Originally, Ghost Riders® came to be by Steve Grisham hooking up with an old band mate and song writing partner, Barry Rapp. Steve was out mowing the lawn one day and just stopped and went in the house and called Barry. He answered the phone and they started talking. Steve told him he was going up to his studio in Nashville and asked if he wanted to go along. Barry said yes, and that started the band. That was in Oct/Nov 2002.

Pug Baker had done a lot of session work at Steve's Florida studio, in fact he was basically Steve's first call session drummer. Pug knew of a good bass player and guitar player, that was Phil and Jimmy. They all got together, jammed, and it just kind of clicked from the beginning.