Behold... The Arctopus was formed by Colin Marston and Mike Lerner, who had been playing guitar together for over a year-and-a-half by the time they found a drummer. Their first two demos We Need a Drummer and Arctopocalypse Now... Warmageddon Later (both using a drum machine) were picked up by drummer Charlie Zeleny. Zeleny met Lerner and Marston and impressed the duo by playing a song of theirs on the drums. He was immediately asked to join Behold...The Arctopus.

Behold... The Arctopus is currently signed to Metal Blade Records for its first album, entitled Skullgrid, which was released on October 16th, 2007. The band went on tour with Genghis Tron and The Dillinger Escape Plan to support the album, but it was cut short by an injury of one of the members of The Dillinger Escape Plan.[3] To help them recoup financial losses from that tour, Between the Buried and Me have taken the band on their current headlining tour, supported by August Burns Red.

Style

Behold... The Arctopus play instrumental music inspired by both metal and 20th century classical music. This technical and progressive style is executed on a regular electric guitar and drum kit but involves a 12-string Warr guitar, an instrument that covers the range of a bass and guitar and is generally played by tapping.

Influences on their music range from heavy metal, fusion to classical music, amongst other genres. Influential heavy metal bands include Cynic, Ulver, Death, Neurosis, Darkthrone and Meshuggah, Voivod and Gorguts. Following composers have influenced the band: Béla Bartók, Luciano Berio, Arnold Schoenberg and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Marston has explained the Behold... The Arctopus' recording process in an interview: "The songs written by one member were all scored out on paper and learned by the band. The first couple songs only had a few notated parts, the majority being written on the instrument and never written down. The trend has definitely been going more towards writing everything out."