The members of Slovenly had all attended Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, CA - together with Milo Aukerman, Bill Stevenson, Greg Ginn and other future SST artists - and were friends for awhile. Steve Anderson, Scott Ziegler and drummer Bruce Lossen were in a band called the Convalescence. When the bass player left, Watson joined and the band name was changed to [a=Toxic Shock (5)].
After graduation from high school, they continued playing music and Slovenly Peter was formed. The line-up was Scott Ziegler, Tom Watson, Steve Anderson, Tim Plowman and Bruce Lossen. They started jamming in the office of SST records and Tom Watons house in the summer of 1980.
In the fall of 1980, Watson and Plowman went to the university of Utrecht in the Netherlands to study electro-acoustic and tape music. After they returned, the bandpicked things up again and dropped the "Peter," doing semi-improvised experimental rock and began developing their style. Shorty afterwards Loosen left the band and Rob Holzman (ex-Sachharine Trust) entered. In the following 2-3 years, Lynn Johnston became closer to a member of the group than a guy they occasionally jammed with. Between 1988 and 1991 they effectively stopped playing together and were involved in other things. Watson and Holzman moved back to L.A during this period. The band got back together for an EP and their final album and broke up shorty afterwards, with Ziegler also going back to L.A. There were plans of recording a sixth album in Germany with Mayo Thompson, with Albert Oehlen doing the artwork.

The band extensively played around both L.A. and San Francisco and toured with Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Sun City Girls, The Whitefronts, Caroliner Rainbow, fIREHOSE, Celebrity Skin, Angst and others.

Scott Ziegler died in 2004.