Empress of the Future was originally started in 2011 as a duo between Jan Kort and Erica Milton known as The Empress. As a duo, they wrote (or co-wrote) several songs and performed them, which would later be hits for Empress of the Future. The two recruited Hania and Amos in March 2012, and in June they brought in Lindsey as a fifth member. By then work on an album was underway, and the group worked through the summer. A deal with Vibra Records was arranged, conditional on an album being released that year. An eponymous album, Empress of the Future was released in November 2012, though it was abridged to have it come out earlier. The album was a critical success, but sales were slow, only increasing significantly after summer 2013.