Hankshaw's roots trace back to a pop punk band called that started in 1992. After a line-up change in , they were on a flyer to play a show as Lazy Susan on August 28th, 1995, but announced while on stage that they were changing their name to Hankshaw. From that point on there was a gradual fading out of songs until the band eventually had all new Hankshaw songs and they never returned to their songs. Hankshaw sounded exactly like at first, but went on to change their sound a couple different times over the course of their existence.
The name Hankshaw comes from a novel by entitled Even Cowgirls Get The Blues (1976) which had a character in the novel named Sissy Hank Shaw.
