By the time the band was set to perform at Summersault in August 2000, about eight songs, including "Life" and "Everyone's a Junkie", had been recorded as demos while the band was on the road touring. Guitarist Turner noted: "After we were done we brought them in for the record company to hear, with an eye to making plans for next year. They heard what we were doing and said, 'Well, let's finish the album you're working on.' And we thought, 'Album? We're just demoing.' But they told us what we had was great, so we went back into the studio with ArnLanni and did just that." Over the next two months, the band worked to complete the album with Arnold Lanni at Arnyard Studios in Toronto as well as Avatar Studios in New York City. Rumors had surfaced that, while in New York, Our Lady peace had dropped Lanni as producer to work with The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. These rumors were later debunked by Maida. The first songs to be played live were "Life" and "Everyone's a Junkie", which debuted during Summersault in August 2000 shortly after they were first recorded. In an August 2000 interview with "Chartattack" Raine revealed that a song titled "Yesterday" (later to become "Middle of Yesterday") was almost guaranteed to be the first single for "Spiritual Machines".