Puddle of Mudd was formed in 1993 with Wes Scantlin (vocals), Kenny Burkett (drums), Jimmy Allen (lead guitar), and Sean Samon (bass guitar). The name was inspired by the Missouri River flood, which inundated the band's practice space, and left the floor a big "puddle of mudd [sic]".

The group's first album, 'Stuck', was released in 1994 on V&R Records. The band wrote all 7 songs that were on it.

Minus Jimmy Allen, the group released a second album, 'Abrasive', in 1997 on Hardknocks Records. It had eleven tracks, all written by the band, three of which would eventually make it on to Puddle of Mudd's first major label release.

In between the two albums, Scantlin had been giving demo tapes to everyone he thought might be able to pull him in to the music business. He threw tapes on stage to bands at the concerts he would go to, and try to sneak backstage to personally hand copies to bands.

By 1998, Scantlin was ready to give up on music. He was getting ready to move to New Orleans to manage his girlfriend's career as a stripper when one of his friends asked if he wanted to go to the Family Values concert that night. After hearing the band lineup, Wes reluctantly decided to go, and grabbed the last copy of his demo tape as he was heading out the door.

At the show some his other friends had fake backstage passes. He took one, and it got him to one of Fred Durst's security guards. He was able to convince the guard to give Durst his demo tape, but left the concert thinking that he had failed to get into the music business.

The guard did in fact deliver the tape to Durst, who listened to it on his tour bus. After listening to it a couple of times he contacted the tape's author. Luckily, Scantlin had all of his contact info on the tape. Unluckily, he was already out of town and his pager was turned off. One of Scantlin's friends happened to hear an answering machine message that Fred Durst had left. He tried to call Wes, but couldn't reach him.

Fred Durst was eventually able to talk to get in touch with Scantlin, only to be told that the band had broken up. The members had gone their separate ways, and there was no chance of reuniting them. Durst, still liking Scantlin's voice and not about to give up, decided to fly him to LA, California for a showcase, for which the two recruited new bandmates. Durst then signed the band to his new record label, Flawless Records.

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Puddle of Mudd released its major-label debut album Come Clean on August 28, 2001. The lead single from the album, "Control" was successful and grabbed the attention of rock music audiences worldwide. It was also the theme song for WWE's Survivor Series 2001.

The second single, "She Hates Me" was released in early 2002 and became a massive hit reaching the #1 spot on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, as well as #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. Drift & Die was also released as a single and found success with rock audiences with the single spending 6 weeks at the #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart. The fourth single off the album, "Blurry" turned out to be Puddle of Mudd's most successful single reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #8 in the United Kingdom.

Puddle of Mudd's follow up, Life On Display spawned two hit singles "Away From Me" and "Heel Over Head" but the album only shifted 600,000 copies, due to both lack of advertising, lack of support from the record company and dismal reviews.

Recently the band has headed back into the studio to record new tracks for their third major album. The official release date being October 2nd 2007

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