Tomas Kalnoky is the mastermind behind the RISC Group and all of its projects. His first musical project came in the form of punk band Gimp, whom he formed in 1996 with Chris Greer while only 15. They released 1 album, Smiles for Macavity before Tomas became bored of punk and decided to expand their sound. To do this Tomas decided they would need more instruments, and set about finding horn players. He knew Ryan Eldred from summer camp and asked him to join on saxophone, and after meeting Kevin Gunther in a record store one day Tomas discovered that he played the trumpet, and asked him to join. Jamie Egan was recruited through Kevin to play trombone, and Josh Ansley completed the line-up on bass

The band then recorded their first demo Rules of the Game which was released in 1997 and got them signed to Victory Records the same year. In 1998 they released their debut album on Victory, the reknowned Keasbey Nights, before Tomas decided to quit the band to continue his education. However Tomas' departure from writing music did not last long, and in 2000 gathered together a large number of friends and family members to record BOTAR's A Call to Arms, a 5-track EP featuring a reworking of Catch 22's "Dear Sergio", as well as the song "Here's to Life", which Tomas had written and performed live while in Catch 22 but which had never previously been recorded.

After ACtA Tomas formed Streetlight Manifesto, a third-wave ska band similar to Catch 22. They recorded a 4-track demo EP in 2002 which, like Catch 22's RotG, got them signed to Victory Records. Streetlight's debut album Everything Goes Numb was released on 26th August 2003, and the band began to perform live shortly after, eventually going on a full blown tour in 2004. They continued touring almost non-stop until the end of 2005, when they took time off to record their second album and also new material for the Bandits. However during a 3 month break at the end of 2004 they found time to re-record Catch 22's Keasbey Nights, which they did as Tomas wanted to prevent Victory from re-releasing an unchanged version of the original with bonus content, and also to make the album sound the way Tomas originally intended it to.

Tomas has also mentioned many other projects over the years, most notablly Man Bites Dog, a punk-rock band; Toh Kay Design, which would appear to be his own design company; and a Keasbey Nights animated series. Unfortunately none of these projects have yet come to fruition.