Shiny Toy Guns Merchandise

The band was founded in 2002 by bassist and keyboardist Jeremy Dawson and vocalist and guitarist Chad Petree. Both had known each other for years growing up in Shawnee, Oklahoma and worked together on previous music projects such as Cloud2Ground and Slyder. After these projects, they went underground for a couple of years but continued making music together until enlisting both vocalist Carah Faye Charnow and drummer Mikey Martin in 2004.

The band quickly gained popularity locally in California as well as through their MySpace page. In January 2005, they released their first album We Are Pilots through record company Stormwest International. They began touring across America that summer in support of their album. They re-recorded and re-released We Are Pilots through record company Sidecho in November 2005, with a revised track list. They continued to tour extensively, and in June 2006, after extensive negotiations that had begun in November of 2005, they signed with Universal Records and released a finalized copy of We Are Pilots on October 17, 2006.

Their song "You Are the One" has its roots in Jeremy Dawson's trance song "Neo", that was put out under the Slyder moniker.

On October 29, 2007 Shiny Toy Guns (using the alias "The Shinys") appeared on the children's television series Yo Gabba Gabba!.

On December 6, 2007, We Are Pilots received a Grammy Award nomination in the category of Best Electronic/Dance Album, but lost to the Chemical Brothers.