After the breakup of Trip Shakespeare, Minneapolis natives Dan Wilson and John Munson teamed up with drummer Jacob Slichter to form Semisonic in 1993. Trip Shakespeare had spent years amassing a loyal audience with artistic harmonies and unexpected guitar counterpoints, but bandleader Dan Wilson took Semisonic in an entirely different direction, embracing a tightly crafted sound that proved to be more appetizing to mainstream audiences. "Closing Time" was the band's biggest hit, dominating the airwaves in 1998 and picking up a Grammy nomination the following year.