Augie March formed in 1996 in Melbourne, Australia, where guitarist/singer/songwriter Glenn Richards, guitarist Adam Donovan, and drummer David E. Williams were attending college. The three grew up together in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia, but it wasn't until they reunited as friends during their college days that Richards, an English major, began writing songs and invited the other two to accompany him. Both Donovan and Williams were studying music and the two sought out bassist Edmond Ammendola, with whom they'd worked in the music school, to complete the lineup. The quartet quickly began arranging the music and settled on a name borrowed from the 1954 novel The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, whose poetic, complex prose complemented Richards' own imaginative and descriptive lyrical style.