J. Navarro & the Traitors began as a conversation between Jay Navarro (The Suicide Machines, Break Anchor, Hellmouth) and Eric Abbey (1592, The Dirty Notion) about music that they had always played and never played together. From sharing the stage together in the early 1990s and 2000s they wanted to write and play music that they loved. So they took the idea and started writing, focusing on the Reggae and Two-Tone sound that had been missing from the Detroit scene. With four songs written they needed a band. Together they ran down the list of musicians they knew and found the best ones for the job. Ken Haas (Polka Floyd, Reverend Guitars), joined on lead guitar, Scott Vesey (Trace the Veins) joined up on bass, Jason Millbauer Bad Assets joined in on drums, and Steve Kachnowski (Telegraph) joined on trombone. Together they created the type of music that Navarro and Abbey heard in their heads and the band was born.