 Formed in 1997, American Pearl started with guitarist Kevin Quinn, who owns a famed Sunset Boulevard tattoo shop, and Quinn's frequent customer, singer and guitarist Kevin Roentgen of the band SOUL.They broke from individual music projects to begin a new band together and were soon joined by Noah Shain (drums) of The Imposters and Rodney Rocha (bass).American Pearl played in various L.A. clubs before being signed to Wind-up Records in 1999.