Otherwise started out in 2001 as an acoustic group comprised of the two origional members Michael Boise and Alex Rordam. They never played any shows at this time except rare attempts to gain popularity by playing in the school hallways during passing periods. After playing acoustics for some time, they considered the idea of starting a garage band.

In its early stages, the band experienced a series of name changes such as "Point Conception", "Twentysomething", "The After Hours", and "End of September" before they developed the name "Otherwise". The name Oherwise didn't really represent any specific genre of music which the band had not defined for themselves yet anyway, so it seemed to be the better way to go and they stuck with it.

Alex bought a drumset right around the time that Hal Petersen joined the band as the first of a series of bass guitarists. The trio developed a few instrumental songs throughout the time that Hal was in the band. With a short supply of equipment and money, they had no microphones or the things needed to play shows, so for a long time they remained underground and unheard of. In the summer of 2002, Andrew Burns joined the band as a second guitarist. He brought a new sound as well as lyrics and more equipment to the band wich converted it from a punk-grunge style to more of an alternative rock. Hal, who seeked more of a punk genre of music, left the band to start a new group called "Lesson Learned" which later became Shades of Glory, and then Euphoria. Unfortunately their band broke up after about a year of playing together.

So Otherwise continued its era now with two guitarists and a drummer. With Andrew as the vocals, the band began writing song after song in its quest to bring a new kind of music to Livingston, Montana from it's street punk reputation. Everything seemed to be running smoothly until Andrew left to go to school in Italy for a year. His spot as a guitarist was left open until he came back but a year is a long time. So once again the group was reduced to the two origional members.

Michael and Alex continued their practices but with only two people, they weren't able to produce the music they wanted; in other words, they sucked. So they began looking for a bass guitarist since they needed one anyway. Over a period of roughly eight months, Otherwise went through four of them, one of which only practiced with the band once and another who brought his equipment in and then left without evan practicing once. Jason Trussell joined as the third bass guitarist and lead singer. Jason remained the bass guitarist for about a month before being replaced by Dustin Smith. Dustin (Duddy) stayed with Otherwise from April to Septmber of 2004. Drew Rudolph, who had been wanting to join for almost almost a year, was finally offered a position. He came in as a second guitarist and vocalist. As for Jason, his position in the band had slowly deteriorated to the point where he kind of just disapeared.

The band played it's first show on May 22, 2004 at the Miles Park Bandshell in Livingston. It was a short set but was a major step forward for the band. As Otherwise progessed with its music, more equipment was being added. They bought a PA system from former Livingston band, "The D.U.I.S" which then allowed them to host their own shows without having to borrow equipment.

By September things started looking dim for the band. Duddy hadn't came to band practice in two months, and nobody seemed motivated about the whole thing. At times it seemed as if the bands existance had come to a stand still. They decided to scrap duddy's position and search for a new bass guitarist. Options led to Henry Gelderloos who was a long time friend of Mike. As mid October rolled around, things seemed to start picking up again.

Now that they had enough songs and solid ground to stand on for the time being, the band made plans to produce a cd. They began recording in early December, but after enduring some difficulties with the origional producer (Bay Carter), they switched to Justin Haglund who was a friend of the band.The cd took 5 months altogether to complete.

During the process of making a cd, otherwise instated a new member(not replacing anyone). Robert newhouse, who played the keyboard, joined in early February. The cd was finished in the end of April and was distributed as there first demo.

As June of 2005 rolled around, Drew left for a four year term with the Army in Iraq, leaving the group short of a guitarsit, but none the less in still a workable contition.

Through the summer of 2005, otherwise played a series of local and away shows, most of them they played with High Poet Society ( a local hip hop group)who was a good friend of the band. In August, Mike bought Justin Haglund's 16 channel Alesis mixer which the band used to begin recording a new cd. Time dragged on up on into summer of 2006. They were still playing shows but still had nothing to sell or promote themselves with. The cd production was at a stand still and inspiration was weakening. but hey, they were still a band.