Deschanel and Ward’s seemingly unlikely pairing—the effervescent actress-singer and the sought-after yet self-effacing guitarist—proved to sound absolutely right. When the Volume One was finished, they didn’t so much announce themselves as simply step up to the mic and start playing. Their choices of band moniker and album titles were deliberate; as Deschanel told the New York Times: “I wanted a name that was very humble, modest and anonymous.” Matt agrees: “We wanted the music to come first, which sort of explains the band name as well as the names of the records. The songs are what we want people to remember.”

Prior to forming She & Him, Deschanel had been writing and secretly stockpiling tunes for years. She agreed to let Ward hear them after the two collaborated on a Richard and Linda Thompson cover for an indie film, The Go-Getter, that she was starring in and Ward was scoring. Like many movie fans, Ward had first heard her sing on screen in the disarmingly affecting Elf and was intrigued. As Deschanel recounts, “I explored the idea of doing my own stuff with other people but hadn’t found anyone who I’d really trusted. Then I met Matt. He was the perfect person, and the only person who shared my taste. We’re almost always coming from the same point of view musically.”

“I had no idea what I was going to hear when I first got her songs,” admits Ward. “I think Volume One surprised a lot of people when they opened up the package and learned that she wrote all these songs. There are a lot of people who write music so that they can take their audience to a dark night of their own soul or to get something really heavy off their chest. I don’t think Zooey looks at music that way, and I think that’s a huge part of where her songwriting is coming from…It’s contagious to be around people like that.”

—Michael Hill