a black tie, and filled in for him for the rest of their live shows that year. On March 25, 2011, the band announced that all five original band members were still together. Later in the year, the band changed their management from The Hornblow Group, who also manages
They Might Be Giants,
OK Go, and
Oppenheimer, to Stiletto Entertainment, who manages solo performance acts such as
Barry Manilow. Their second album,
Good & Evil, was released in 2011 under their original label, Quack! Media. The album had been recorded in late 2009, but due to repeated delays caused by their deal with Atlantic Records falling apart, it was released two years after it had originally been recorded. To promote the album, the band held a contest where the winner would be awarded a song written about them. The winner was a high school student named Nathan Naimark, whose self-titled theme song would be released soon after. Around the same time, the band released a cover of the
Flo Rida song "
Club Can't Handle Me", with Shea on guest vocals. According to Horowitz, the origin of the cover came from a suggestion the band had made to Atlantic Records, where they would record and release covers of other artists signed to the label weekly, with the song presented as an example. The label rejected the idea, leading the band to release the song after they had parted ways with them. The band proceeded to go on a summer US tour in support of
Good & Evil, with friend of the band Bora Karaca, wearing an orange tie, joining them as a touring member on multiple instruments. The band played their last show on August 20, 2011, at
Mr. Smalls Theatre in
Millvale, Pennsylvania. After the release of
Good & Evil and its tour, Tally Hall became inactive with all band members going on to independent endeavors, though some of the projects had multiple members collaborate once again.
Solo work after Good & Evil Andrew Horowitz, under the moniker "edu", released the solo album
sketches (later re-released as
sketches 3d) in 2012. He additionally provided production and piano on
John Legend's
Love in the Future. In 2018, Horowitz released
etudes, a studio album of piano compositions written in 2003. A sequel titled
etudes II was released in April 2019, featuring compositions written in 2005 while he attended the University of Michigan. In May 2020, he started a weekly
Instagram livestream series titled
Keep Up The Good Work, featuring interchanging guests such as Federman and Sedghi. On April 29, 2024, Andrew Horowitz was announced to be performing at the Michigan concert series Sonic Lunch. Ross Federman has made occasional appearances as a producer, percussionist, and
DJ under the pseudonym "Mr. F", although he has primarily focused on his education. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 2013 with a Bachelor of Science in
cell and molecular biology, later receiving a Ph.D. in
immunology from
Yale University in May 2019. Joe Hawley released a single titled "Variations on a Cloud" on September 11, 2012, under the name ミラクルミュージカル (Miracle Musical), later releasing the
concept album Hawaii: Part II on December 12, 2012. Tally Hall members Federman and Karaca additionally worked on the album, with Sedghi and Cantor appearing on the album's tracks "White Ball" and "Time Machine", respectively. Hawley has been vague regarding the overarching story behind the album, at one point citing the
September 11 attacks as inspiration, however this has been contradicted in other interviews. Several songs from the album, such as "Murders", "The Mind Electric" and "Dream Sweet in Sea Major" have since achieved popularity on
TikTok and other social media. An album featuring demos and samples titled
Hawaii: Part II: Part ii and a cover of "
Candle on the Water" was released in 2014 under the same name. An album of 6 8-bit renditions titled
Hawaii Partii released in 2015 as the soundtrack for the promotional game
Labyrinth. and "29 Celebrity Impressions, 1 Original Song". In recent years, Cantor has written and produced songs for several
Disney Junior shows. In mid-2016, Hawley announced a solo album
Joe Hawley Joe Hawley, which was released in October under his name on
Bandcamp. All five Tally Hall members and other artists are individually featured. The album was later taken down due to sampled copyrighted music. To avoid issues with
copyright, Hawley released
γɘlwɒH ɘoႱ γɘlwɒH ɘoႱ on April 16, 2019, a reversed version of the album, to Bandcamp and Spotify. On November 11, 2020, a truncated version of the original album was uploaded to
Apple Music and
Spotify, removing the 13th and final track (a cover of rock band
Jefferson Airplane's "
White Rabbit"). The latter was due to copyright issues he could not resolve. In 2012, he graduated from the University of Michigan with an undergraduate honors degree in
neuroscience, later receiving a doctorate in
osteopathic medicine at
Touro University California in 2016. He now works as a family medicine doctor for
Kaiser Permanente in
Orange County, California. Sedghi is married with two children. In 2015, Tally Hall released the demo
LP Admittedly Incomplete Demos on
Bandcamp, referencing their earlier collection
Complete Demos. It includes demos, unreleased songs, live performances, and studio covers of "
The Minstrel Boy" and "
Just A Friend". The latter was re-released in August 2019 as a single and included as a bonus track on the 2021 re-issue of ''Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum''. In April 2022, 2 new demos were added: "Welcome to Tally Hall (Reprise) (Demo)" and "Hymn For a Scarecrow (Demo)". the 2020 release has new artwork drawn by member of the
needlejuice discord server "tallybrawl". It is a cover of "
Sleigh Ride" by
The Ronettes, and it interpolates the theme of "Powerful Mario" from
Super Mario series. and "Great Fairy's Fountain" theme from
The Legend of Zelda series. In 2021,
Needlejuice Records re-issued ''Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
on vinyl, CD, and cassette, releasing a MiniDisc in June to coincide with International MiniDisc Day. On August 26, 2022, pre-orders for a re-issue of Good & Evil'' went public alongside a 7" vinyl for "Turn the Lights Off" with the aforementioned track on the A side and "Light & Night" on the B side. Since the band's hiatus, members have discussed if the band would return for a third album. Hawley has promised it on social media and Sedghi has jokingly stated that they would return if they received "thirty or forty million listeners a month" via a message for
Spotify Wrapped. However, following allegations against Hawley, They played multiple new songs from Horowitz's upcoming album, along with some songs never played live, such as "
Perfect" by Rob Cantor. In 2024, Horowitz, along with Federman, Karaca and Illicit Ghost performed at Sonic Lunch, a music festival in Ann Arbor. The following year in 2025, the four played again but featuring former band members Rob Cantor and Casey Shea. On Christmas Day, 2025, Joe Hawley released two new singles, entitled "Some People Eat Flowers out of Earnest Intent to Bring Heaven" and "6:09", with the latter being released to his Bandcamp page. On May 22nd, 2025, Andrew Horowitz released a new single in promotion of his new album titled "MONSTERS" featuring Illicit Ghost. On July 24th of the same year Horowitz released another single featuring former Tally Hall members such as Rob Cantor, Zubin Sedghi, Bora Karaca, and Casey Shea titled "fishes." These two singles were previously sold on cassette tapes at performances. On February 16th, 2026, Andrew Horowitz released a third single featuring Illicit Ghost titled "Good Morning Mr. Butterfly." Both "Good Morning Mr. Butterfly" and "MONSTERS" were released with music videos. == Videos ==