When Sumner was a teenager in England, he was inspired to write songs after he heard Nirvana's album Nevermind. Sumner, having grown up around the music industry with his father Gordon “Sting” Sumner, already knew how to play guitar and drums, so he started a band with Dan Brown, a friend from school who played bass. Fiction Plane began to form in 1999 when they were joined by guitarist Seton Daunt.
