"My Own Prison" had been circulating around the music industry for a while when, in May 1997, Diana Meltzer from Wind-Up Records heard the album for the first time and decided almost immediately that she wanted to sign them to the label, which had recently dropped Baboon over the latter's reluctance to alter their image and sound to suit the label's demands. Meltzer later said that she heard "an arena band". Within the same week, Meltzer, together with Wind-up president Steve Lerner, CEO Alan Meltzer, and A&R representative Joel Mark, flew to Tallahassee to see Creed perform live and decide for certain whether to offer them a contract. "Seeing the energy in the room when Scott Stapp stepped up to the mic, and hearing his powerful voice fill the room, alongside Mark Tremonti's now legendary guitar riffs and that big Creed anthemic rock sound, was all I needed," she told HitQuarters. According to Tremonti in his "Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction" video, Creed had been rejected by Arctic and Cherry Universal Records before Wind-Up flew down to sign them. The band has been signed with Wind-Up records ever since. Stapp and Marshall originally signed the contract in blood; causing it to need to be reprinted.