Tautologic began in 1997 when Ethan Sellers and Pat Buzby had finished college. Sellers, a vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist, was assembling a new band with friends from his years at the University of Chicago. Buzby, a drummer, had studied at Oberlin and was planning his next move when he read an ad Sellers placed on a progressive rock discussion group. The band took shape and was gigging and recording by the winter of 1998.
Sellers and Buzby shared a love of 70's progressive rock, but also wanted to bring contemporary and eclectic influences into the music rather than reproducing old sounds. The early lineups of the band lacked lead guitar, leading them to use their string arrangement skills to give the songs much of their character. Pointed, humorous lyrics and stories of the strange characters in abundance around the South Side of Chicago also linked many of Tautologic's songs.
West Is North, East Is South, the band's debut CD, captured this era. It received critical acclaim in the U.S. and Europe upon its release in 2000. The band's next recording, The Basement Sessions, arrived in 2002 and showed the band experimenting with funk influences, and introducing lead guitar into the mix.
Also in 2002, Sellers staged a multimedia piece, At the Apartment, featuring songs from the Basement Sessions and other Tautologic material. In 2005, the band put on a second theatrical piece, Psychle. Sellers finished producing a recording of these newer songs in 2007, but financial setbacks forced him to archive the CD, Re:Psychle, for a decade.
With many of the early members of the group finishing their studies in Chicago and moving on to other states, Sellers and Buzby needed to build new band lineups in the 2000's. Bassist Nathan Britsch began working with them in the early part of that decade, saxophonist Chris Greene and violinist/vocalist Emily Albright joined in the mid-00's, and newest member guitarist Jay Montana arrived in 2010. Re:Psychle also includes prominent contributions from former band members, including guitarist Aaron Weistrop, violinist Jeff Yang and vocalist Jennifer Justice.
In the late 2000's, Sellers began a new career as a leader of bands in various styles, including Irish music, Cajun and bluegrass, which is still ongoing. Buzby and other members of Tautologic participate in these groups whenever possible.
In 2018, Tautologic released Re:Psychle, which garnered rave reviews and airplay on 167 radio stations throughout the US, Canada, and Europe. Sellers was awarded an Individual Artist grant by the Illinois Arts Council the following year, which he put towards recording and mixing Wheels Fall Off.
The completion of Wheels Fall Off was beset by a computer failure, COVID-19 pandemic-related scheduling problems, and health issues in the Sellers family. Half of the album was built on full band live-in-studio recordings from a session in 2014, built up with vocal harmony, synthesizer, and other overdubs and sound manipulation that Sellers added during pandemic isolation.
As of this writing (January 2021), the pandemic still rages with rising case counts, new variants emerging, bungled government response, and no clear end date to predict when the band will next perform live. It is therefore appropriate that the title track to Tautologic's 2021 release answers its narrator's catalog of health troubles, economic uncertainty, and accumulating personal setbacks with nothing more than a battle cry to "keep driving til the wheels fall off."
