Emerging from Detroit around the start of the 2000s, The Paybacks entered the picture at a moment when acts such as the White Stripes and the Go were also breaking into the broader rock audience through comparable sounds. Singer/guitarist Wendy Case, drummer Pat Pantano, bassist Marc Watt, and guitarist Marco Delicato comprised the original roster; each had already logged time in several prominent local groups before they united to produce their particular strain of poppy rock. Once Pantano and Watt departed, drummer Mike Latulippe and bassist John Szymanski stepped in to complete the lineup just as the band prepared to begin live performances. Their earliest notable appearance on record came via a track on Sympathy for the Record Industry's Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit, while the full-length Knock Loud followed on Get Hip Records in 2002. Two years afterward arrived the wittily named Harder and Harder. In 2004 the band secured a pair of television slots on NBC's Last Call with Carson Daly. Spring 2006 brought the recording of their third full-length, Love, Not Reason, which surfaced later that year.
