The band was founded in 1980 in the mining town of Trbovlje, where it entered the public sphere with a one-night poster action on 26 September of the same year. In the early 1980s, Laibach had its own painting faction that signed its work with "Laibach Kunst". In 1984 the band founded a broader, informal organisation and aesthetic movement, NSK or Neue Slowenische Kunst. Apart from Laibach it featured the Irwin group of painters (founded in 1983), the Scipion Nasice Theatre (founded in 1983 and later renamed Red Pilot Cosmokinetic Theatre and Noordung Cosmokinetic Cabinet), New Collectivism design studio (founded in 1984) and several other smaller groups. The NSK movement profoundly marked the 1980s in the former Yugoslavia and in Slovenia. For its multimedia activities, NSK received the Zlata Ptica Award in 1986.
After an infamous interview in the TV Tednik television show (hosted by Jure Pengov) in 1983, the public use of the name Laibach was officially banned in Ljubljana. Their next legal concert in Ljubljana took place in 1987 at the Festivalna Dvorana hall. The band released its first record for the ŠKUC Ropot music label in 1985. The album cover did not feature the band's name. The band's subsequent records include: Rekapitulacija 1980-84 (1985), Nova Akropola (1985), Opus Dei (1987), Let It Be (1988), Kapital (1992), NATO (1994), Jesus Christ Superstars (1996) and WAT (2003).
Laibach operates as a gesamtwerk, which apart from music consists of performances and screenings. The band's concerts before 1987 were emphatically ritualistic. "The use of terror and relevant associations in the context of industrial production and ideology was a spectacular element of Laibach's presentation that gave special power to the 'unmasking and recapitulation' of the regime under which Laibach worked and which was the central focal point of the band's musical aesthetics." (Monroe, p. 270) In 1988 Laibach undertook a systematic exploration of the western pop-rock heritage. It continues to respond to circumstances in Slovenia and abroad to this day.
On 5 May 1997 Laibach performed with the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Marko Letonja at the opening ceremony of the European Month of Culture.