Following the "Dust" tour in the United States, Screaming Trees took another hiatus for Lanegan to begin his work on his third solo album, "Scraps At Midnight", which was released in 1998. The band headed back into the studio in 1999 and recorded several demos including the song "Ash Grey Sunday" and shopped them around to labels, but no label was interested. The band played a few surprise shows in early 2000 to try to gain a label's attention but they were unsuccessful. They did however release the song "One Way Conversation" on the Musicblitz Records internet label. In 2000 after a concert to celebrate the opening of Seattle's Experience Music Project, the band announced their official breakup.