Neutral Milk Hotel began as the recording project of Jeff Mangum. There were three early cassettes that were only released via Elephant Six. These are Invent Yourself A Shortcake(1991... which is not related to the song of the same name), Beauty (1992), and Hype City (1993). After graduating from high school, Jeff moved from Ruston to several places including a stay in Denver with friend Robert Schneider (The Apples in Stereo, Marbles).

The first single he released in 1994 was called Everything Is (b/w Snow Song Part One). A bonus track, Aunt Eggma Blowtorch was added on the CD version.

The first Neutral Milk Hotel album, On Avery Island, was mostly a solo effort with help from various other friends, especially Robert Schneider (Marbles, The Apples In Stereo), Lisa Janssen (Secret Square) and Rick Benjamin (The Perry Weissman Three). The UK version of the album, released on Fire Records, has different artwork (done by Jill Carnes of Thimble Circus) and bonus tracks from the Everything Is single.

Not long after the release of On Avery Island the current line-up of the band came together. Puncture magazine ran a great article a couple years ago on how this line-up came to be:

Julian Koster was the catalyst of the 4 members coming together. After Julian's band Chocolate USA ceased to exist, he arranged for NMH to stay in the basement of his grandmother's apartment on Long Island, in New York. Scott Spillane (The Gerbils) had been working at a pizza joint in Austin, TX and living in a van. At Julian's urging, Scott (also a former resident of Ruston, LA) jumped on a Greyhound bus in Austin and came to Long Island. Julian then made Jeff get on a train to Chicago to visit a drummer named Jeremy Barnes (Bablicon, Marta Tennae). According to Jeremy, Jeff only played half of one song with him the whole time he was there, 'cause he was so freaked out at how expensive the the studio time was, but was happy enough with the way they sounded together. Nevertheless he asked Jeremy to drop out of school and meet the group in Long Island in 3 months. To the chagrin of his folks, Jeremy agreed. (Jeremy had met Julian when Bablicon played a show with Chocolate USA in Chicago. He had stayed in touch with Julian, hoping to work with him in the future.)

The group stayed in NY for several months playing lots of shows before settling in Athens where some of their old pals from Ruston had already landed.

The second album, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, was the first record with a fixed line-up. The bulk of it was recorded at Robert Schneider's "Pet Sounds studio" in Denver in 1997 and was released on Merge records in Feb. 1998. This record features contributions from Robert as well as Laura Carter from Elf Power.

Holland, 1945 was released as a single by Blue Rose in October 1998, coupled with the previously unreleased acoustic Engine as a 7" picture disc, with fold-out poster.

After extensive touring in 1998, the band went on a break, turning down all offers for shows in 1999. Instead, the members went back to concentrating on other projects; Julian worked on Music Tapes, Scott worked on new Gerbils material, and Jeremy went back to Chicago to devote more time to Bablicon. Jeff spent time working on various projects with friends including musique concrete recordings with W. Cullen Hart (The Olivia Tremor Control, The Circulatory System).

Although all the members are still active with one another in other projects, it is unknown if they'll release anymore albums as NMH. But there are are plans to release a NMH rarities/b-sides album eventually on the label Orange Twin.

Official web page: www.neutralmilkhotel.net

Other projects involving Neutral Milk Hotel members:
The Gerbils, Bablicon, The Music Tapes, Chocolate USA, Major Organ and the Adding Machine, Circulatory System, Marta Tennae, A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Orange Twin Field Recordings