Although Robbers on High Street only started playing together and in public in 2002, singer/guitarist/keyboardist Ben Trokan and guitarist/singer Steve Mercado had been friends since their childhoods spent in Poughkeepsie, NY. After high school, Trokan moved to New York City and began jamming with drummer Tomer Danan while Mercado stayed at home, getting together to play with friend and bassist Jeremy Phillips. Eventually, the four came together and started Robbers on High Street, basing themselves in N.Y.C. In 2004 their debut release, an EP entitled Fine Lines, came out on Scratchie/New Lines, followed the next year by the full-length Tree City, which brought them comparisons to Spoon as well as fellow New Yorkers the Strokes. In the fall of 2006 the band, who at this point consisted of Trokan, Mercado, and Morgan King, issued an Internet-only five-song EP that contained two songs from their upcoming 2007 album, Grand Animals, and two from the Tree City sessions, as well as a cover of Paul McCartney's "Monkberry Moon Delight."