Cracker

Low

David Lowery's previous band Camper Van Beethoven broke up in 1990, and he demoed with his boyhood friend Johnny Hickman, both from Redlands, California; after Lowery moved to Richmond, Virginia in summer 1990 and lived in Oregon Hill, they recorded a demo fans call the Big Dirty Yellow Demos. They recruited the Redlands bassist Davey Faragher and signed to Virgin in 1991. The debut Cracker, produced by Don Smith, came out on March 10, 1992, recorded in summer 1991, with the number-one modern rock single "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)". Lowery was born on September 10, 1960 in San Antonio, raised in Redlands, studied mathematics at UC Santa Cruz and later earned a doctorate at the University of Georgia, where he lectures in music business.

Kerosene Hat followed on August 24, 1993. After it Urbano and Faragher left, and Bob Rupe and Charlie Quintana joined; later records are The Golden Age (1996), Gentleman's Blues (1998), Forever (2002), Countrysides (2003), Greenland (June 6, 2006), Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey (May 5, 2009) and the double Berkeley to Bakersfield (December 9, 2014), plus the 2024 compilation Alternative History: A Cracker Retrospective. "Whole Lotta Trouble" appeared in Empire Records in 1995 and a cover of the Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action" in Clueless. Since 2005 they have held an annual Campout with Camper Van Beethoven at Pappy and Harriet's in Pioneertown, and from 2011 Campout East in Virginia. In July 2014 a Kerosene Hat-era line-up toured China. Setlist.fm counts 2,159 setlists.

Lowery's solo records include The Palace Guards (2011), Conquistador (2016), In the Shadow of the Bull (2019), Vending Machine (2023) and Fathers, Sons and Brothers (2025). In 2012 he gave a talk criticizing Pandora's pay and has used "Low" as his example in streaming-economics debates. Lowery told LPM in 2018 that the band's Americana and Southern-rock sound with British influences was completely improbable at the time of grunge. Cracker fans call themselves Crumbs.