Botch was an American mathcore band formed in 1993 in Tacoma, Washington. The band, featuring Brian Cook, Dave Knudson, Tim Latona and Dave Verellen, spent four years as a garage band and released several demos and EPs before signing to Hydra Head Records. Through the label, Botch released two studio albums: American Nervoso (1998) and We Are the Romans (1999). The group toured extensively and internationally in support of their albums with like-minded bands such as The Blood Brothers, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Ink & Dagger and Jesuit. Botch struggled to write a third studio album, and in 2002 the group broke up due to tensions among the band members and creative differences. Hydra Head posthumously released an EP of songs the group had been working on before they split titled An Anthology of Dead Ends and a live album documenting their final show titled 061502 in 2006.

After Botch broke up, most of the members went on to form or join new bands in the Seattle/Tacoma area including: Minus the Bear, Narrows, Roy, Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes.

Bassist Brian Cook, guitarist Dave Knudson, drummer Tim Latona and vocalist Dave Verellen formed Botch in 1993 while they were all still in high school. Tim Latona, who at the time was a jazz drummer considering attending the performing arts school Juilliard, was approached by Dave Knudson in the high school cafeteria and asked if he would like to start a rock band. According to Knudson, "We were probably 16 or 17. I brought my amp over to Tim's house, and we ended up on his back deck playing Helmet covers for a couple of hours." Dave Knudson enticed Brian Cook to join the band by promising that the group would record a Dead Kennedys cover, but this recording never took place. Dave Verellen was the last to join the band, and only became the vocalist because he couldn't play an instrument. The group selected the name Botch simply by "opening a dictionary."

Early songs written by Botch were described by Knudson as, "some of the worst music you've probably heard in your life," which he attributed to each of the members' differing tastes in music and the lack of experience in composing songs. Some of their early song titles included: "Barney the Purple Dinosaur," "Vegetarianism Is Anarchy," "Barbed Rectal Thermometer" and "Pudenda."

Botch released Faction, a 7-inch EP in 1995; that same year, Botch went on their first tour outside of the Seattle-area. Dave Verellen's dad drove the group on a mini-tour through Canada in an old van he owned. John Pettibone, then of Undertow and Nineironspitfire, praised Botch's ability to tour outside of their hometown, commenting: "Botch was the first band from the next generation that went out and pushed it—and pushed it their way. It was remarkable." In 1996, the band released another EP, titled The John Birch Conspiracy Theory.

In early 1997, Botch went on a seven-week tour throughout the United States and Canada with Ink & Dagger and Nineironspitfire, which gained them a significant amount of exposure. According to Brian Cook, "Ink & Dagger were kind of a big deal at that point, so we were playing a lot of club shows. I think we did a show at some theater in Buffalo, New York, with Snapcase and there were, like, a thousand people or something like that." Also in 1997, Excursion Records released The Unifying Themes of Sex, Death and Religion—a nine-track compilation album composed of the EPs The John Birch Conspiracy Theory and Faction in their entirety, and "Closure" from the various artists compilation I Can't Live Without It.

Aaron Turner, former vocalist for the post-metal band Isis and founder of the record label Hydra Head Records, was following Botch's early career. He praised the group's interpretation of Carl Orff's classical piece "O Fortuna" off of The John Birch Conspiracy Theory EP, describing it as "amazing" and also saying that, "anytime I made a mix tape for someone else, I'd put ['O Fortuna'] on there." Turner contacted Botch and asked them to contribute a song to Hydra Head's In These Black Days—a compilation album of Black Sabbath cover songs released as a series of split singles. Botch recorded a cover of "The Wizard" from Black Sabbath's 1970 album Black Sabbath, and also sent Turner a demo album they had been working on at the time. About the demo, Aaron Turner said, "I can't remember if I had solicited it or if they just sent it to me. In any event, it was more than I was expecting from them even though I already thought they were good. I think I gave them about six or seven grand to do the record, which was probably more than I had given any other band that we had worked with at that point."

The demos were re-recorded with Matt Bayles at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's own Studio Litho. After three days of recording and two days of mixing, the completed songs became Botch's debut studio album American Nervoso, released in 1998 through Hydra Head Records. In support of American Nervoso, Botch headlined a North American tour with The Dillinger Escape Plan and Jesuit. Beginning with this tour, John Pettibone was hired as the group's manager, and it also was Botch's first time bringing their own lighting equipment with them. Their stage setup included several halogen work lamps plugged into a power strip with a switch. Commenting on the lights, Dave Verellen said, "I hated the lights at clubs, which were always on the band, so we figured we'd turn them on the audience. [...] I liked it because I could see people's reaction in the crowd because their faces were totally illuminated." Also during this tour, Botch played music from the girl group Destiny's Child before they went on stage, which was intentionally drastically different from the more traditional "metal music [being played] in between the metal bands." Botch were also rumored to be recording a Destiny's Child covers EP—however, this release never materialized.