The tragic story of Scarce began in 1993 with singer/guitarist Chick Graning and singer/bassist Joyce Raskin. After the breakup of the Boston band Anastasia Screamed, Graning had moved to Providence, RI, to live with then-fiancee Tanya Donnelly of Belly, and he met Raskin, who attended the Rhode Island School of Design. The two began to write songs together itself in both the Northeast United States and England with their exhausting live shows. While most bands of the time performed in whatever clothes they were wearing that day (that was why it was called grunge, after all), Scarce performed with Raskin in a prom dress and Graning in a black suit or gold lame tuxedo, both energetically bounding across the stage. Scarce quickly became the subject of a major-label bidding war, although their signing was postponed by legal problems Graning had with his previous band's U.K. label. In the meantime, Scarce put out three singles (later collected on the independently released Red EP) before finally signing to A&M in late 1994, around the time Graning and Donnelly broke up their relationship.