Mark Morgan (formerly of Sightings and Silk Purse) and Gaute Granli first met in Brooklyn at the venue The Glove in 2017 while Granli was on tour in the USA from his home country of Norway (of possible side interest, Morgan was once mistaken for a cop at said venue at a previous engagement). Later the next year, Morgan embarked on a solo European tour and him and Granli did a few shows together in Norway. Not having yelled at each other or got into any fistfights during the three days in Norway together, they later decided they should at some point do a tour where they both played solo. Fast forward a year later again to 2019, they went on tour together for 50 days in Europe. Amazingly, again, they didn’t get into any fights. And by the end they decided, “what the hell we might as well start a band since we don’t really fight.” So they did. But then Covid lock downs happened. But even through that, they still remembered that they had started a band. A couple of years later, Rump State first started playing together (Entropy Studio, Michigan, 2021) and the main music strategies agreed upon were both Morgan and Granli would sing, Morgan would handle guitar and Granli would take care of electronics and rhythms or whatever else. While much music was discussed between the two for years previous, right when they started playing, not much was said beyond, “fuck it, let’s see what happens.”