O'Keefe paid for studio time for the band himself. Because of his perfectionist tendencies he pushed the band so that Hurley felt the recording process was more professional. He compared the making of "Take This to Your Grave" to "going to war", stating that recording with the rest of the band was similar to "being in the trenches together". The process was not without its difficulties: "It's not always happy: There's a lot of push and pull and each of them trying to get their thing. With album, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy," said O'Keefe. Wentz recalled that it was "mind-blowing" to see a certification plaque for Nirvana's "Nevermind" on a wall. The band was shown the microphone used in the recording of that album, but were unable to use it as "they said only Shirley from Garbage could use it". The group created a running joke to pick on O'Keefe after he mentioned he had smoked marijuana at least once months before. The quartet was straight-edge then and exaggerated the story to insinuate O'Keefe was a habitual, obsessive user of the drug. The band credited O'Keefe in the album booklet with "like 10 different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe'", although only several remained after the record label felt it "excessively ridiculous".