Dan McCarthy has spent the past five years playing/touring with Mayday, Neva Dinova, the Good Life, Orenda Fink, Maria Taylor, Bright Eyes, and others. He's also contributed to other bands' recordings such as Cursive's "Happy Hollow" and Tilly And the Wall's "Bottoms of Barrels". His self-titled album is a distillation of two collections of songs from "Old Habits" (2003's self-released nine song collection of drinking songs and waltzes) and 2005-2006's "It's Got Nothing to Do with the Drinking", given to only a handful of friends and family before Team Love expressed interest in releasing a "best of what you've put on tape so far".