The Influents were a punk rock band formed in 1999 by Jason White and Bill Schneider. Both were members of the seminal East Bay punk band Pinhead Gunpowder, which featured White on guitar and Schneider on bass, but due to the sporadic nature of Pinhead Gunpowder's recording and gigging (between May 1992 and April 2001, they played just fifteen shows White and Schneider decided to form a new band as a side-project on which to focus.