In the early 1980s, three young men – Stig Pedersen, Jesper Binzer, and Peter Lundholm Jensen – met in the Copenhagen punk music milieu and formed the first Disneyland After Dark.

Stig had recently been kicked out of the punk band ADS where he had been a bass-player for a couple of years. Now he wanted to form his own band to show ADS they had made a mistake.

Stig first met Jesper through mutual friends in 1982. Jesper sang and played the guitar, and the two of them decided to form a band and began searching for a drummer. They found what they were looking for in Peter. When the group began rehearsing together, Stig's girlfriend at the time, Lene Glumer, was also a part of the group as its first lead singer.

The band took the name Disneyland After Dark and gave their first concert on December 3, 1982, at the youth club Sundby Algaard. The guys thought that Lene Glumer did not fit in, and consequently they threw her out of the band the next day.

Now a trio, the guys were tired of the pessimistic and pompous attitude that prevailed amongst punk musicians and their audience. Stig, Jesper, and Peter wanted to bring the joy back in music and live performances. While rehearsing they accidentally stumbled across a style of music that provided ample opportunity for having fun. When Stig played a three-note riff with a different rhythm to it, Jesper said it sounded like country music. The others joined in, and the band made the style known in other parts of the world as cowpunk their own. The lyrics that followed evolved around made-up stories where abundant clichés were added an ironic twist.

Through 1983 the band, who were all at the same time students in high school, rehearsed and gave concerts, wrote songs, and developed their cowpunk image further with their eyes set on the goal: To become rock stars.