Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

In 2002, in the midst of a year of sleeplessness, and novel-writing, Alex Ebert created two things: A distracted, deformed, and hopelessly romantic messianic character named Edward Sharpe, and a new kind of mathematics called Magnetic Zeros. The novel was never completed and the math's application is yet-to-be determined, but Ebert liked the sound of those two inventions combined, and a band who's members were yet to be met was born. (Note: "Edward Sharpe" is not an alter ego of Ebert's, but rather "a vehicle that delivered me back to myself").