Empirical Jam formed in the spring of 1999, when fellow Satrian fanatics Mak Hofmann and Evan Brown decided to write some songs and jam with each other. Though they were both in other bands, they wanted a more free escape through their music with room to improvise. They formed their duo and began jamming together, mak playing his JS100BK through his Squire amp, and Evan playing Mak's Peavey Raptor I through his Fender amp. Soon after they used Mak's high quality keyboard as a drum machine. However, being a duo restricted the possibilities of their sound, so Evan bought an Epiphone Accu-Bass with his $200 birthday money, and used that to fill in the voids of their music. They were still without a name however, and they wanted a cool sounding title that would illustrate the type of music they played. When Mak and Evan were younger they had formed a two-person club called the "E & M" club, which later turned into the "EMpire." Using this play on words and mixing in the "jam band" factor, they came up with Empirical Jam, and the name stuck. We realize, of course, that Empirical has nothing to do with Empire, but Imperial doesn't work as well, and Empirical Jam just has a nice ring to it.