The earliest ideas for Riverside Six came in 1996 when Peter Monk, then a drummer/singer in Adelaide band January, became interested in writing his own music. In mid-1996 he began teaching himself some basic guitar chords and he wrote his first song, Stupid Luck that year.
While his involvement with January continued, often co-operating on songwriting with January's guitarist/singer Gerald Matthews, Peter continued to work on his own material with dreams of one day putting a band together to perform it.
In 2000, Peter recorded several songs penned under the name Riverside Six, a name chosen because it sounded nice and didn't suggest any particular style of music. These five songs consisted of multiple solo (and in some cases, very haphazard) performances by Peter on various instruments, engineered by Gerald and mixed by Peter. The resulting demo, Fortune, the first proper recordings of Riverside Six material, was given to half a dozen industry representatives at the 2000 Music Business Adelaide.
Following January's departure from the Adelaide scene in late 2001, Peter and Gerald continued to meet and discuss music on a regular basis. During this time, Gerald was occasionally performing his own music around Adelaide and the two occasionally worked on recording unreleased January songs.
In early 2003, Peter began hunting for members for Riverside Six.
Two of the first additions to the line-up were Gerald (keyboard) and David Cannon, also from January (guitar).
The band was briefly aided by Jess Cooney on drums, until he left in mid-2004 to pursue other interests.
Mike Both joined the line-up in May 2004 on bass, bringing substantial live experience and a firm commitment to push the group onward and upward.
Drummer, Lee Bennett, joined in September 2004. His first appearance was four weeks later, when the band played their debut gig at Maxim's Wine Bar, on Sunday, 21st November.