Guitarist and vocalist Ian Ball and drummer Olly Peacock had previously played together in a local heavy metal band called Providence. They joined with guitarist / vocalist / keyboardist Tom Gray and bassist Paul Blackburn. Ball met vocalist / guitarist Ben Ottewell from Matlock Bath in Derbyshire at Sheffield University, where they were both studying.

The band played their first gig together in late 1996 in Leeds without a formal name. The band left a sign out which read 'Gomez the gig's in here" for a friend of theirs whose surname was Gomez to indicate that it was the site of their first gig. People saw the sign and assumed that the band's name was Gomez - the name stuck.

The band started recording four-track demos in Olly's dad's garage in Southport soon after. A bidding war erupted when they sent the demos to recording labels, with the band finally signing with Virgin Records' subsidiary, Hut, in 1997.