 Shepard had been involved in another group, Oriental Half Price, in Allen, Texas (near Dallas) where he attended high school.He left the band in 2001 to live in Santiago, Chile for two years (to serve a mission for the LDS Church), and returned to the United States in 2003, relocating to Utah, where he began playing with assorted musicians under the name Uzi and Ari.The band takes its name from the children of Ben Stiller's character in the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, and does not refer to any members of the band (Uzi and Ari was never a duo, as is sometimes mistakenly assumed).