Imix Shish and Mike Mollura, longtime friends and musical partners, founded Equals Conquest in the beginning of 2005. The Afterglows, a punk band from Reading, Pennsylvania, was one of the many bands the two had previously played in.

Thrice, Radiohead, Nada Surf, and the grunge movement of the 1990s are their main influences. On November 12, 2021, they just released “At the Heart of the Empire,” their third studio album overall and their first in more than ten years.