Overall, the "story" surrounding the formation of Secretly Canadian is not that exciting. It wasn't as if we were in an 80's hardcore band and needed a way to release our own records. Nor was it because labels in the area were neglecting certain bands or styles of music. We aren't in a band, and there really weren't other labels in the area, so everyone was being neglected equally. Secretly Canadian began simply because we wanted to do it, it sounded like fun and, collectively, we had always dreamt of running a record label.

Everything started to come together in the spring of '96, at this time Chris Swanson and Eric Weddle were in enrolled here at Indiana University. They met while working at WIUS, the college radio station here. Jonathan Cargill was working as a cafeteria manager at one of the dorms, as was Chris, though he was just washing dishes. Over the weeks of working at the cafeteria, Chris and Jonathan got to talking about music and aspects of the industry and hatched some ideas about starting a label. Chris later spoke to Eric about it and he was in agreement with what they wanted to do. Then Ben Swanson, Chris' brother who was living in Fargo at the time, was also brought in. This was all around April of '96. Sometime in 1999, Eric left Secretly Canadian to pursue his own label, Family Vineyard. That's also the time that Jagjaguwar records came onto the radar. Jagjaguwar, out of Charlottesville, Virginia and run by Darius Van Arman, had a similar aesthetic and philosophy and it seemed like a good match. Jagjaguwar relocated to Bloomington shortly thereafter. Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar are separate entities who share resources. It all started in Chris' limestone house on a dead end street. We now have an office.