While a student at Harvard University, singer/songwriter David Wax nurtured his burgeoning interest in Mexican folk music by taking frequent trips south of the border to further his musical studies. After meeting singer and fiddler Suz Slezak back in Cambridge, Wax fused his Mexican-inspired songs with Slezak's Appalachian and Irish influences in a style they dubbed "Mexo-Americana." Under the name David Wax Museum, the two released their debut LP, I Turned Off Thinking About, in 2008 and began touring their eclectic sound across the U.S. Following the release of their 2009 follow-up, Carpenter Bird, they entered and won a song contest that landed them a spot at the 2010 Newport Folk Festival. Their breakout performance at the festival raised the band's profile dramatically and by the time they had released their critically acclaimed 2011 LP, Everything Is Saved, David Wax Museum were playing high-profile slots at South by Southwest and had moved up to Newport's main stage. With the release of 2012's Knock Knock Get Up, their sound began to broaden, becoming more expansive and experimental with increasing rock influences.
Merely friends when they began the project in 2008, Wax and Slezak eventually married and the challenges of raising a family on the road became a major influence on their approach to 2015's Guesthouse, which saw them taking increasingly bolder artistic risks. The album was a high point for the duo, hitting number 20 on Billboard's Folk chart and entering the Heatseekers chart at number nine. In September 2017, to celebrate both their 1,000th show and their tenth anniversary as a band, David Wax Museum released a collection of rarities and B-sides called Electric Artifacts. Working with My Morning Jack's Carl Broemel, they recorded their next studio album, Line of Light, which was released in 2019. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi