Kylesa was formed in 2001 in Savannah (USA) by former members of the heavy underground band Damad with the addition of guitar player Laura Pleasants who was attending the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Phillip Cope and Pleasants are the sole original members and are also the group’s visionaries and songwriters. Originating as a sort of punk / metal / sludge hybrid, Kylesa quickly began to incorporate psychedelic elements into their sound which only expanded throughout their career.

Experimentation has always been a big part of the Kylesa formula. Tuning the guitars extremely low while incorporating hooky melodies and trippy guitar effects was a common denominator for the band. From the beginning, the goal was to push the boundaries of heavy music without holding to one specific genre. Elements of shoegaze, psychedelic rock, indie and cold wave can be found within the sludgy walls of the band. But to simply call them a sludge band would be incorrect. Kylesa sound like no other and are trailblazers in the heavy rock / psych metal / stoner, etc scenes, creating a style and sound uniquely their own while setting a path for many to follow.

Journalist David Peisner of Spin described them as "dark psych-metal titans," practicing an "aggressive, but with a hazy, stoner vibe that suggests a strange amalgamation of Black Sabbath, Black Flag, and early Pink Floyd."

Kylesa recorded 7 studio albums which were primarily produced by Cope along with a handful of 7”s and EPs. In 2016 after their 7th studio album Exhausting Fire, the band went on an indefinite hiatus. Cope and Pleasants went on to form other projects: Oakskin (Cope) and The Discussion (Pleasants).