The Mamas & the Papas for the fourth album eventually stalled completely, and in September 1967 John Phillips called a press conference to announce that The Mamas & the Papas were taking a break, which they confirmed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" which aired September 24. The plan was to give concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Olympia in Paris, before taking time out on Majorca to "get the muse going again", as John Phillips put it. When the group docked at Southampton on October 5, Elliot was arrested on a charge of having stolen two blankets and a hotel key
The Mamas & the Papas singles charted in the UK. The Mamas & the Papas cut their first three albums at United Western Recorders in Hollywood, while the group's subsequent releases were recorded at the eight-track studio John and Michelle Phillips built at their home in Bel Air (at a time when four-track recording was still the norm). John Phillips said, "I got the idea to transform the attic into my own recording studio, so I could stay high all the time and never have to worry about studio time. I began assembling the state-of-the-art equipment and ran the cost up to about a hundred