Without playing a single club or aligning themselves with any of L.A.’s myriad rock scenes, they landed a record deal almost immediately after forming.  They managed to create a major label buzz around Hollywood on the strength of a four-song demo called The Goodfoot Workshop.  These were pretty much their only four songs, but they succeeded in creating the illusion that they were a seasoned group with plenty of great material. “We only had four or five songs, next thing we know, we’re having dinners with 10 different record companies, and we’re lying to all of them.  We’re like, ‘Yeah, we got 20 songs, we’ve been together for a year.’” Rogers said.  On several occasions, label executives from Atlantic, Epic and Capitol would come to watch rehearsals. The band would rip through their five songs and then announce that they “didn’t feel like playing any more.” At one point during this period, God of Thunder Gene Simmons expressed interest in managing the band.  They met with him at his house and talked for hours but decided not to take him up on his offer.

After realizing they were now on the brink of something big, Hoon and company started discussing among themselves just what they wanted in a record deal, and how they wouldn't allow themselves to settle for anything less. "We figured, okay, this is what we want, and if no one offers it to us, or if we just can't get it, then we don't want any deal at all.  Because the only way to secure your future is to make sure that everything is mapped out in black and white. It took about a year for us to finally sign our contract," says Hoon, at which point Capitol Records came through with the terms the band requested.

"We knew we wanted to have a hand in everything concerning the band because we knew that this was our future.  We maintain 100 percent creative control over everything we do, be it our CD packaging, the artwork, whatever.  A lot of people go to independent labels so they can do that, because most of the majors don't want to turn over that control to the talent.  But we established those terms well in advance, long before we ever had signed our contract."

 It took a while for the band to become accustomed to the recording studio.  They completed an EP, Sippin’ Time Sessions, with producer David Briggs but scrapped it at the last minute blocking its 1991 release.  “It was too slick and studio done,” said Brad.  When the EP didn’t work out, the band said they wanted a year to be together, write songs and tour before making the record and Capitol agreed.

During the downtime, Guns n’ Roses were working on their Use Your Illusion albums, and Shannon, who had known Axl Rose from his hometown in Indiana.  Shannon had been hanging out in the studio with GN’R and ended up contributing backing vocals to several tracks, and Axl subsequently asked him to appear in Guns n’ Roses’ video for Don’t Cry and on select GN’R concert dates.  “It was kind of an accident, there was an open mike night at the record plant in Hollywood, I was singing along with it and I’m not sure how it came about but Izzy said something to Axl that I was singing along with it.  He had a couple of background parts and thought to do it, I went in and sang a couple of background parts and it sounded cool and he was like ‘fuck it’ lets just sing the whole song together.”  Backstage after a New York GN’R show someone tapped Shannon on the shoulder to praise his duet with Axl.  It was Donald Trump.

The band decided to hit the road.  “We weren’t in any hurry to do anything,” Shannon said, “We were willing to wait ‘til everybody felt comfortable.”  They played a club tour and then opened six shows for Soundgarden.  It was during this tour that Shannon crafted the fork necklace which he gave to Chris Cornell while the two were eating at a Denny’s after a show. Cornell wore the fork necklace for many years, he even wore it in some of Soundgarden’s videos but he stopped wearing it when Shannon died.  He said that it made him too sad to continue to wear it.