Zack de la Rocha had known Jon Theodore for several years before the band was formed and was very impressed with his skills as a drummer, comparing him to John Bonham and Elvin Jones. The duo first started playing together at a mutual friends rehearsal room with Theodore on drums and de la Rocha playing an old RhodesMark 1 keyboard through a delay pedal and an old metal amplifier. The band's name was taken from an infamous black and whitegraffiti photograph taken by Chicano photographer George Rodriguez in 1970 reading "It's better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand years as a lamb." This comes from a slogan popular during the 1930s in Fascist Italy, "Better one day as a lion than a hundred days as a sheep." The saying is an allusion to Psalms 84:10, "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere." The band had soon written a number of songs and signed with Bad Religion guitarist and co-founder Brett Gurewitz's record labelANTI-. On July 16, 2008, the song "Wild International" was made available to stream on the band's MySpace profile and was given its Australian radio premiere by Triple J and American radio premiere by KROQ. The band's eponymous debut EP was released on July 18, 2008 on the Anti-label in Australia and four days later in the US, and was also released on iTunes. The vinyl version was released on October 7, 2008. The EP placed as the 28 album of the week, selling 17,000 copies in its first week. The album has sold extremely well for a five track EP. On August 11, 2008, de la Rocha spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the new project, his first interview in over eight years. He revealed that a full-length album was scheduled for an Autumn 2008 release, and stated that they "want to play shows and be a band and go out and start some noise". He also mentions adding members to the group, revealing "We're still in the process of forming as a band - we need a keyboard player, I'm not good enough to do it all myself - so that will be rectified soon". The full length album has yet to come out. On June 1, 2010, One Day as a Lion announced that they would play their first festival show at the Fuji Rock Festival in July via MySpace. On July 17 and 18, the band performed live for the first time in Pomona, California, with Joey Karam of The Locust on keys. During their Australian tour in January 2011, One Day as a Lion dedicated 100% of their Melbourne show's proceeds to the Queensland flood relief. In an interview that same month, drummer Jon Theodore confirmed the official addition of Joey Karam to the band, and that a second release was in the works.
