Bruno, who had been a member of Home Town Hero and Under the Influence of Giants, needed a break from the collaborative process and hoped to find a place for some of his songs that didn't fit with his other bands. With AWOLNATION, Bruno built a kind of creative free-for-all for himself, allowing him to mix genres as he wanted in a style reminiscent of Beck, blending live instrumentation, electronic elements, and slick production into an electro-pop hybrid drawing from the whole of pop music.

In 2011, AWOLNATION made its full-length debut, releasing Megalithic Symphony on Red Bull Records. The album went platinum in the United States and double platinum in Canada, largely on the strength of the hit single "Sail." The following year saw the release of the EP I've Been Dreaming, which the band made available as a free download via their website, and in January 2015, the group dropped "Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)," the first single from their sophomore long-player Run, which was released later that spring. That same year the band landed a hit with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm on Fire," which appeared on the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. ~ Gregory Heaney